It is a strange time in a strange land. The president has been acquitted of two impeachment charges, Mitt Romney jumped ship and voted with the Democrats to remove him on the first article and even some of the Republican senators who voted for acquittal admit Trump was wrong.

As for the Democrats? At the end of the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped her printed copy in half.

“It was the courteous thing to do,” she said, considering her alternatives. It was a climax to the strangest of days in an administration filled with nothing but strange—and frightening—days.

The week began with President Donald Trump tweeting how proud the state of Kansas should be for the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs, only to correct the tweet a short time later when someone pointed out the Chiefs have always hailed from Missouri. It was a trivial mistake, but the social-media traffic and the vociferous defense of said mistake is another marker of cult-like obsession.

Meanwhile the Democrats fell all over themselves. With the Iowa caucuses, they had their first measurable chance to show off their potential candidates on a national stage. The caucuses were marred by voting delays, voter app problems, Amy Klobuchar declaring victory and DNC Chairman Tom Perez who looked like a man with his head on the chopping block making excuses for the ineptitude. It was a horrible stumble out of the starting gate and did nothing to instill confidence in voters who want to see Trump voted out of office. But it did lead to a memorable Kellyanne Conway tweet: “Can’t run a caucus. Can’t run a country.”

Conway may have her problems with the Hatch Act, but she can still create a fire given enough oxygen—which the Democrats seem only too happy to provide.

The mood was decidedly upbeat at the White House as I walked in at the beginning of the week singing “Kansas City,” and while only a few reporters laughed at the context, I was told to be prepared for a “great and meaningful State of the Union message” from a variety of senior White House officials. One of them claimed, “This will also prove why the president should be exonerated by the Senate.”

Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley went even further in one of those driveway gaggles the administration loves to hold instead of meeting in the Brady Briefing room. I asked him if the President would accept being censured. After all, several Republican Senators have said Trump has done wrong in Ukraine; they just don’t think it rises to the level of impeachment. Gidley said no because the president “hasn’t done anything wrong.”

The statement was of little surprise—Trump rarely admits a mistake—but you’d think there would be a slice of humility since several members of the GOP are outwardly concerned with his behavior. But the administration is having none of it.

Then came the moment of death. CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Monday night that the president had snubbed his network and failed to invite CNN anchors to an annual off-the-record SOTU luncheon. Traditionally the president holds such a luncheon the day of his address, giving some of the heaviest media influencers insight into the president’s thoughts going into the speech that night.

Not CNN. Not this year.

When I asked Gidley about it, he said it was a private affair and the president could do what he wanted.

“But is it right?” I asked.

He replied that when a network is nothing more than “opinion journalism,” he had no problem with it.

It was deja vu all over again. During the Obama administration communications director Anita Dunn said something similar about Fox News: “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House,” she told The New York Times, “we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” Other news organizations rallied around Fox, supporting the network’s right to communicate and defending the concept of a free press—whether you like what is being said or not.

This time? No one came to CNN’s defense. In further contrast, on Monday British journalists walked out of a meeting with an aide to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to back competitors who were being kept from the session. My questions to Gidley were the worst heat the president took for snubbing CNN. Not one national anchor spoke up. The White House Correspondents Association was noticeably silent.

The Free press is dead, killed by the people who practice it and aided and abetted by a President who only wishes to hear praise and compliments. You don’t have to like CNN. In fact, you can despise it and think it is illegitimate or opinion-based. You can turn the channel. You can refuse to read a newspaper and you can selectively ignore information you don’t like, staying in your philosophical cul-de-sac all you want.

But you can’t quiet the voices with whom you don’t agree. That’s the failure and folly of both Trump and, judging by Dunn’s comments in 2009, Obama. The failure of the press today is we did not stand with CNN. We did not boycott that luncheon. Every anchor who attended that luncheon should apologize and resign in disgrace. Every network that failed to show support should apologize and vow to support each other.

As Benjamin Franklin noted, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

If we do not support the First Amendment, who will? Surely not Trump, or for that matter other politicians who simply want their version of a story published with no other facts or opinions considered. With a pliant populace it thus becomes easier for the crooks to take over and for our representatives to misrepresent us. The Trump tribalists create their own reality without making any concession to the truth, and that allows the President to continue to say, as he did in his State of the Union address, “We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions,” when that is an outright lie.

It enables him to cheer on a blue-collar boom that doesn’t exist and make immigrants out to be predators and criminals, though per-capita his administration has more criminals in it than most immigrant communities.

Finally it enables a despot to divide us, demean us and shun us—or worse.

Without a free press, up is down and down is up. You may not like what someone says, but you should listen to it—at least occasionally—if for no other reason than to determine if your own beliefs deserve re-evaluation. That’s how intelligent human beings operate. It is the only way to guarantee the continuation of the American experiment, and it may be the only way to guarantee the survival of the species.

The tribalism Trump promotes, the created reality that has little resemblance to facts, is destroying the fabric of our society. The fourth estate is the last wall of defense from total anarchy, and by failing to support CNN as we once supported Fox we have launched ourselves headlong over a cliff. Our actions are cowardly and the results are frightening. The British journalists were far more laudable than my peers, judging by the complacency I saw in Washington this week. Where is the outrage? Do we not realize that if Trump is banning CNN now, next week it could be CBS, MSNBC, even Fox—anyone that angers him on any given day?

The vote for acquittal and the failure of the Democrats in Iowa have emboldened the president. If you doubt that, go back to the State of the Union. It was a game show, a masterful speech filled with crap decorated with ribbons. He gave Rush Limbaugh the same award given Rosa Parks and Mother Theresa. He made appeals to God and Country while belittling immigrants and lying about his accomplishments.

The rancor was apparent as Jerry Nadler read the Constitution while Trump spoke, others screamed for “HR 3” and members of the GOP stood up and cheered like bobble-heads.

Trump isn’t inclusive in anything he does unless you show him fealty and compliance. The press, by its nature, is the opposite—for a very good reason.

Power unchecked is toxic and Washington, D.C. these days is a lethal swamp of despair. The State of the Union, a reality show of bitter partisanship, made it abundantly clear that we need independent voices in the media more than ever. We need those who will question authority and do so with passion. Conservative attorney George Conway, appearing on CNN moments after the vote to acquit the president said truth and reality “have taken a beating here.” The president’s attack on the truth shows there will be no end to the standoff between the GOP and the Democrats.

When Speaker Pelosi ripped up Trump’s speech at the end of the evening it was seen as a catharsis by the Democrats and an act of childishness by the GOP.

In truth it was symbolic of the problems facing our nation, the need for the independent written word and our future if we fail to take heed of the lesson.