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 America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies. Here’s a partial list of false statements: The United States is about to take in 250,000 Syrian refugees; African-Americans are responsible for most white homicides; and during the 9/11 attacks, “thousands and thousands” of people in an unnamed “Arab” community in New Jersey “were cheering as that building was coming down.” 
 
 In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof. 
 
 This phenomenon is in fact nothing new. Politicians targeting minorities, foreigners or women have always existed in the culture. And every generation or so, at least one demagogue surfaces to fan those flames. 
 
 Here’s Donald Trump on Sunday: “When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse. And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases. And we have no choice. We have no idea who’s being sent in here. This could be the — it’s probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time, where they come in.” 
 
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 Here’s Joseph McCarthy in 1950: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.” 
 
 Here’s Donald Trump last Tuesday: “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” 
 
 Here’s George Wallace in 1963: “We must redefine our heritage, re-school our thoughts in the lessons our forefathers knew so well, in order to function and to grow and to prosper. We can no longer hide our head in the sand and tell ourselves that the ideology of our free fathers is not being attacked and is not being threatened by another idea ... for it is.” 
 
 Mr. Trump relies on social media to spread his views. This is convenient because there’s no need to respond to questions about his fabrications. That makes it imperative that other forms of media challenge him. 
 
 Instead, as Mr. Trump stays at the top of the Republican field, it’s become a full-time job just running down falsehoods like the phony crime statistics he tweeted, which came from a white supremacist group. 
 
 Yet Mr. Trump is regularly rewarded with free TV time, where he talks right over anyone challenging him, and doubles down when called out on his lies. 
 
 This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one. ||||| THE GROWING ugliness of Donald Trump’s campaign poses a challenge to us all. We have seen the likes of him before, in the United States and elsewhere: narcissistic bullies who rise to prominence by spreading lies, appealing to fears and stoking hatred. Such people are dangerous. 
 
 Like many Americans, our first inclination was to ignore Mr. Trump. The Huffington Post, you may recall, announced that it would feature him in its Entertainment section, not in its coverage of politics. He was a buffoon, a disseminator of ludicrous rumors about President Obama’s birthplace. He lacked the qualifications, experience or knowledge to be president. He was running to promote his brand. We wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. 
 
 Our assessment of Mr. Trump was correct, but the tactical response was not. His popular support has hung steady at about 30 percent of Republicans, and his candidacy has tugged the debate toward divisiveness as his bigotry has drawn cheers and many of his rivals have strove to mimic him. Now some detractors opt again to disregard his lies, but for a different reason: Criticism from establishment politicians and tough questions from establishment journalists, it is feared, will only fuel his self-portrayal as the truth-telling outsider. 
 
 That may be so, but it cannot justify silence. Just in the past few days, Mr. Trump has repeated the lie that President Obama intends to admit 200,000 Syrian refugees; the correct number is 10,000. He spreads the lie that thousands of American Muslims openly celebrated the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center; in fact, there were no such celebrations. He tweeted a false statistic that blacks are responsible for 81 percent of murders of white victims; in fact, 82 percent of whites are killed by whites. 
 
 These are not random errors. All of them appeal to the basest instincts in supporters; they reinforce fears and prejudices. All of them, Mr. Trump knows by now even if he did not know when he first stated them, are false, but he does not care. The amplification of the lies is accompanied by growing intolerance in his campaign, with Mr. Trump praising supporters for beating a protestor, crudely denigrating anyone who challenges him and penning reporters into designated zones so that they cannot speak with his followers. And all of this matches the brutality of his policies: mass deportation of longtime U.S. residents, torture of foreign detainees, expulsion even of refugees who are here legally . 
 
 A few candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, have spoken out against some of Mr. Trump’s more outlandish comments. Many more, sadly, duck and cover, hoping to avoid Mr. Trump’s insults or to ingratiate themselves with his backers. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is probably the most egregious of these second-rate flatterers, but he’s far from alone. Asked about the mythical cheering crowds, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said, “I think if it had happened, I would remember it, but, you know, there could be things I forget, too.” 
 
 No, that is not something Mr. Christie would have forgotten, and he ought to say so. Other Republican leaders should speak up too: the speaker of the House and majority leader of the Senate, for example, and former president George W. Bush. The more reticent such leaders are, the more successfully Mr. Trump can brand their party and, to a disturbing extent, the nation with his demagoguery. The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to him. ||||| Participation comes after a push organized by the Boston Globe to run coordinated editorials against Trump’s attacks on the media 
 
 Nearly 350 news organizations are set to publish editorials on Thursday pushing back against Donald Trump’s attacks on the media and defending freedom of the press. 
 
 The publications are participating in a push organized by the Boston Globe to run coordinated editorials denouncing what the paper called a “dirty war against the free press”. 
 
 UN human rights chief: Trump's attacks on press 'close to incitement of violence' Read more 
 
 As of Wednesday morning, 343 publications had pledged to participate, said Marjorie Pritchard, the Globe’s deputy managing editor overseeing the opinion page. 
 
 The Guardian has also joined the effort and has published an editorial alongside outlets around the United States. 
 
 “Donald Trump is not the first US president to attack the press or to feel unfairly treated by it. But he is the first who appears to have a calculated and consistent policy of undermining, delegitimising and even endangering the press’s work,” the Guardian’s editorial says. 
 
 Trump has routinely attacked the press as a whole as well as individual reporters, labeling factually accurate reports “fake news” and calling the news media “the enemy of the people”. 
 
 Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) A majority of Republicans (51%) now regards the media as the enemy of the American people pic.twitter.com/hgWaTOxAf8 
 
 The Globe’s opinion page put out the call for a mass response last week. 
 
 “We propose to publish an editorial on August 16 on the dangers of the administration’s assault on the press and ask others to commit to publishing their own editorials on the same date,” the pitch to editors said. 
 
 The hundreds of newspapers and sites participating include the New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Miami Herald. A host of smaller papers from cities and towns around the country are also joining in. 
 
 Trump has stepped up his attacks on the media in recent weeks. At a rally in Pennsylvania, he pointed out the journalists covering the event and derided them as “fake, fake, disgusting news”. The White House barred a CNN reporter from covering a public event after she asked Trump a question. 
 
 The outgoing UN human rights commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, told the Guardian this week that Trump’s comments are “very close to incitement to violence”. 
 
 The rhetoric “could quite easily lead to harm being inflicted on journalists just going about their work and potentially some self-censorship,” he said. 
 
 Each newspaper participating in the effort will write its own separate editorial, and organizers say they expect the pieces to reflect different political views but a uniform alarm at the recent attacks. 
 
 “It is not the press’s job to save the United States from Mr Trump. It is the press’s job to report, delve, analyse and scrutinise as best it can and without fear,” the Guardian’s editorial says. 
 
 “Mr Trump’s insults and incitements are a calculated danger to that, and to the respect, civility and dialogue that should exist between the press and its readers. The Guardian stands with the US press in its efforts to maintain the objectivity and the moral boundaries that this president – like so many others in much more dangerous parts of the world – is doing so much to destroy.”
– This may not displease Donald Trump, but he has most definitely drawn the ire of two media establishment heavyweights over recent comments on three issues in particular—his claim that big crowds were cheering the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey, that President Obama plans to bring in at least 200,000 Syrian refugees, and that African Americans are behind most white homicides. All are lies, say the newspapers, and both back up their use of that word. A sample of their scathing editorials: Washington Post: "The growing ugliness of Donald Trump's campaign poses a challenge to us all," write the editors. Trump is deliberately spreading lies and appealing "to the basest instincts in supporters," as "narcissistic bullies" always do. It's time for the virtual silence from his fellow candidates and GOP leaders to end. "The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to him." Full editorial is here. New York Times: The editorial draws comparisons between Trump's "racist lies" to statements uttered by the likes of Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace. "His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it," write the editors. "History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one." Full editorial is here.