06-12-2021, 12:31 AM
Is there any question that this sort of behavior rips at freedom of the press, a cornerstone of liberal democracy as understood from the time of at least the establishment of the Constitution of the United States?
I also posted this at Political Wire:
Donald Trump has done much to endanger American democracy. Control of journalism is one of the hallmarks of all dictatorships, and it may be that his failure to throttle the media is all that has kept us from having a second term of Donald Trump and a full-blown dictatorship.
Know well that the judiciary and the Executive Branch can have a warm relationship, usually because the media and both law enforcement and the judicial system usually work hand in glove on criminal cases. Arrests, prosecutions, and convictions are news. But official misconduct is itself news, and any attempt by top political figures to stifle investigation of such is itself despicable.
Laurence Britt has his fourteen warning signs of fascism. Obviously Trump is not a Commie or part of some traditional despotism such as Saudi Arabia, so what does that leave? The warning sign that I thought least applicable was "control of the mass media". I now have no question.
I also posted this at Political Wire:
Donald Trump has done much to endanger American democracy. Control of journalism is one of the hallmarks of all dictatorships, and it may be that his failure to throttle the media is all that has kept us from having a second term of Donald Trump and a full-blown dictatorship.
Know well that the judiciary and the Executive Branch can have a warm relationship, usually because the media and both law enforcement and the judicial system usually work hand in glove on criminal cases. Arrests, prosecutions, and convictions are news. But official misconduct is itself news, and any attempt by top political figures to stifle investigation of such is itself despicable.
Laurence Britt has his fourteen warning signs of fascism. Obviously Trump is not a Commie or part of some traditional despotism such as Saudi Arabia, so what does that leave? The warning sign that I thought least applicable was "control of the mass media". I now have no question.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.