One of the first things authoritarian governments try to do is muzzle the freedom of the press. I did not capitalize freedom here for a simple reason. They don't attack Free Speech but use pressure and coercion to stifle the impartiality of the press.
Consider these actions that have already happened:
- Billionaire owners stopped the endorsement of Kamala Harris for President - to keep on Trump's good side.
- Jeff Bezos stopped the editorial staff at the Washington Post
- Patrick Soon-Shiong stopped the editorial staff of the LA Times
- A judge (a Trump appointee) stopped the sale of Alex Jones's right-wing site, Info Wars, to The Onion, a satirical site. This happened AFTER the sale was approved.
- Elon Musk bought "Twitter" heretofore, an open site that took down posts by Nazis and posts with misinformation. Under the new owner, the rebranded "X" has thrown open the site to misinformation, right-wing threats, and foreign propaganda.
- Left-wing news source MSNBC is being sold now. Proposals have been floated to have Elon Musk by that as well.
- Morning Joe, a news-adjacent site that was pretty anti-Trump, made the "Trump kiss the
assring" trip to Mar-a-lago. Mika Brzezinski, is the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski - a foreign policy expert who served LBJ and Jimmy Carter. He would be appalled. ON the other hand Mika told us all it was no big deal.
It's not much, but it is a start. Most of these occurred in the month before the election. It isn't a hopeful start.
The subtitle is now ironic |
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