At a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday night, Donald Trump returned to one of the few messages he emphasizes just about every day as Election Day draws closer. “60 Minutes should be taken off the air, and CBS should lose its license,” the former president said.
A day later, the GOP candidate pointed to journalists covering one of his rallies and said news organizations are “evil” and that media professionals are “actually the enemy of the people.”
When Trump first started echoing Joseph Stalin in 2018, the result was a meaningful national controversy. Six years later, the Republican uses the language so regularly, it has become the background noise of our civil lives, and few bother to take note.
But whether people care or not, the Republican nominee for the nation’s highest office is eyeing the kind of crackdown on the free press that one might ordinarily expect to see in countries indifferent to the rule of law. Just recently, he has not only launched a bizarre and baseless crusade against CBS and its flagship news magazine, he also has threatened The New York Times.
A week earlier, after condemning American news organizations as “corrupt,” Trump added that he wants to “straighten out” the nation’s press.
Part of the problem, of course, is that the United States has a First Amendment that prohibits politicians from trying to “straighten out” news organizations that publish reports they don’t like. Another part of the problem, as New York magazine’s Jon Chait noted, is that we’ve already seen the Republican take some steps down this path: “Trump did attempt to ‘straighten out the press’ during his first term by putting selective regulatory pressure on its owners. He blocked a merger benefitting CNN and denied a lucrative Pentagon contract to Amazon to punish the owners of independent media. Trump says the press is ‘corrupt,’ but corruption is the very method he is employing publicly to bring the major news organs into line.”
But just as notable is how some major news organizations are responding to these threats by pre-emptively surrendering to the candidate running on an authoritarian platform. NBC News reported on The Washington Post’s sudden and unexpected decision to stop making endorsements in presidential elections.
Post editorial page staff members had drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris that had yet to be published, two sources briefed on the sequence of events told The Post. The decision not to publish the Harris endorsement was made by The Post’s owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, according to the sources. NBC News has not independently verified that account.
Days earlier, the Los Angeles Times made a similar announcement. Semafor reported that the newspaper also intended to endorse Harris, but its owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, intervened and prevented the newspaper’s editorial page from publishing a piece supporting the Democratic nominee.
As you’ve probably heard, the developments have led to resignations and reader cancellations, and these ongoing developments are clearly important. But I’m also struck by the broader circumstances: As the Republican Party’s nominee for the nation’s highest office — a man who might very well be sworn into office in 84 days — eyes an unprecedented crackdown on the free press, news organizations face a unique set of threats.
I don’t have any special insights into why the wealthy owners of two of the nation’s largest daily newspapers chose cowardice over journalistic standards, but if Bezos and Soon-Shiong intervened because they were afraid of post-election retribution from Trump, then the United States has already reached a point that should scare us all. This is, after all, no time for cowardice in the home of the brave. In Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny,” the Yale historian offers readers lessons on how to respond to authoritarianism. The first lesson: “Do not obey in advance.” “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given,” the book reads. “In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then they offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.” Perhaps someone can send a copy of the book to Bezos and Soon-Shiong?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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