From CBS to TikTok, US media are falling to Trump’s allies. This is how democracy crumbles; The Guardian, October 29, 2025

Owen Jones, The Guardian; From CBS to TikTok, US media are falling to Trump’s allies. This is how democracy crumbles

"Democracy may be dying in the US. Whether the patient receives emergency treatment in time will determine whether the condition becomes terminal. Before Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, I warned of “Orbánisation” – in reference to Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán. There, democracy was not extinguished by firing squads or the mass imprisonment of dissidents, but by slow attrition. The electoral system was warped, civil society was targeted and pro-Orbán moguls quietly absorbed the media.

Nine months on, and Orbánisation is in full bloom across the Atlantic. Billionaire Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder, and his filmmaker son, David, have become blunt instruments in this process. Trump boasts they are “friends of mine – they’re big supporters of mine”. Larry Ellison, second only to Elon Musk as the world’s richest man, has poured tens of millions into Republican coffers...

US democracy has always been heavily flawed. It is so rigged in favour of wealthy elites that a detailed academic study back in 2014 found that the political system is rigged in favour of what the economic elites want. Yet because, unlike Hungary, the US has no history of dictatorship, with a system of supposed checks and balances, some felt it could never succumb to tyranny. Such complacency has collided with brutal reality. In just nine months, the US has been dragged towards an authoritarian abyss. A warning: Trump has 39 months left in office."

‘Indecency has become a new hallmark’: writer and historian Jelani Cobb on race in Donald Trump’s America; The Guardian, October 18, 2025

David Smith, The Guardian; ‘Indecency has become a new hallmark’: writer and historian Jelani Cobb on race in Donald Trump’s America

"It is now fashionable on the left to bemoan the rise of US authoritarianism as a novel concept, a betrayal of constitutional ideals envied by the world. Cobb has a more complex take, suggesting that the US’s claim to moral primacy, rooted in the idea of exceptionalism, is based on a false premise.

He argues: “America has been autocratic previously. We just don’t think about it. It’s never been useful … to actually grapple with what America was, and America had no interest in grappling with these questions itself. Who has ever managed personal growth while constantly screaming to the world about how special and amazing they are?”

Cobb’s book maps an arc of the moral universe that is crooked and uneven, pointing out that, between the end of reconstruction and 1965, 11 states in the south effectively nullified the protections of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments of the constitution, imposing Jim Crow laws, voter suppression and violence to disenfranchise Black citizens...

It is therefore hardly unexpected that business leaders and institutions would capitulate, as they have in the past, he says: “We might hope that they would react differently but it’s not a shock when they don’t. Go back to the McCarthy era. We see that in more instances than not, McCarthy and other similar kinds of red-baiting forces were able to exert their will on American institutions.”...

He is unwavering, however, in his critique of Trump’s attack on the university sector: “What’s happening is people emulating Viktor Orbán [the leader of Hungary] to try to crush any independent centres of dissent and to utilise the full weight of the government to do it, and also to do it in hypocritical fashion...

Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah and a rare voice urging civil discourse, wondered whether this was the end of a dark chapter of US history – or the beginning. What does Cobb think? “There’s a strong possibility that it will get worse before it gets better,” he says frankly.

“We’re at a point where we navigated the volatile moment of the 1950s, the 1960s, because we were able to build a social consensus around what we thought was decent and what we thought was right, and we’re now seeing that undone. Indecency has become a new hallmark.

“But we should take some solace in the fact that people have done the thing that we need to do now previously. The situation we’re in I don’t think is impossible.”"

GOP-led Senate votes to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid, NPR and PBS; NBC News, July 16, 2025

Sahil Kapur, Frank Thorp V and Brennan Leach , NBC News; GOP-led Senate votes to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid, NPR and PBS

[Kip Currier: Notice how Trump 2.0 and the GOP (except for a couple of legislators) are going after sources of information: cutting funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Voice of America, PBS, NPR, etc. 

Control the information sources and you can more easily influence and control how people get their information and what they think.

Autocracies restrict access to information; democracies don't.]

[Excerpt]

"The Republican-led Senate Republicans voted Thursday morning to pass a package of spending cuts requested by President Donald Trump, sending it to the House. 

The rescissions package cancels previously approved funding totaling $9 billion for foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. Republicans passed it through a rarely used process to evade the 60-vote threshold and modify a bipartisan spending deal on party lines.

The vote of 51-48 followed a 13-hour series of votes on amendments, with two Republicans joining Democrats in opposition to the final bill: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska."

Hungary opposition figures urge Democrats to organize against autocratic takeover by Trump; The Guardian, July 16, 2025

Robert Tait , The Guardian; Hungary opposition figures urge Democrats to organize against autocratic takeover by Trump

[Kip Currier: It's clear Trump 2.0 is using the autocratic takeover playbook of Hungary's Viktor Orbán. As this article points out, autocrats work to cut off access to public broadcasting where people can get fact-based information. Just look to what the Trump and the GOP are doing to public media in the U.S. right now: 

"GOP-led Senate votes to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid, NPR and PBS".]

[Excerpt]

"Hungary, a European Union and Nato member, is often cited as an example of a formerly liberal democracy devolving into a competitive autocracy. Orbán – who has trumpeted his belief in “illiberal democracy” – has cemented his power over the courts, the media and universities during 15 years in office and four consecutive election victories.

Addressing a webinar organized by the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based thinktank, Cseh warned US voters against believing their country was immune to such developments.

“I do believe that many Americans think this is something that also only happens to others, and I think that mindset has to be fought,” she said.

“Start preparing for the midterms like yesterday. Go to every protest, go to every march, stand right beside everybody who is being attacked, no matter if it is a group you belong to, or something that you do not share personally. You have to stand side by side [with] each other and help and support those who might feel isolated and alone.”

She urged Democrats and activists to form a widely inclusive “movement” and find “candidates for the midterms or any election that is coming your way who can get people excited – not necessarily the same old faces they have been seeing all the time that they don’t really trust that much, but visionary leaders … who are part of a community, who are being persecuted.”

Leaders such as Trump and Orbán could only be effectively opposed, she said, by ditching a “legalistic, technical, technocratic approach” in favor of “something for the electorate to be excited about”.

“Autocrats are not always good in governing. So cost of living, crisis of healthcare, education – if the focus is shifted to these areas, and not only technical descriptions of what’s going on in the courts, this is something that people can relate to more.”

The parallels with Hungary came as opinion polls show Orbán on course to lose next year’s general election to the opposition Tisza party, led by Péter Magyar, a former member of the prime minister’s party...

Panyi said Trump’s attempts to slash funding for public broadcasters such as PBS and Voice of America were also inspired by Orbán.

“[Orbán] went after public radio, public TV, and in a matter of a couple of months, it was already transformed into propaganda,” he said. “It’s scary to see similar things happening in the United States. Solidarity is especially important, so whenever there are similar things happening, there should be protests. Journalists should support their colleagues and tell readers that if it happens to one outlet, it can happen to others as well.”

‘Trump Owns It All Now’; The New York Times, July 15, 2025

Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times; ‘Trump Owns It All Now’

 "There is one clear consequence of Trump’s second term in the White House, one that will have real consequences for millions of Americans: He will leave behind a legacy of wreckage. Trump will have demonstrated the weaknesses of American democracy when it is confronted by a malignant, amoral chief executive."

Trump’s Un-American Parade: What looks like an excess of strength may really be a deficit of liberty.; The Atlantic, June 13, 2024

 T. H. Breen, The Atlantic; Trump’s Un-American Parade: What looks like an excess of strength may really be a deficit of liberty.

"To discern the values of a nation and its leaders, watch their parades. Tomorrow, on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, President Donald Trump plans not only to display the country’s military might but also to present himself as its supreme leader. Some 6,600 soldiers and 200 tanks, warplanes, helicopters, and the like are expected to descend on Washington, D.C., to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. According to reports, parachuters will land on the Ellipse, where Trump instructed rioters on January 6 to “fight like hell,” and submit to him a folded American flag. All of this will occur on the president’s birthday, which spurs the question of whether we’re celebrating the country or the man who seeks to dominate it.

President George Washington offered a very different model of an American parade—one better suited for a moment that tested the nation’s founding principles. In October 1789, Washington was scheduled to visit Boston, which had planned a celebration in his honor. Unlike Trump, Washington resisted attempts to turn the event into a military display. The very notion of a ceremony organized around him made the first president uneasy...

Washington served in the Continental Army, so he understood the sacrifices that soldiers make for their country, and the public reverence those sacrifices are due. But he also knew the dangers of using the military for personal purposes. He saw clearly the need for the citizens of a republic to stand vigilant against the pretensions of a leader who would use the Army to flex his own might. He had no wish to become America’s elected monarch."

This Is What Autocracy Looks Like; The New York Times, June 9, 2025

Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times; This Is What Autocracy Looks Like 

"Yes, America has lurched to the right since Trump’s first term, and he can get away with abuses now that would have set off mass outrage then. Plenty of Democrats, burned by the backlash against Black Lives Matter and large-scale illegal immigration, would rather not have a fight over disorder in Los Angeles. “For months, Democrats scarred by the politics of the issue sought to sidestep President Donald Trump’s immigration wars — focusing instead on the economy, tariffs or, in the case of deportations, due process concerns,” reported Politico.

But there’s no sidestepping a president deploying the military in an American city based on ludicrous falsehoods about a foreign invasion. Indeed, it’s hard to think of a clearer signpost on the road to dictatorship. This Saturday, on Trump’s birthday, he’s planning a giant military parade in Washington, ostensibly to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary. Tanks have been photographed en route to the city, the Lincoln Memorial standing tragically in the background, like an image from some Hollywood dystopia.

On that day, there will be demonstrations all over the country under the rubric “No Kings.” I desperately hope that Trump’s attempt to quash protest ends up fueling it. Those who want to live in a free country may be scared, but they shouldn’t be cowed."

Stop bending the knee to Trump: it’s time for anticipatory noncompliance; The Guardian, June 8, 2025

David Kirp, The Guardian; Stop bending the knee to Trump: it’s time for anticipatory noncompliance

"Fearing Hurricane Donald, a host of universities, law firms, newspapers, public schools and Fortune 500 companies have rushed to do his bidding, bowing before he even comes calling. Other institutions cower, in hopes that they will go unnoticed.

But this behavior, which social scientists call “anticipatory compliance”, smoothes the way to autocracy because it gives the Trump regime unlimited power without his having to lift a finger. Halting autocracy in its tracks demands a counter-strategy – let’s call it anticipatory noncompliance...

Restoring democracy is no easy task, for it is infinitely easier to destroy than rebuild. It will take a years-long fight that deploys an arsenal of tactics, ranging from mass demonstrations and consumer boycotts to litigation and political organizing. It’s grueling work, but if autocracy is to be defeated there’s no option. “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” observed James Baldwin, in a 1962 New York Times article. A half-century later, that message still rings true."

WATCH: Democracy is breaking. Do people care?; The Ink, May 12, 2025

 ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, RUTH BEN-GHIAT, AND ANDREW, The Ink; WATCH: Democracy is breaking. Do people care?

"Donald Trump is waging war on the American republic. Why don’t more people care? 

Today I had a conversation I won’t easily forget that sought answers to this question.

Are we living through the familiar, well-worn descent into authoritarianism? Or are we witnessing a new phenomenon, specific to modern life, in which people have enough of a subjective feeling of freedom in their personal lives that they are willing to carve out political freedoms they tell themselves they don’t need? Years ago, I found this attitude reporting in China. I asked my guests if it was now happening here.

What is freedom, really? Does a world of broad consumer choices and job options and infinite scrolling somehow cause people not to recognize they’re in a slow-motion emergency? And what does this mean for how defenders of democracy should make their case? I talked about all of this and more with the scholar of fascism Ruth Ben-Ghiat of Lucid and journalist Andrew Marantz, who has a great piece in The New Yorker about the parallels between Hungary and what the U.S. is headed towards."

‘2073’ Review: Back to the Future; The New York Times, December 26, 2024

 Natalia Winkelman, The New York Times; ‘2073’ Review: Back to the Future

"The existential questions guiding “2073,” Asif Kapadia’s audacious exercise in futurism, are broad and familiar ones. How did we get here? What does our future look like? How can we change our current course toward a brighter one?...

Big Tech, climate catastrophe, autocracy — these are the hallmarks of Kapadia’s vision of the future, and they each receive an origin story of sorts in the nonfiction portions of his film. Montages of archival footage are paired with expert commentary on how the issues are correlated, and the bleak future they presage. Kapadia also profiles a handful of female journalists, who, alongside the film’s array of villains, emerge as spirited heroes offering an iota of hope to counter the feeling of impending doom."

‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters; The Guardian, October 28, 2024

Lorenzo Tondo , The Guardian; ‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters

"More Washington Post staffers have stepped down and more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by Monday after the newspaper’s decision not to support Kamala Harris for president.

Editorial board members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts both resigned on Monday with forceful letters indicating their reasons.

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman, who took home the Pulitzer Prize just last week, wrote in his resignation letter. “I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

Roberts said she was resigning “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets”."

Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now; New York Times, February 18, 2018

Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times; Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now

"Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin —just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office."