Late last year, I wrote about “anticipatory obedience” in the context of America’s tech moguls who, ahead of the election, moved preemptively to curry favor with Donald Trump.
The risk/reward was highly asymmetric: All upside and no downside. President Kamala Harris wouldn’t forget, but she would forgive and even if she didn’t (forgive), who cares? America would still be a democracy and Harris wouldn’t be an autocrat, so other than antitrust proceedings (which anyway have bipartisan support), the tech community had nothing to fear from lurching rightward and getting it wrong.
By contrast, President Trump wouldn’t forget nor would he forgive. If you were, say, Jeff Bezos and you let the Washington Post run a Harris endorsement, you better be right, which is to say the vote better swing left, because if not, things are likely to “go left” for your empire, and probably in a hurry. The very last place you want to be as one of a nation’s richest people is on the outs with an authoritarian at the dawn of a new oligarchy.
And so it was that Bezos killed WaPo‘s Harris endorsement. And Mark Zuckerberg U-turned on content moderation (in the course of a cringeworthy metamorphosis which these days finds Mark dressing like a rapper and pretending to be some manner of ninja badass). And Elon Musk took it upon himself to become a sort of Thanos figure bent on subjugating the universe and decreeing red-pilled, degen meme culture the dominant strain of reactionary, hard-right libertarianism, in the process materially increasing Trump’s odds of securing reelection.
I say this all the time, and I’ll say it plenty more going forward: This isn’t what you want, even if you think it is. Every day brings new evidence to support the contention that America’s not only backsliding in terms of democratic norms, but in fact free-falling.
Take Wednesday, for example. Around noon in the US, news broke that Bezos effectively forced out WaPo‘s opinion editor when he (Jeff) unilaterally changed the section’s mission to echo that of the Wall Street Journal‘s notoriously farcical, hopelessly partisan OpEd pages. WaPo‘s opinion section will now focus on defending “personal liberties and free markets” because, as Bezos put it, “a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else.”
Yes, “and everywhere else,” including in the press, which is under siege by a man who’s repeatedly trafficked in the language of historical dictators while inveighing against “unfriendly” media outlets and even individual reporters, who’re smeared as, among other things, “enemies of the people.”
Let’s not mince words: Bezos is now personally involved in the suppression of press freedom. Here’s a tech mogul who owns one of the country’s most revered papers intervening directly, and by decree, in that paper’s editorial stance because it doesn’t align with, and is often critical of, an executive who’s promised to punish anyone and everyone who opposes him on any front. Bezos is putting himself, his empire and his personal fortune ahead of press freedom. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” indeed.
Meanwhile, The White House is now set to let Trump handpick which media outlets are included in the presidential press pool, which means that going forward, first-hand, real-time coverage of Trump’s daily goings-on will probably be relayed mostly by Fox and even by outlets to the right of Fox as opposed to the AP, Reuters and so on.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt effectively confirmed as much, just not in so many words. The new policy, she said, will give “new media outlets,” including blogs and podcasters, a chance to tell the tall tale of Trump’s second term. Indeed, the AP and Reuters lost their press pool slots Wednesday to Newsmax and Blaze.
If those developments don’t seem ominous to you, you’re Ralph Wiggum on the bus, to turn one of the new American right’s favorite memes against it.
I want to remind the Trump supporters among you that none of this makes a shred of difference to me. As a well-off white man with property and ample savings such that I’m unlikely to ever need even the government transfer payments to which I’ll eventually be entitled (assuming I live that long), and as someone with no children about whose future I need fret over, Trump could go full-on dictator and I’d be among the last people impacted.
If your life circumstances aren’t similar to mine — which is to say if you’re non-white, not male, need a job, may need your Social Security and don’t want your children and grandchildren to live in an autocracy, an oligarchy or a nepotistic kleptocracy (regardless of whether you like the autocrat, the oligarchs and the kleptocrats) — you need to worry. This isn’t a drill anymore.
Of course, the people for whom that warning’s intended have deaf ears, and not the kind Trump would mock at a rally. Rather, the kind that won’t hear the bell because the people to whose heads they’re attached don’t understand that in this context, and every other context besides, it always, always tolls for thee.
Life’s a lot better in Europe. Democracy, freedom of press, unbiased courts, stuff like that.
I have some ideas where the US might be going, but it’s probably better to keep those to myself.
Nice Gen X/Millennial reference to Ralph Wiggum lmao…
It wouldn’t be so entertaining if sadly it wasn’t true. The irony is that for all the talk out of one side of the mouth for free speech, independent thought etc, they’re suppressing it with barring objective journalists from the press pool (among numerous other examples).
The Goebells-esque propaganda state is just getting started. The sad part is most of America has no idea how to find independent voices outside of mainstream media (it does require effort after all).
“The irony is that for all the talk out of one side of the mouth for free speech, independent thought etc, they’re suppressing it.”
Exactly. And that creates this kind of insanity loop that traps even (and in some sense, especially) very smart people. See for example Ezra Klein’s interview with Martin Gurri: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-martin-gurri.html
Ezra corners him over and over on exactly that irony you mentioned and Gurri just doesn’t see it. He genuinely doesn’t see it.
This is a distressing article to say the least. When Trump was sworn in, I told myself that you would be my canary in the coal mine. I wouldn’t worry until you wrote an article saying I should worry. Here we are.
What I’d like to know is what to do about it. Worrying on its own is like chewing bubble gum to solve an algebra problem. I’m already calling my reps and pulling on the limited levers I have at my disposal. I’ve got a cash buffer of three years living expenses on top of my investments, but what else can I do? What else can any of us do?
Again, though, it depends very much on who you are, your personal circumstances and also whether we’re going to insist on strict interpretations of terms like “dictator.” I’ve said it again and again: Trump doesn’t have it in him to be a run-of-the-mill murderous dictator, let alone a Hitler, and I’m by no means sure he wants to be either. But it looks very much like he’s going to succeed in partially, and hopefully temporarily, constructing an Erdogan/Orban-style system of governance in America, and my point to his supporters is that that will be a net loss not just for society, but for the vast majority of individual people and families too. Put differently: The pitfalls and annoyances that go along with that sort of autocracy far outweigh any advantages that may accrue to everyday people who support the ruling government. The only people for whom those systems are a net positive are a small handful of oligarchs, family members, old friends, etc. who are close to the executive him- or herself. Party members do ok too, but even there, it’s oppressive because you can’t break ranks on anything, lest you should be expelled or worse, something a lot of GOPers have already found out the hard way. Plus, it’s just no damn fun. Who wants to “win” a contest that isn’t actually a contest? Maybe I’m alone in this, but a big part of the joy that goes along with winning at anything is the fact that you could’ve lost.
Krugman this morning said “Just to be clear, I’m not predicting an imminent recession. I don’t have a good track record on that front; but then, nobody does. And I still think that the biggest risks from Trumponomics involve the inflationary impact of tariffs and deportations.”
H (of course) nails the bigger risk, and it’s already beyond risk… it’s fully here. We have Musk voiding the federal investigations into his business ventures, Coinbase buying their way out of an SEC investigation, the list goes on. It’s pay-to-play from here on out. So many ways to profit.
I hope that’s the worst of it. I strongly fear it is not. It could be Gilead with the Christian Nationalists underpinning him. They want more than profit, and they can do what it takes (I know many of them, and they smell blood).
Trump and aligned Thugs are not omnipotent (they are anti-potent)…but people do need to recognize the flashing lights…
Mid-terms and special elections come to mind S a food place to start.
Do midterms and elections matter? Weren’t the Capitol rioters all pardoned?
Yeah those waiting for midterms have fully buried their head and rear end in the sand. The narcissistic autocrat cannot lose any election we saw in mild form what that looks like on January 6th. The less polite form has played out in more violent terms, which actual hangings.
A good start on the freedom of the press problem is simple. Every news outlet specifically eliminated from the white house press pool just stop carrying any news whatsoever about Trump and his activities. We’ll get what we get from Fox. Otherwise no one ever hears or reads Trump’s name again. He becomes nobody as if he never existed. I would guess that a month of that from the whole country would push him over the edge. Even better if all news outlets cover only Musk’s bad acts as if he was actually the POTUS. God, that would be so cool. We’d find out how much guts the free press actually has. Who’s real and who is not?
This would be a good step, but the problem is I don’t see much solidarity among the press corps (which might be a side effect of its not being truly free anymore). Have you ever seen how eagerly the next reporter grabs the wireless mic at White House Q&As once Trump has decided MSDNC or Fake News CNN has overstepped by asking a non-fawning question? And now Trump has co-opted much of the mainstream newspapers by hook or crook (including the NYT, WashPO and LA Times among others), their headlines are often anodyne sane-washing and both-sidesing. Next up, I am sure Trump will step up his attacks on the broadcast networks (other than FOX of course) and already seems to have singled out Comcast as his first target.
Today was the final straw for me, I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post, I should have cancelled it after Bezos stopped the Harris endorsement bit I didn’t.
I’m with you. Did the same.
Now do Amazon Prime. That’s the hard one.
what newspaper subscription do you suggest? I am thinking to subscribe in order to help fund a free press. It is the least we can do in these dark times.
Does it count if I canceled my subscription and use my dad’s login to watch shows?
And the one that hits Bezos much harder than the Post.
H-Man, Bezo’s offered Melania $40M for her documentary when the best offer was $3M while having dinner with Trump and Melania. Selling out WaPo is no surprise. Maybe Hunter should have sold a documentary?
Did they at least throw in some Melania memecoins to go with the documentary rights?
Who is Jamal Khashoggi…
Journalist reported to have been killed and dismembered in the Turkey Saudi Consulate.
Legacy: Khashoggi’s assassination highlighted issues of press freedom and the risks faced by journalists in authoritarian regimes. His story has been the subject of various documentaries, including “The Dissident.”
Washington Post journalist…
We are entering the new Dark Ages. An exciting time to be alive.
“The Dark Ages is a term for the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterizes it as marked by economic, intellectual, and cultural decline.”
As Americans, I think we view all of this from our purview as the center of the world as existential to the global order. It is, for now, existential to the global world order but that doesn’t mean it will continue to be. The new American Guilded Age is not something the rest of western society has followed our lead on. While we have destroyed our social safety net and transferred all of the New Deal wealth back to the richest, Europe has expanded its safety net and limited that wealth transfer.
For someone like Trump, who doesn’t care about anyone but himself, the loss of power in this context isn’t important. Him having power over America is more important than America having power over the world. So he’s fine removing us from center stage and leaving a power vacuum that China would certainly love to fill.
If we remove ourselves from NATO we likely also give up our capacity to have the global military presence that has existed since the end of WWII. I’d argue that military presence (see threat) has been the driver for our capacity to grow into the giant global economic force we are today. Without a military presence essentially everywhere, no one would care about greenbacks. Losing that presence in Europe likely means the loss of hegemony, at least in the EU. What replaces that hegemony is an open question and the right has argued for over a decade that would probably be China. Perhaps it would be, or perhaps the EU would finally start to exert it’s united force to drive adoption of the Euro, a truly globally minded currency.
Either way, whatever happens to us will be our problem. The rest of the world will find a way to move forward even while we move backwards.
Sad but true I think. I wonder how to reach the masses to get your message above out.
I used to read four or five papers daily. They are now all gone. I finally dropped WSJ last Oct. Total crap these days. Also dumped USA and two local papers (the KC Star now charges $500 a year, prints it out of town and has cut 50% of the copy). I can’t do this any more. All my magazines are gone as well. When I retired I was taking 18 magazines. What I discovered was that all the editors are moving toward “pop culture” slants. There is little solid content anymore. I have no use for people in the popular culture arena. The quality of the writing is also declining more and more quickly. Kids today aren’t actually educated. The profs are less able, teachers are unqualified. In MO there are places you can work as a teacher with only a HS diploma. For several years the schools in both KC and STL were unaccredited by the state, meaning HS diplomas from these school system would not qualify students for college in our state or some others nearby. TV is a disaster. I started my TV addiction in ~1952. I watched Queen Elizabeth II coronation, every minute of the six hours it took. Amazing. The first overseas broadcast anywhere. There was just one undersea TV cable then. Now look. Ironically, we are in a golden age of documentary TV but nothing else. So-called reality shows, Hollywood housewives, blah blah. Hour long shows showing house flipping. Sponge Bob, seriously?
Apparently you haven’t discovered Taylor Sheridan.