President Donald Trump’s various degradations of America’s democratic norms have been so numerous and fast-moving since his second inauguration that it’s often difficult to stop and focus on just one offense.
But Trump’s move last week to dismantle the is worth focusing on because it combines two of his most ominous instincts: his utter contempt for the free press (to the point of, on Friday, labeling newsgathering he dislikes as “illegal”) and his complete disregard for the central role the U.S. has played in promoting democracy globally since World War II.
For the sake of democracy abroad and at home, those deeply corrosive instincts cannot be allowed to morph into a new normal.
People are also reading…
The Voice of America is the U.S. government broadcasting service that has, for the better part of a century, beamed pro-democracy news and information into authoritarian regimes, giving those citizens what is often their only access to uncensored content.
It began broadcasting during World War II to counter Nazi propaganda and was a key tool during the Cold War to foster support for freedom behind the Iron Curtain. Until last week, it had continued to provide the flicker of democracy in authoritarian regions where it has otherwise been snuffed out.
Trump on Friday signed an executive order effectively dismantling Voice of America’s parent agency. It’s the culmination of his long-held malice toward the service, based on the tired trope that its content is liberally biased.
Like so many of Trump’s unilateral actions disassembling the federal government, this one is seemingly unconstitutional on its face, as the agency in question was established by Congress.
Beyond that serious constitutional issue, it’s an expression of this president’s rejection of America’s crucial role as leader of the free world — a rejection also being expressed through his betrayal of Ukraine, his vilification of NATO and his unprovoked trade wars against some of America’s closest allies.
Almost immediately following Trump’s executive order, some of the frequencies that had carried Voice of America’s pro-democracy broadcasts in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere simply went silent. Could there be a more chilling metaphor for what this White House is doing to America’s standing abroad — and to the free press at home?
It was also on Friday that Trump gave a remarkable at, of all places, the Department of Justice in which he claimed that several prominent news organizations are breaking the law merely by reporting the news.
In one of his typically self-obsessed diatribes about the criminal cases against him prior to retaking office, Trump said: “The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and MSDNC (MSNBC), and the fake news, CNN and ABC, CBS and NBC, they’ll write whatever (Trump’s critics) say. And what do you do to get rid of it? You convict Trump.”
He added, speaking directly to federal prosecutors in the audience: “It’s totally illegal what they do. I just hope you can all watch for it, but it’s totally illegal.”
Trump has already demonstrated, dramatically, that his threats against the free press aren’t idle ones.
He has barred from covering presidential events because the news service has the audacity to continue referring to the Gulf of Mexico by that long-established name, declining to embrace Trump’s monarchical declaration that it’s now the “Gulf of America.”
He has seized control of the previously independent White House press pool, restricting access of serious media outlets and elevating sycophantic in right-wing trolls like NewsMax and the Blaze. He has used frivolous lawsuits to harass newspapers and broadcasters for critical coverage of him.
Those in the mainstream media certainly aren’t perfect. In particular, the major cable news services on both the right and left have become so ideologically strident and divided in their news coverage that they are arguably contributing to America’s increasingly deep political divisions.
But none of that is the point. The First Amendment protects all media, not just responsible media — and certainly not just media the sitting president happens to like.
That principle, a cornerstone of America’s constitutional government, is one that the U.S. has promoted to the world via the Voice of America for eight decades. Trump’s malicious silencing of that voice is, it should by now be clear, what he has in mind for any other voice that challenges him in the media. Which makes it more important than ever that regular Americans demand those voices remain protected.
