How to Repeal Freedom of Speech and a Free Press

 

How to Repeal Freedom of Speech and a Free Press

A Musky Odor Is Wafting Strong

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

DOGE still has traction among those in Congress who believe that spending cuts are the only way they could ever justify a tax cut on the order of magnitude demanded by the GOP. Since our debt service the deficit and military spending account for a mandatory majority of that deficit interest carry, Trump/Musk/MAGA’s plan is simple. Decimate or eliminate as many social programs for the middle and lower earners in the nation as possible and give the net savings in the form of tax cuts to the rich. That reverse Robin Hood is beginning the chafe at a huge segment of Trump voters impacted rather directly by those cuts – some cases entire communities, compounded by the fact that most civilian federal labor force are veterans.

Even Fox (business and news channels) and the Wall Street Journal, conservative assets in the Rupert Murdoch empire, are beginning to challenge Trump’s grasp of even the most basic economic concepts. Economists know that high tariffs can provoke a recession or worse and that autocracies generally cannot sustain successful economies experiencing major changes. While Trump has Elon Musk in the batter’s box of blame when needed, he has to wait until Musk’s mounting failures weaken him for that purge.

Indeed, “Over the past six weeks, the value of Tesla’s shares has plunged about 40 percent, wiping out virtually all they had gained after the 2024 election. This reversal reveals Mr. Musk’s soft underbelly: His fortune depends heavily on the inflated expectations of his rabid following. As those expectations deflate, so will his power, demonstrating that financial markets are an underappreciated guardrail against both Mr. Musk’s and President Trump’s agendas.

“It is tempting to compare Mr. Musk to the true business titans of the past quarter century such as Apple’s Steve Jobs, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. But those individuals created genuinely huge businesses that eclipse anything Mr. Musk has built by any possible metric. While Mr. Musk has built a car company from the ground up — no easy feat — his wealth is largely thanks to a financial cult, one in which legions of dazzled investor-followers have enabled him to launch an ever-growing list of disparate initiatives and provided immunity from critics who question his operational decision-making, his corporate governance, his obscene pay packages, and now his migration into the political sphere.

“The high-wire act goes something like this: Dream up a business so ambitious that any setback is trivial and every accomplishment heroic. Identify yourself as the manic genius behind this ambitious business in order to personally capitalize on outsize returns from excited investors. Enlist social media to cement your iconic status, keeping your believers so enthusiastic that their fervor beats back any skeptics who dare to bet against your ventures, even as you pitch more and more fantastical ideas. At this point you hit the flywheel: Other investors, searching for outsize returns, flock to the shares of your other companies, pushing their valuations ever higher, thus fortifying your wealth and burnishing your reputation as a business mastermind.” Mihir A. Desai, professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, writing for the March 9th New York Times. That the last two SpaceX launches have resulted in disastrous explosions does not help.

The international press is crucifying Trump and Musk, and many heads of state – like economist and former central banker, Mark Carney, now Canada’s PM – are pushing back against Trump’s global avarice and neo-colonialism… hard. As Trump paused (then resumed?) his intelligence to Ukraine’s blackout fueled by Musk’s Starlink satellite network, following highly publicized tiff between Musk and Marco Rubio, Europeans were suggesting that they may have to find a more reliable satellite provider, one not under the Trump/Musk thumb. Poland ’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, suggested Europe should address getting this alternative soon. He recently tweeted:

“I literally challenged Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off. What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose. Anyone who really cares, really thinks and really understands wants the meat grinder to stop. PEACE NOW!!” Musk replied: “Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.” Trump/Musk are being battered in all levels of media everywhere, so Trump is following the success of Hungary’s PM, Viktor Mihály Orbán: control the press, limit their access to governmental press conferences, sue them repeatedly, deplete their financial resources until they can be bought for chump change by billionaire loyalists, close and arrest them if you can.

Trump loyalists support an effort to have the US Supreme Court reduce protections for the press from litigation, in place for over 60 years. The White House and the DOD have pushed most critical members of the press, who been in the relevant pressrooms for decades, out and admitted rightwing Trump zealots to take their place. Still, Trump continues his old world, tired admonishment of the press, with decreasing effect in the courtroom of public opinion:

“He branded CNN and others ‘fake news.’ He repeatedly railed against journalists as the ‘enemy of the people’ during his first term — rhetoric that news groups tried to shrug off or wore as a badge of honor… But six weeks into Trump’s second administration, the attacks have carried a greater sting. In a recent rant on social media about MSNBC, Trump accused the liberal news network of being ‘an illegal arm of the Democratic Party.’ He took direct aim at the network’s parent, Comcast, and its chairman, Brian Roberts, calling him a ‘lowlife.’… ‘They should be forced to pay vast sums of money for the damage they’ve done to our Country,’ Trump wrote.

“Presidents frequently skirmish with the press. Richard Nixon famously waged a pitched battle, placing several journalists on his notorious ‘enemies list.’ But Trump’s broadsides have reached new heights, and media companies have scrambled to respond… Some have raced to reset relations. To settle a lawsuit Trump brought early last year against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos, Walt Disney Co. agreed to contribute $15 million to a Trump presidential library, plus $1 million for Trump’s legal fees… Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta contributed $25 million to end a beef that began after Trump was booted from Facebook for his words and actions preceding the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Trump sued Facebook in 2021, alleging free speech violations… CBS owner Paramount Global has been racked for weeks over whether to settle Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit over edits to a ‘60 Minutes’ interview, a suit that 1st Amendment experts say is frivolous.” Meg James for the Los Angeles Times, March 9th.

But Trump’s flock are increasingly concerned that his actions are creating economic harms to them personally, watching that promised short period of transitional Musk-cuts difficulty loom a whole lot longer. Trump needs more than his Truth Social, Musk’s X plus making other media purveyors suffer to convince a skeptical public. Even his expected sacrifice of Musk won’t remove that taint to Trump and his failings. We need an honorable Supreme Court to do its job.

I’m Peter Dekom and should Trump/Musk’s efforts to muzzle and control our media succeed, the United States will go down in this egotistical blaze.