Trump moves to silence the free press, free speech

We, the people, rely on a free and independent press to hold power accountable. It’s not just a constitutional principle, it’s the foundation of democracy. But in his first two months back in office, Donald Trump has launched a full scale assault on press freedom, using the machinery of government to punish silence and intimidate journalists who refuse to bend to his will. Let’s start with the absurd. The White House banning the Associated Press reporters from presidential events because they won’t call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Yeah, Trump decided on a whim to what rename an internationally recognized body of water, and when the AP refused to play along, his administration retaliated by barring their reporters from the Oval Office. This isn’t about geography. It’s about power. It’s about a government dictating the language the press must use and punishing those who refuse. And that, my friends, is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. If that sounds extreme, well, consider what else is going on the Pentagon. They’ve now evicted multiple news organizations from their work spaces, replacing them with far right outlets that are more willing to toe the administration’s line, CNN, The Washington Post, NPR, news organizations that have spent decades covering national security are now being pushed out so that Trump friendly voices can move in. The administration isn’t just playing favorites, it’s actively manipulating access to shape the news that you and I see. And if you’re still not convinced, we’ll look at the latest push to strip government agencies of their media subscriptions. The Trump team is targeting outlets like the New York Times and politico claiming that taxpayer money is being used to prop up fake news. Never mind that these subscriptions provide critical reporting on Policy and International Affairs. The real goal here is to financially choke out newsrooms that challenge Trump’s narrative. And this is not new. Every authoritarian regime in history has sought to control the press. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government systematically shut down independent media until all that remained was a state approved outlet and Hungary Viktor Orban used financial pressure and regulatory crackdown to turn the free press into an extension of his government. And now here in the United States, well, Trump is borrowing the same tactics, restricting access, stacking the press pool, and trying to starve critical outlets of revenue. Freedom of the Press isn’t about whether you like what a particular outlet has to say. It’s about whether journalists can do their jobs without fear of government retribution. A recent report by the Reporters Without Borders, they found that press freedom has declined sharply in countries where leaders engaged in this kind of media intimidation. Now, the US ranked in the top 20 worldwide, but then under Trump’s first term, we split to 45 and well, with these latest attacks, we’re heading even lower. And this is not a drill. The First Amendment is not just a line in a document. It’s a safeguard against tyranny. And when a government starts deciding which news organizations can and cannot exist and which can and cannot be silenced while democracy is already in decline, if Trump’s first month in office is any indication, and followed by his second Well, gosh, we are in the process of watching democracy be dismantled in real time when Free Press falls, everything else follows. So now is the time to fight back, not just for journalists, but for democracy itself, because if we don’t, the only news left will be what the government wants us to hear. And that’s not freedom. That’s propaganda. You.