Trump’s ‘Civil War’ Includes Smashing News Media

Viewed from so far still sovereign Canada, identifying Donald Trump’s worst picks to help run his incoming government is a difficult task. They range from wholly unqualified to dangerously deranged. Together they bode massive disruption to our south that is bound to roil our own reality here.

A front-runner has to be Pete Hegseth, tapped to become Trump’s secretary of defence despite a history of alcohol abuse and sexual harassment that in one case led to a payment to an alleged victim.

As someone who was himself found civilly responsible for sexual assault, Trump clearly didn’t see Hegseth’s past as disqualifying. But he surely found attractive the Trumpian rhetoric in Hegseth’s book American Crusade.

Hegseth predicted that if the Democrats won election, there would be a “national divorce” that would lead to some form of “civil war.” In such a conflict, Hegseth wrote, “the military and police... will be forced to make a choice.”

This from the man who asked readers to “mock, humiliate, intimidate and crush our leftist opponents.” In lockstep with Trump, Hegseth is a proponent of unleashing the U.S. military to crush “the enemy within” — in other words, using American soldiers against American citizens who don’t see things Trump’s way.

Such prospects should sober Canadians, given that Trump casually speaks of annexing our country. After all, most Canadians hold the moderately liberal views that could land them on Hegseth’s hit list. And yet, one out of five Canadian Conservatives is all for joining the United States, according to one recent poll.

At least we still have news media capable of reporting such outlandish affronts to Canada’s democratic self-rule.

Which is why, to me, Trump’s most frightening choice is the man he picked to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Kash Patel.

Man with a list

All the people on Trump’s roster of choices are eager to do their master’s bidding. But Patel is the only one who will start the job with an actual enemies list if he gets through his confirmation hearing.

The news media is high on that hit list, and that is an immense danger to the very foundations of U.S. democracy.

On a podcast in 2023, this is how Patel said he would handle reporters if he were put in a position of power: “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

Donald Trump will make Patel’s job easy if the nominee gets confirmed. Trump himself has already denounced the media as enemies of the people and purveyors of fake news.

He has already said that he wants to assert presidential control over the Federal Communications Commission, which, among other things, hands out broadcast licences.

In his first presidency, he pressed the FCC to revoke the licences of “fake” news networks like ABC and NBC and sell them to the highest bidder.

And Trump didn’t waste any time after his election victory bringing down the solid green flag to start his war on reporters who didn’t see things his way. What is his goal? Take him at his word: “We have to straighten out the press.”

Trump’s war on journalists

How will he do that? Trump intends to sue the media into irrelevance or submission.

Trump has already had his first big success by humbling ABC News. He sued ABC for defamation after its premier news program broadcast that he had been liable for “rape,” when he was technically found liable for “sexual abuse.”

To the shock of most of the media world, ABC’s parent company, Disney, settled the case without going to trial. It agreed to pay Trump $15 million towards his presidential library, and another $1 million in legal fines.

How ironic. Last January a jury awarded Trump’s sexual abuse victim, E. Jean Carroll, $83 million in damages for her ordeal. On Dec. 30 a federal appeals court rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn the verdict of the original jury.

Trump is also suing legendary pollster Ann Selzer, recently retired, after she produced an outlier poll just before the 2024 election showing Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa by a few points. Trump ultimately romped to victory, winning the state by 13 points.

Using the law like a blunt object, Trump sued both Selzer and the Des Moines Register, which published her poll. He claimed that the pollster’s numbers were so far off that the survey was a malicious act.

Trump is also suing CBS News for a report on the program 60 Minutes. He is seeking $10 billion from the network for what he calls the deceitful editing of a piece with Kamala Harris during the election campaign. CBS denied that claim of malice, but admitted to cutting down one of her answers.

The incoming president is also suing the Pulitzer Prize board for giving the New York Times and the Washington Post awards for their coverage of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.

As reported by CBC, suing adversaries and perceived enemies as a political tactic is such a widespread practice these days that it has its own acronym: SLAPP, or strategic lawsuits against public participation. Trump’s goal of “straightening out the press” is to encourage self-censorship, intimidation or, at worst, silence.

The authoritarian’s manual

Hungary’s far-right autocrat, Viktor Orbán, has stated that the way to power is “to have your own media.”

During a 2022 speech in Budapest to the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, he told U.S. Conservatives to take that advice.

“Have your own media,” Orbán urged his audience. “It’s the only way to point out the insanity of the progressive left. The problem is that the western media is adjusted to the leftist viewpoint. Those who taught reporters in universities already had progressive leftist principles.”

Orbán had some ideas about who would be the answer to what he called the “mainstream” liberal media.

“My friend Tucker Carlson is the only one who puts himself out there. His show is the most popular. What does it mean? It means programs like his should be broadcast day and night. Or, as you say, 24-7.”

With Trump soon back in the White House, and people like Orbán cheering him on from the sidelines, can the hard right bring the media to heel?

In the past the answer would have been a speedy no. The United States has major constitutional protections of First Amendment rights, and a strong commitment to freedom of the press.

That’s why it has been next to impossible for a public figure to win a defamation case against the press. (Recall that ABC capitulated to Trump rather than fight in court.)

The Supreme Court has ruled in the New York Times vs. Sullivan case that even when a public figure is defamed, ruling in their favour would have a chilling effect on free speech.

In 1787, one of America’s founders posed and then answered a question touching on the foundation of the country’s democracy and the importance of a free press. Thomas Jefferson opined that if he had to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

But the reality today is that Trump has every chance to browbeat and bully the press to its knees.

The debacle of the ABC settlement is not an isolated event. The billionaire owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post both breached the independence of their editorialists by spiking endorsements of Kamala Harris a week before the 2024 presidential election.

Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong also killed an editorial mildly critical of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. He went on to ask the editorial board to “take a break” from writing about Trump.

America seems a world away from Jeffersonian thinking today. The experience of Colorado television reporter Ja’Ronn Alex suggests a very long way.

Alex recently was allegedly attacked by a man who demanded to know if the journalist was an American. Before chasing and reportedly assaulting the reporter, ex-marine Patrick Egan shouted at Alex, “This is Trump’s America now.”

Egan was arrested, but he might just be right about Trump’s grip on America, judging from the decisions of weak-kneed media owners and the steady stream of CEO billionaires with chequebooks in hand making the trip to Mar-a-Lago.

By the way, the Guardian story about the Dec. 18 incident in Colorado included a photo from 2016 reminding how the path was laid to where we’ve arrived. The picture taken eight years ago showed a Trump supporter wearing a T-shirt saying: “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.”