Trump 2.0, Orban, and spin dictatorship

Under Orban in Hungary, the dictator’s billionaire friends bought up media outlets and created a state propaganda machine. Trump 2.0 has a similar plan but journalists are refusing to bend a knee.

January 11. We are nine days away from the start of Trump 2.0, and the daily headlines continue to startle us, but with less shock each time, because already, we’re getting more accustomed to the near-daily news of outrageous actions and behavior by those seeking to curry Trump’s favor and, they hope, profit during a second Trump regime. I’m talking about the actions of Mark Zuckerberg at META, the latest billionaire bro to make-nice and bend the knee in voluntary obeisance to Trump. Zuck’s decision last week to eliminate independent fact-checking and content moderation on META represents that the latest blow to fighting disinformation and hate speech, and a free press.

Instead, Zuck copied his rival Elon Musk at X and has turned over fact-checking to “crowd sourcing” by users of META’s platform. It followed that move days later by ditching its DEI programs, the latest major company to end heralded progressive policies designed to promote a more equitable, diverse employee workforce. When it comes to hate speech, internal META documents published by The Intercept reveal META will allow saying “gay people have mental illness,” or “a trans person isn’t a she or he, is it?” but balks at “white people have mental illness” in its guidance on content moderation. The new policy is led by Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new chief of global affairs, who wants to take the content gloves off topics like gender and immigration. As many critics note, we can now expect META to become a channel for right-wing hate and white supremacy views, homophobia, disinfo, and censorship, just like X did after Musk bought and rebranded Twitter and allowed banned US neo-Nazi and far-right voices to rejoin the platform. Eighty percent of X staffers soon departed, along with many users. Critics predict Meta will follow a similar pattern.

Pre-election, Musk turned X into a propaganda mouthpiece for MAGA and Trump a la Fox News, and became Trump’s top campaign donor. Musk is now in charge of a made-up Trump 2.0 Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, to be run by him and Vivek Ramaswamy as private consultants, not government employees, which allows them to avoid conflicts of interest — such ruling on AI and issues that profit their companies. A key DOGE goal is to champion AI, which will give all the tech bros more power and money, and is critical to controlling the future media landscape.

Zuckerberg’s actions follow the similar pandering actions taken by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and his new editorial apparatchik, WaPo CEO Will Lewis. Bezos recently killed a political cartoon sketch by WaPo’s Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Ann Talnaes. It showed Bezos and Open AI Chief Executive Sam Altman holding up sacks of money at the base of a partial Trump statue, next to Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong holding a tube of red lipstick, lips pursed, ready to kiss Trump-as-Caesar’s…feet? ...ring? ..ass? Any or all, the cartoon suggests. And next to them Disney’s Mickey Mouse was prostrated on the ground.

Speaking toon truth to moneybags power. Killed WaPo cartoon sketch by Ann Talnaes.

Talnaes sketched her cartoon after Bezos, Altman, and Apple chief Tim Cook, among top tech executives, visited Mar-A-Lago and pledged seven-figure contributions to Trump’s inauguration, and after Bezos and Soon-Shiong, in pre-election moves, ended the longstanding practice of political endorsements by their newspapers in order to avoid endorsing Harris and pissing off Trump. It came after ABC News, which is owned by Disney, voluntarily paid $15 million to Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos that many considered a frivolous suit, one linked to the E. Jean Carroll civil case against Trump.

What many didn’t know is that Disney was launching a new business unit to develop AI, which is why it was important to make nice fast with Trump. Billions in profit are at stake. As top Dem attorney Marc Elias wrote after the settlement: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obeisance.”

The killing of Talnaes’s cartoon is the latest example of the growing censorship of liberal views by America’s media owners, but the censorship trend is bigger than individual voices. It follows an announcements of plans by right-wing billionaire and Catholic judicial activist Leonard Leo to sink a million dollars into buying a media property this year, and plans by Comcast to spin off MSNBC in the near future, possibly sidelining popular liberal voices like Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid while elevating right wing pundits. When you put the pieces together, the emerging picture is a fast-moving Orban-like consolidation of media outlets being positioned to serve as a future state-controlled media and propaganda effort.

Weaponizing the FCC

Add to this the Project 2025 agenda, which calls for a weaponized Federal Communications Commission to go after “woke” and liberal media. While the FCC is independent from the White House, it won’t be under Trump 2.0 – quite the opposite. In a 2023 Truth Social post, Trump made his agenda clear: "I will bring the independent regulatory agencies such as the FCC and the FTC back under presidential authority as the Constitution demands.” Never mind that the legality of this is not clear. He also called for cutting the FCC licenses to major broadcasters like NBC and CBS for what he deemed to be biased coverage of his campaign. He threatened lawsuits and to subpoena their records. While the big networks like ABC don’t need an FCC license to broadcast, but local affiliate stations do.

Trump recently named Brendan Carr, a telecommunications attorney and the author of Project 2025’s chapter on reforming the FCC, to be its new chairman. Carr’s proposals called for revoking FCC licenses to limit “woke” voices and elevate conservative and Christian ones. He favors regulating Big Tech, and used X to call for dismantling “the censorship cartel” of the billionaire bros sucking up to Trump now: Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Google. They obviously got the message.

Project 2025 plans to curb liberal outlets like NPR, PBS, and “left of the dial” radio broadcasters by either revoking FCC licenses or demanding they pay fees – efforts to shutter their operations. Under the law, the FCC has to run proposed changes by the Department of Justice, and isn’t allowed to punish television and radio outlets for their editorial positions, apart from applying existing rules regarding obscenity. But it can use licensing to pressure stations to tow the line, and silence media voices critical of Trump 2.0 or conservative positions. You can read about these plans here, as well as the mission of overhauling the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

Meanwhile, Mora Namdar is a conservative attorney and author of the Project 2025 chapter on reforming the USAGM that oversees the Voice of America and such programs as Radio Free Europe, as well as the newly-formed Open Technology Fund (OTF). The OTF provides federal dollars for digital broadcasting, AI and programs that also interest the tech bros) All USAGM messaging is now to reflect arch-conservative America First and Christian views. Namdar’s priority is to strip NPR and PBS of funding, and get rid of liberal voices at the Voice of America. Project 2025 calls for imposing FCC broadcast fees on “left of the dial” broadcast radio stations, making it harder for stations like Pacifica Radio to operate, and limiting the reach of progressive educational content. That’s will impact lefty media voices like Amy Goodman.

Namdar even proposed that the USAGM report directly to the president and be overseen by the National Security Council, making clear the agency’s propaganda mission of serving the president. Project 2025 also mulled limiting media access to White House briefings for “liberal” media who are critical or fail to tow the line, while privileging conservative and Christian media. All signs indicate that is the agenda that will become official policy after January 20^th.

For his part, Trump has long engaged in vicious attacks on journalists, and incited crowds at his rallies to mock the “fake news” covering his campaign. In 2022, he despicably warned that prison rape would loosen reporters’ lips – a weaponizing of sexual violence on top of threats of arrest. He is also making good on threats to intimidate and silence critics with threats of defamation lawsuits. A peeved Trump recently sued The Des Moines Register, its parent company, Gannett, and pollster Ann Selzer, for publishing a pre-election poll Trump viewed as unfavorable, showing Harris ahead in Iowa. Here, the Register plans a robust legal defense what is deems a frivolous lawsuit. The bigger goal is to silence the media companies like Gannett by making it costly if they fail to defer to Trump.

A reminder from Dr. King about what’s at stake.

Then there is Project Sovereignty, the new McCarthyite blacklist project collecting and publishing dirt on over 100 alleged Trump enemies in the federal government, including whistleblowers, developed by the American Accountability Foundation. It’s operating as a dirt-digging attack dog for Trump 2.0. with $1 million from the Heritage Foundation, also helming Project 2025. Its DHS Watchlist names people across agencies and offers a public tipline for people to share any dirt they may have on federal employees, and is aiming to punish whistleblowers who share information about corruption or other wrongdoing with media.

The AAF blacklist and doxing plan is being overseen by Tom Jones, a veteran right-wing oppo researcher, and his small team. Their organization is housed in the headquarters of the Conservative Policy Institute, also linked to Project 2025. The AAF team works with close input from Trump 2.0 Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, again tapped to oversee the Office of Management and Budget, as well as now-retired ex-Senator Jim DeMint (R-KY), who founded the CPI.

Media Resistance to the New McCarthyism

#StandWithAnn. Courtesy of David Pepper’s Substack

As Trump’s circle moves to implement the Orban script and take control of the public message, while silencing critics, media and tech industry resistance is growing, some in direct relation to the crackdown. The resistance is taking different forms, and uniting groups focused on protecting first amendment rights and press freedoms, and on mobilizing a US public which is witnessing the brazen payoffs of the billionaire donor class with plum Trump 2.0 nominations. Journalists are also uniting in vocal dissent to being silenced.

WaPo’s editorial cartoonist Talnaes got strong support for quitting her job rather than accept her sketch being censored by a cowed Bezos. The Association of Editorial Cartoonists issued a strong statement in her defense, and accused the Post of “political cowardice.” Talnaes also spoke out on Substack, where other cartoonists reposted her sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn (see above). Many also released their own cartoon commentaries, expanding the critique of the billionaire bros courting Trump to secure future profits. They also began talking about organizing cartoonist resistance against future efforts to suppress progressive editorial voices.

At major newspapers, from the LA Times and WaPo to the New York Times and major broadcasters, other veteran reporters are leaving, rather than accept a muzzle by owners bending the knee to Trump 2.0. WaPo top defections benefited the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal – and increasingly, Substack. A number of top journos with big followings have joined this platform, including established names like Times’ Paul Krugman, who writes that he’s happy to be taking his proverbial gloves off to write his more open opinion columns on Substack. The platform now boasts a collective 35 million members, including 3 million paid subscribers.

Right now, the right-wing media site, The Free Press, started by Bari Weiss, is the top Substack moneymaker, with 750,000 subscribers (100,000, the rest free) that some view as a model for a fuller newsroom site. Substack’s founders have official partnered with The Free Press to pilot a new feature designed to help journos turn their site into fuller newsrooms. As it stands, there are hundreds of excellent, smaller newsrooms and a thriving press community, and many one-person publications by seasoned journos that have boosted Substack’s credibility as a growing indie alternative to legacy media. Top progressive sites include Zeteo, led by excellent journo Mehdi Hassan, with 20,000 paid subscribers and 217,000 free ones at last count, and the anti-Trump The Bulwark, which houses a range of news and opinion voices, with 39,000 paid subscribers and 283,000 free email readers.

Substack has also become a site for breaking investigative news stories. Most recently, Jeremy Cahill and Ryan Grim, well-known founders of The Intercept, launched Drop Site News, a new investigative ‘stack. Other established journos recently emigrated from Axios, CNN, The Daily Beast, and The Messenger, among others. The most successful stackers have boasted of making millions, but the majority have hundreds to thousands of readers or viewers, and earn in the thousands, not millions. More of them are also merging to expand their audiences and impact.

Others are exploring alternative tech platforms, and many publish content on various ones, including Blue Sky, Discord, Instagram and newly, WhatsApp. Then there are the many independent news programs like Laura Flanders and Friends, hosted by my longtime colleague Laura Flanders, who covers the progressive movement and champions progressive voices as a key focus of her show.

Urgently Sought: A Public Progressive News and Social Media Channel

As the crackdown fuels the growing media resistance, the call for creation of a public, progressive news site or channel has only grown more urgent, especially with the looming plans to kill or cobble the beloved public stations NPR and PBS. While many have left X and Meta, others are waiting, hoping for George Soros or another progressive donor to launch a comparable social media platform, but one that assures free speech while curbing hate speech.

Democratic officials have also been urged to consider creating a party newspaper or public site to provide informed comment that will counter the Trump 2.0 spin machine being built and amplified by the billionaire bros. Many warn that the takeover of the legacy media by far-right leaders is such a pressing threat to democracy, and, as more legacy media owners bow to Trump, demands new resources and creative approaches to keep Americans informed about issues.

Another proposal that’s being lobbed around is some structure to provide Democratic leadership views to actively counter the MAGA and Project 2025 spin. Some are hoping the Dems might create a Shadow Cabinet, with key leaders tapped to provide comments to the media to balance right wing viewpoints. Others are hoping a progressive media speaker’s bureau will be developed, to identify experts on issues and provide an informed fact-check the any Trump 2.0 spin. All of these ideas are in the hopper, as the looming Day One deadline advances. In the meantime, progressives across the US and globally are searching out new sources for information and public education, determined to defend our Constitutional right to a free press.

Some have even looked to Hungary, where press repression remains high, but new investigative news outlets like V-Square and Atlatzo are doing the work of expose and investigative journalism, calling out corruption, to hold Orban and his cronies accountable, while looking into the growing landscape of Europe’s far right populists. Global organizations including Cartoonists for Peace continue to advocate for the defense of press cartoonists. All of these media projects are gaining global audiences as they do – another encouraging development. Meanwhile, Ann Talnaes is sharing her editorial toons in her stack, Open Windows, and championing those of others.

Then there are those that say we may turn to samizdat-style underground newsletters like those made famous decades ago in Russia, and emerging encrypted digital sites that allow for more secure exchanges of communication and information. All ideas are being freshly explored. The only thing that many progressives agree upon is the necessity of speaking out, defending those being targeted, arguing with facts, and cartoon humor and wit, while advancing truth as a potent weapon against a state capture of the media.

Cartoon by Barry Blitt

Reposted courtesy of Ann Talnaes’ Jan. 6 Substack, Open Windows.