He threatened the press, joked about ruling for life and bullied everyone, including the allies who helped him get into office, while enjoying a cult following among his base. When a special judicial investigation threatened to reveal his financial corruption and complicity in criminal acts, he did not hesitate to destroy the democracy he led to remain in power. Benito Mussolini created the world’s first Fascist dictatorship not just as a counter to the powerful Italian left — that’s a well-known story — but also as a desperate act to avoid prosecution. His time as prime minister of a coalition government (Oct. 31, 1922-Jan. 3, 1925) offers lessons in how democracies die and autocracies are born. Mussolini pioneered the mix of persuasion and intimidation that autocrats have employed ever since to come to power. From 1919 to 1922 he used paramilitary violence to destabilize Italy, creating the perception of a void of leadership that he alone could fill. In October 1922, an intimidated king and commander in chief, Victor Emmanuel III, offered him the premiership. Over the next two years, Mussolini undermined the institutions and culture of Italian democracy persistently and methodically. He denounced any negative press coverage of him as “abusive” and “criminal,” and demanded that the offending reporters and editors be fired. In Parliament he made offhand remarks about abolishing the constitution, creating a secret police and becoming a dictator. He dismissed officials who were insufficiently servile.
Much in this sad tale may sound familiar to those who have watched President Trump degrade the culture and institutions of American democracy and seek to eliminate anyone who obstructs the expansion of his power. From his calls to have his political opponent in the 2016 election, Hilary Clinton, imprisoned, to his firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, Trump has followed the authoritarian playbook first written by Mussolini. And of course Trump, too, is plagued by an investigation: special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in his election. Trump’s recent contention that he has the “absolute right” to pardon himself, discussions of his loyalists about firing Mueller or worse, and the (quickly retracted) comment of his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that Trump could murder Comey and escape prosecution not only illuminate the president’s horizon of anti-democratic possibilities but also open a door that leads directly to the origins of dictatorial rule. It is indeed high time for Americans to sit up and listen carefully when the president tells them what he would like to do to expand his authority, whether it is removing limits on his time to govern, censoring the media or putting his political opponents in jail. We can’t protect our republic if we don’t take seriously those who threaten it, especially when they behave in such a chillingly similar fashion to those who have destroyed democracy in the past.
Trump has made his affection for authoritarians — from the Philippines’ Duterte to Turkey’s Erdogan to China’s Xi — well known. While he fights with American allies, he lavishes praise on Vladimir Putin, who he has discussed approvingly more than 80 times since 2013. This included such gems as, “You have to give [Putin] credit that what he’s doing for that country in terms of their world prestige is very strong” and praising the Russian dictator’s “very strong control over [his] country.” Trump not only admires dictators, he envies them. Surely stinging over Kim’s state-run media coverage, Trump tweeted after his Singapore visit: “Our Country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools.” Yes, Trump views the media as a far bigger enemy than North Korea. Achieving his larger goal of destroying any sense of truth — which all authoritarians aspire to do — requires he destroy the institution that keeps pointing out that he is an inveterate liar. As he told CBS’s Lesley Stahl, his attacks are meant to “discredit” reporters so that people won’t believe negative stories about him.
Or as Yale historian Timothy Snyder writes in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, “post-truth is pre-fascism.” Snyder describes fascist tactics to destroy truth, such as “shamanic incantation,” which involves the endless repetition of slogans and “self-deifying claims,” such as “I alone can solve it,” which are clearly nonsense — but supporters don’t care, because they are under the thrall of magical thinking. A key authoritarian tactic is governance by spectacle, which “makes people excited positively or negatively so that we forget government is supposed to be making policy and instead get angry at one another,” Snyder told me in an interview. Seen through this prism it’s clear that Trump’s Twitter feed is meant to keep everyone on edge, constantly upending news cycles and sending reporters down pointless rabbit holes chasing non-stories while the world burns around us. It’s likely that Trump’s model is Russia, a crony-capitalist system that enriches the leader and people close to him who are freed of the burden of the institutions that would hold them accountable. “The president is borrowing tactics straight from the Putin playbook,” Freedom House President Michael Abramowitz told me. “He’s attacking the press and civil society, deriding verifiable facts as fake news, demonizing groups and institutions. Putin was Trump before Trump.”
How did we end up with this kind of leader? We hear a lot about Trump voters being motivated by economic anxiety and not enough about the psychological factors, including a predisposition to favor authoritarian leaders, that played a far bigger role in his election than any fears about one’s economic future. Most authoritarianism experts will tell you that warnings of the autocrat-in-waiting’s plans were out in the open, but people failed to take them seriously or believed the country’s institutions served as a bulwark or cast those posting warnings as hysterical. Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen warns, Believe the autocrat. He means what he says.” Put another way: people will always tell you who they are. You just need to be willing to listen.
As a public official, I have been on the receiving end of tough questions from the media. While I cannot say it is always fun, there can be no doubt that a strong and free press is necessary for the well-being of our citizens and for the stability and strength of our democracy. Our nation’s founders understood that self-governance requires an independent press in order for citizens to engage in free debate, exchange ideas, make informed decisions, and hold government accountable.
But today, the freedom of the press as enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution is under an unprecedented array of attacks. There has been a rise in claims of “fake news” against legitimate news organizations, and also a rise in actual disinformation, created by provocateurs, partisans, foreign nations, and conspiracy theorists. Newsrooms are being depleted – especially at the local level. And perhaps most troubling of all, this president has called the press the “enemy of the American people.” It would be a mistake to consider these attacks as only focused on a single reporter, news outlet, or even just one industry. No, these attacks on the freedom and vitality of the press are attacks on the very core of our democracy – our freedom, and our capacity for governance. Thus, they are attacks on each and every one of us.
Newspaper circulation has declined by an average of 4.2 percent per year in the past nine years. The percentage of adults who use at least one social media website has increased from 38 percent to 68 percent, and the percentage of adults who primarily receive their news from social media is at a record 62%. In this age of division, where we have the ability to self-select our news and block out information that is inconsistent with our worldview, we must have a serious discussion about the role of journalism and the media in our democracy and in our society. A recent Gallup poll showed that 43 percent of Americans believe that the news media is doing a poor job supporting our democracy. Additionally, the United States’ standing in a recent survey of global press freedom has once again fallen, while animosity toward journalists around the globe has grown.
How can we ensure that our citizens have the tools and skills that they need to differentiate between real news and fake news? To differentiate between uncomfortable facts and statements that are not based in reality? We need to have a national discussion about how to support journalism not just in Washington, D.C., but also in state capitals and towns across our country. And in the face of various attacks, we must reaffirm our commitment to protecting the freedom of the press as part of the very bedrock on which the United States of America is built. To continue as a free and strong country, we must do better. We must rediscover and recommit ourselves to the value of truth, so that Americans trust the organizations that are working to ensure that our people are free and the powerful are accountable.
Fox News got an earful from media analyst for the Baltimore Sun David Zurawik Wednesday. Speaking with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin Wednesday, Zurawik said that Fox News’ media strategy of sucking up to President Donald Trump is going to bite them. “It’s a bad strategy. It looks good now, ’cause they have ratings,” he said. “But I don’t think there’s any thinking person in this country that doesn’t believe Trump’s going to end up in infamy and if you’re in bed with him as a media company the way Fox News has become, you’re going to live with that stain. You’re gonna destroy your brand even with your base.” “Their primetime lineup… is straight propaganda, it’s propaganda puppets, it’s unbelievable,” he added. “It’s like a communist country when you watch that show. It’s beyond state TV.” Zurawik then called out Tucker Carlson in particular for telling his viewers to believe no other newscaster but him, adding that former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for employing the same tactic. “They have so polarized the conversation. And to see Corey Lewandowski going womp womp was the last straw. It was such outrage.”
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