Dear Progressive Reader,

Donald Trump has begun announcing his choices for various cabinet positions and other jobs in a newly restructured federal government. A new President normally has more than 4,000 positions to fill, with about 1,300 of those requiring confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Trump has already signaled that he hopes to circumvent this confirmation process through “recess appointments” when the Senate is not in session. This tactic may be particularly important in the nomination of federal judges, who have lifetime appointments. A large group of Trump-appointed judges may be key to Trump’s ability to push through various policy initiatives since in his first term (2017-2021) a large number of those were blocked by judges in federal courts.

States are also preparing to respond to Trump policies during his upcoming term. In Wisconsin, state Attorney General Josh Kaul said last week, “If the new Administration infringes upon the freedoms of Wisconsinites or attempts to use our system of justice as a tool for vengeance, we will act . . . to uphold equal justice under the law.” Similar statements have been made by officials in Illinois and Washington State, and California Governor Gavin Newsom has called the state legislature into special session to allocate funds for court challenges to Trump’s potential policies and actions.

Other groups and sectors of society are also preparing to face attacks from a second Trump Administration. The news media, especially independent news organizations that have been critical of Trump are also bracing for blowback from a President who has promised “retribution.” As I wrote in 2017, Trump’s attacks on the press in his first term had international impact as well, giving authoritarian leaders in other countries permission to go after their own “enemies” in the media. Nobel Prize-winning Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, in her 2022 book How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future, says, “Autocrats are using technology better, spying on journalists and human rights activists with impunity. And they are learning from one another, perfecting the dictator’s playbook.” Trump has threatened changes to libel laws in order to go after individual journalists and news organizations, and while H.R. 9495, a bill that would have allowed Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury to strip nonprofit status from individual independent media organizations has been temporarily stopped in the U.S. House of Representatives, the concern remains. Additionally, Project 2025 specifically targets funding for NPR, PBS, and Pacifica radio by name. As the Columbia Journalism Review notes this week, “Loosening the federal libel laws that Trump has called a ‘shame and a disgrace’ will require an act of Congress. But, failing that, Trump prevailing in his open defamation cases could prompt other outlets to shy away from publishing harsh criticism.” The Progressive and our peer media organizations are engaged in active conversations on these topics with the determination of protecting what Sherif Mansour of the Committee to Protect Journalists has called the “firewall of democracy.”

This week on our website, Chris Edelson looks at the ways Donald Trump is borrowing from “the dictator’s playbook;” Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies ask the question of how an incoming Trump Administration will deal with the world’s wars; and Samer Badawi reports on how the video streaming service Netflix is removing Palestinian content from its platform. Plus, Eleanor Bader reviews the new book, We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition; and Melania Murphy provides a review of The Three Melissas: A Practical Guide to Surviving Family Homelessness. Also, Basav Sen pens an op-ed on the failures of “carbon capture” as a method to combat climate change; Katy Nightingale tells her own story of choosing to leave the United States in order to build a new life in another country; and ecologist Amy McEuen opines on the importance of planting seeds, even after a political defeat. “My experience and education,” she writes, “give me faith in the power of small acts. At this moment, that faith is badly needed.”

Finally, today marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the murder in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests and two women who worked for them. It is a story I have covered extensively since 1989, and on this day I always remember those events and the quest for justice in El Salvador and around the globe.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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