John

A few years ago, Americans laughed at North Korea’s claim that Kim Jong-Il shot 11 holes-in-one. We rolled our eyes at Saddam Hussein’s press secretary insisting “there are no American troops in Baghdad” even as tanks rolled down the street behind him.

But these days, the joke’s on us.

In my newsletter I draw a line from Nazi Germany to Trump’s America, showing how the right wing’s war on the press is pushing the United States into dangerous territory — where facts are optional, lies are rewarded, and violence against journalists is brushed aside or even encouraged.

What used to be laughable propaganda is becoming the norm. And if we don’t stop it, real journalism could become impossible in this country. You can read the rest of my piece below, but before you do, I hope you’ll consider supporting COURIER. [[link removed]]

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You may remember how Americans mocked dictator Saddam Hussein’s spokesman “Baghdad Bob,” whose last words as U.S. troops streamed into Iraq’s capital were: “There are no American troops in Baghdad!”

Or you may recall how Americans chuckled when North Korean media claimed that dictator Kim Jong-Il shot 11 holes-in-one in his first-ever round of golf.

Well, Americans are the ones deserving of mockery now. Our media are increasingly trumpeting outlandish lies and bowing to the intimidation of a fascist leader.

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Don’t just take my word for it. The Reporters Without Borders organization compiles a World Press Freedom Index that shows how the United States is slipping. On a scale of 0 to 100, Norway ranks as the top country for press freedom with a rating of 92.31. The United States went from 76.15 in 2020 to 65.49 in 2025 – from “satisfactory” to “problematic.” The United States now ranks just below Sierra Leone, Romania, and Liberia.

The American right wing’s assault on the press is a key reason for this. As Reporters Without Borders put it, Trump is "both mimicking and inspiring authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian regimes around the world" as they try to intimidate journalists.

While Trump calls the news media “the enemy of the people,” Argentina’s Javier Milei has coined his own slogan, “We don’t hate journalists enough.” Both Trump and Milei employ social media to target the press. Milei recently used X to spread a smear that a crusading journalist committed incest. Trump’s posts have denounced “media scum reporters,” saying they should be fired and their TV networks should lose their licenses.

And it’s not just threats – it’s violence, such as a reporter of Pacific islander descent surviving a strangulation attack by a Colorado man who allegedly said, “This is Trump’s America now.” Trump himself praised a Montana politician for a criminal assault on a reporter, telling a crowd in 2018, “Any guy who can do a body slam is my kind of guy.” Violence against the media has long been a go-to tactic for tyrants, from Uganda’s Idi Amin to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Trump’s friends in the Saudi royal family.

Another pressure point for authoritarians involves government regulation. Trump uses the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to harass journalists, just as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán sics his Sovereignty Protection Office on them and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suspends media from government advertising if he doesn’t like what they report.

Dictators also use the courts. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally who calls himself “the world’s coolest dictator,” has criminally targeted journalists who reported on his ties to gang leaders. Trump has baselessly accused MSNBC of “illegal political activity,” but so far, he has preferred civil lawsuits to indictments. In effect, Trump is running an extortion scheme: He files frivolous lawsuits against news outlets and then uses the FCC regulatory hammer to force them to settle.

The control of media by oligarchs – and the dictators’ control of the oligarchs – has severely limited the availability of trustworthy news in countries like Hungary and Russia. And increasingly in the United States, as evidenced by the recent capitulation of CBS News.

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The trend lines for American journalism are alarming. Truth-tellers get fired, while those who normalize the rise of fascism get ahead. Journalists who cover White House briefings have to compete with ringers in their midst – right-wing propagandists asking absurd questions. And official statistics that news outlets have long relied upon have been undermined by Trump’s dishonesty.

It’s reasonable to fear that real journalism will become impossible in the United States.

Now I’m going to bring up the Nazis. Some people hate that, but I do so because it’s the most widely understood fascist movement in history. One reason it led to such a human disaster was the subjugation of the media, and we’re hearing the echoes today.

Two years before Adolf Hitler took power, his aide Joseph Goebbels personally led the sabotage of a premiere of the anti-war film “All Quiet on the Western Front." Goebbels’ Nazis released hundreds of white mice into the audience, threw stink bombs, and provoked fistfights. A similar kind of thuggery would be displayed nine decades later by Trump’s Jan. 6 mob.

When Hitler took power in 1933, the Nazis controlled just 3% of the 4,700 newspapers published in Germany. A dozen years later, only 1,100 remained, all under Nazi oversight. Any reporting “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home” was banned. That kind of “everything is awesome” groupthink doesn't sound much different from what the Washington Post declared for its opinion section last month – that it would "communicate with optimism about this country.”

When Goebbels became propaganda minister, he appreciated the media’s subservience, but was disappointed by their dullness. He ordered them to summon the “courage to criticize constructively” and make their publications more vibrant. But when journalist Ehm Welk took heed and wrote an editorial mildly criticizing Goebbels, his newspaper was shuttered for three months, and he was sent to a concentration camp. A similar brand of hypocrisy was displayed nine decades later when Trump donor Elon Musk posed as a champion of free speech while silencing voices on X that he disagreed with.

The 1938 pogrom against Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes known as Kristallnacht was orchestrated by Nazi leaders nationwide, but was depicted by Goebbels’ media as a “spontaneous demonstration” by the German people. Likewise, eight decades later, Jan. 6 was a “normal tourist visit.”

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. When the news industry is populated by dictator-appeasing shills, even the fascists don’t respect them. In a 1943 diary entry, Goebbels wrote: "Any man who still has a residue of honor will be very careful not to become a journalist.”

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