This piece articulates what many of us have long suspected but struggled to say aloud without being dismissed as alarmists: the mask is off. Trump is no longer dog-whistling. He’s using a bullhorn.
One of the reasons this threat feels unreal to so many is the way it’s covered—if it’s covered at all. Since the Fairness Doctrine was discarded, right-wing media has cultivated an entire worldview rooted in grievance and persecution, unchallenged by even the pretense of balance. Meanwhile, legacy media—once the cultural counterweight to authoritarian movements—has been turned into a for-profit industry, owned by billionaires who have a vested interest in preventing systemic reform.
What should be front-page headlines—calls for dictatorship, overt plans for mass incarceration, fascist rhetoric from political leaders—are flattened into “both sides” talking points or buried beneath click-driven fluff. When you control both the narrative and the attention economy, you don’t need to censor dissent—you simply make it invisible.
That invisibility is the real danger. Media outlets afraid of being seen as partisan normalize the abnormal until the public forgets what normal ever was. And those with editorial control—often the same individuals hoarding the nation’s wealth—have little incentive to shine a light on movements that threaten democracy, but protect their class interests.
This isn't just institutional failure. It's complicity. And the cost of that complicity may be democracy itself.
Steve, I think this explains the phenomena and its cause and effects very well. We continue to head in the wrong direction when you add in AI - that just automates the functions you describe. I discuss these issues here
so?
cowboy up.
This piece articulates what many of us have long suspected but struggled to say aloud without being dismissed as alarmists: the mask is off. Trump is no longer dog-whistling. He’s using a bullhorn.
One of the reasons this threat feels unreal to so many is the way it’s covered—if it’s covered at all. Since the Fairness Doctrine was discarded, right-wing media has cultivated an entire worldview rooted in grievance and persecution, unchallenged by even the pretense of balance. Meanwhile, legacy media—once the cultural counterweight to authoritarian movements—has been turned into a for-profit industry, owned by billionaires who have a vested interest in preventing systemic reform.
What should be front-page headlines—calls for dictatorship, overt plans for mass incarceration, fascist rhetoric from political leaders—are flattened into “both sides” talking points or buried beneath click-driven fluff. When you control both the narrative and the attention economy, you don’t need to censor dissent—you simply make it invisible.
That invisibility is the real danger. Media outlets afraid of being seen as partisan normalize the abnormal until the public forgets what normal ever was. And those with editorial control—often the same individuals hoarding the nation’s wealth—have little incentive to shine a light on movements that threaten democracy, but protect their class interests.
This isn't just institutional failure. It's complicity. And the cost of that complicity may be democracy itself.
Steve, I think this explains the phenomena and its cause and effects very well. We continue to head in the wrong direction when you add in AI - that just automates the functions you describe. I discuss these issues here
https://milab.substack.com/p/ai-war-love-and-breaking-the-machine