From CBS to TikTok, American media is falling into the hands of Trump’s allies. This is how democracy collapses Owen Jones
DDemocracy may be dying in the United States. Whether the patient receives timely emergency treatment will determine whether the condition becomes terminal. Before Donald Trump returned to the presidency, she warned of an “European turn” – a reference to Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orban. There, democracy was eliminated not by firing squads or mass imprisonment of dissidents, but by slow attrition. The electoral system has been distorted, civil society has been targeted, and the media has been quietly co-opted by pro-Orban magnates.
Nine months later, the European transition is in full swing across the Atlantic. Billionaire Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, and his director son David have become sharp instruments in the process. Trump is bragging They are my “friends – they are my biggest supporters.” Larry Ellison, second only to Elon Musk as the richest man in the world Tens of millions poured To Republican coffers. Shortly after the 2020 election, he joined a call to discuss the matter Challenging legitimacy from voting. His son David has a history of supporting Democrats — but at one point, so did Trump, his daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
In August, David Ellison’s Skydance Media acquired Paramount Global with financial backing from his father, leaving him as president and CEO of the new entity. Beyond a wide swath of Hollywood, this acquisition led to control of CBS News – one of the “Big Three” networks in the United States. During the last elections, Trump demanded to CBS She lost her broadcast license over alleged political bias, and even sued the network over what she called a flattering edit of Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview. His mood has improved since then. Ellison ‘will do the right thing’ by the network, Trump shouted When ownership was transferred. His optimism was quickly proven: A Certain Trump He was appointed CBS ombudsman to monitor “bias,” and Barry Weiss—a former Democrat turned anti-crusader—was named editor-in-chief.
Now, Trump officials are making it known that they also support Paramount Skydance’s purchase of Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of HBO and CNN. “Who owns Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is very important to management.” A senior Trump official The governor told the New York Post. The pro-Trump newspaper reported that rival bidders would face “regulatory hurdles,” with WBD’s CEO having to consider the Trump administration’s willingness to crack down on what it sees as rampant left-wing bias across mainstream media.
Meanwhile, Larry Ellison is also leading a group of investors set to take over TikTok’s US operations, with other partners including Rupert Murdoch and the Abu Dhabi government-owned investment firm. Although much of Trump’s criticism of TikTok has focused on China, major Maga figures such as Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio They called for the app to be banned due to “anti-Israel” bias, and for young Americans to shift their sympathies toward the Palestinians. Ellison is an ardent supporter of Israel, having previously donated millions of dollars to its military through the nonprofit Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. They will be happy to take charge.
In 2015, Safra Katz, Oracle’s Israeli-American CEO and former CEO, reportedly told former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak In an email message “We believe we must embed love and respect for Israel in American culture.” Oracle will It has oversight For the TikTok algorithm.
But this goes much further than the Ellison family’s acquisitions. Trump threatened Meta company owner Mark Zuckerberg that he would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he crossed him. The social media mogul doesn’t have much to worry about now, after doing his best to cozy up to the administration. He abandoned third-party fact-checking in the United States, dropped restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, and appointed Trump supporters As Chairman of Global Affairs and Executive Board. At the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, columnist Karen Attia says she was fired for “speaking out against political violence, racist double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns” after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Liberal comedian Jimmy Kimmel His ABC show was suspended after the pro-Trump chairman demanded action from the Federal Communications Commission. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — long viewed as hostile by Trump — has been defunded and shuttered. Management took control Which media organizations can reach the White House, and fire the Associated Press. American media They were stripped of their Pentagon credentials after refusing to report only officially authorized information issued by the Department of Defense. Trump’s lawsuits against media organizations have scared them even more.
It’s beyond the media’s control. Watch Trump deploy the National Guard in Democratic strongholds and Central control On the elections. Republicans have fired new cheat attacks, While demanding the withdrawal of citizenship and deportation of the socialist candidate for mayor of New York, Zahran Mamdani, as Trump threatens to stop funding the city if he wins. And in Hungary, too, Orbán Financing is reduced For opposition mayors. Opponents are threatened with arrest: arch warmonger John Bolton may be a political abomination, but the charges against him are a harbinger of worse to come. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategic advisor He claims there is a plan to circumvent the constitution to allow his former boss to serve a third term. We can keep going.
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American democracy has always been deeply flawed. It’s so fake In favor of the wealthy elites, as a detailed academic study in 2014 found that the political system is rigged in favor of what the economic elites want. But because the United States, unlike Hungary, had no history of dictatorship, with a system of supposed checks and balances, some felt it could never surrender to tyranny. This complacency has collided with brutal reality. In just nine months, the United States has drifted toward the authoritarian abyss. Warning: Trump has 39 months left in office.