Hey, would you believe me if I told you that the President signed an executive order on February 18th that gives Trump, a guy who tried to make election officials declare him the winner of an election he lost (and launched a coup attempt when that didn't work) and has been talking about shutting down media organizations that criticize him, essentially complete control over the previously independent Federal Election Commission and Federal Communications Commission? I mean probably not right, since for-profit media has barely covered the issue even though it has a direct impact on their industry. Unfortunately, it's true:
https://truthout.org/articles/independent-agencies-oversee-elections-and-media-trumps-seizing-their-reins/
Independent Agencies Oversee Elections and Media. Trump’s Seizing Their Reins.
"The order states that, “The heads of independent regulatory agencies shall establish a position of White House Liaison in their respective agencies,” and goes on to say: “Independent regulatory agency chairmen shall submit agency strategic plans … to the Director of OMB for clearance prior to finalization.” In other words, independent agencies will no longer be independent but will instead be ruled over by political commissars, their every action now scrutinized to make sure they are ideologically sympatico to the aims of the MAGA movement.
Two of the agencies subject to this new system are the Federal Election Commission (FEC) — a historically bipartisan, six-member organization that helps to set ground rules for how elections are run and financed — and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which, among other things, controls access to the country’s airwaves.
Trump has been angling for control of both of these agencies since the start of his administration."
Is any of this legal? Who the hell knows; but are you willing to bet a 6-3 fascist-high Supreme Court that has already endorsed the idea that Trump is above the law and the existence of an imperial presidency, are likely to stop him? I'm certainly not. Furthermore, to mount any sort of mass resistance to this type of "classic" fascist power grab ultimately targeting elections and media criticism of the regime, you'd probably have to know it's happening and understand why this executive order might be the single most dangerous thing Trump has signed since he took office again; and clearly for-profit media and a political class doing more collaborating with fascism than resisting it, don't consider informing you about this very relevant right now.
Folks, I dunno about you but I'm getting tired of waiting around for Trump to find his Reichstag Fire and finish crafting a multi-executive order version of the German Enabling Act while Very Serious PeopleTM keep pretending we don't know if Trump is going to go full Hitler and mustn't presume he means to do everything he openly says he's doing. We all heard this guy on tape pressuring election officials and even GOP Governors to "find" him thousands of votes and effectively rig the 2020 election for him. We're all watching as his Project 2025 nazi minion Brendan Carr uses his newfound powers as head of the FCC to threaten the broadcast licenses of media orgs that criticize him, try to shut down PBS and NPR, and even investigate media companies that the regime claims "promote diversity" like that's some kind of crime. So when Trump, the imperial president, passes an executive order that gives him complete effective control of the agencies that regulate American elections and what passes for the "free press" in the United States, you'd have to some kind of credulous rube to believe he's doing so for any other purpose besides rigging elections for fascists and eliminating whatever portions of the US media there are that won't carry water for the fascist administration and the odious ideology animating it. There's not a lotta wiggle room here; either you're a complete fucking muppet, or you're willing to quietly bootlick for a fascist President while he rips pages directly from Hitler's playbook to create his very own American Pork Reich.
I guess the only question left then, is which of those two possibilities best describes an American political and media class supposedly opposed to Trump's fascist regime, that doesn't want to talk about it before it's too late to stop him?
