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With the world on fire, a cowardly, timid news media is a threat to U.S. democracy (www.inquirer.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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News organizations are using cowardly words to describe killing abroad, fascism at home — downplaying the danger to democracy.

There was a shocking and incredibly important story on the front page of the New York Times last week. As reported by an A-team of journalists including two Pulitzer Prize winners, the Times warned its readers that Donald Trump — if returned to the White House in 2025 — is grooming a new team of extremist government lawyers who would be more loyal to their Dear Leader than to the rule of law, and could help Trump install a brand of American fascism.

You say you didn’t hear anything about this? That’s not surprising. The editors at the Times made sure to present this major report in the blandest, most inoffensive way possible — staying true to the mantra in the nation’s most influential newsroom that the 2024 election shouldn’t be covered any differently, even when U.S. democracy is on the line.

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The 3 independent Pillars of Democracy are the Press Pillar, the Judicial Pillar and the Political Pillar.

They're supposed to watch over each other because there is a pragmatic expectation even in Democracy that some amongst those holding power will be crooked or become crooker (after all "power corrupts"), hence the 3 independent pillars to solve the whole "who watches the watchers" problem.

(If you look at even the supposedly most well intentioned implementations of ideologies other than Democracy, you see all of them failing because power becomes concentrated in a single nexus, then naturally corrupted and then the crooks just entrench themselves and make sure they're immune to the Law and will never lose Power)

If you have lots of money and want to subvert the mechanics of how citizens have some control over the highest powers of the land in a Democracy, the easiest way by far is to buy the Press. Once the Press is bought, the politicians can be bought all the while electors are blissfully unware of it because the Press won't report it. If the Judicial Pillar is not independent of the Political Pillar (for example, because judges are positions of political nomination and/or politicians control the purse strings of the Judiciary Pillar), then you end up with a system were Democracy is but theatre.

The Power Of Citizens having been neutred through these mechanics, the highest power of the land becomes the Power Of Money.

Welcome the the US of A!

(Far from the only one, I might add, but probably the most further ahead in terms of the Power Of Citizens having been nullified)