FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s threat to ABC was the stuff of Hollywood cliché: “We can do this the easy way,” the Trump appointee said in a recent interview , “or the hard way.” In the preceding days, the network’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! had become a target of conservative ire over Kimmel’s remarks on the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. So, with its affiliates’ broadcast licenses imperiled, ABC and its parent company, Disney, had opted for the easy way. Later that day, the network announced the indefinite suspension of Kimmel’s show—now quasi/overturned largely due to public pressure and protest.
The Trump administration and its MAGA devotees have carried out an astonishing attack on free expression in the weeks following Kirk’s horrific murder. Workers ranging from journalists to airline employees have been fired, and students expelled. Thirty-three House Republicans have called for the creation of a select committee to probe the “radical left’s assault on America.” Attorney General Pam Bondi promised, and then walked back, patently unconstitutional hate speech prosecution. Meanwhile, at the newly rechristened Department of War, journalists must function as Pentagon stenographers or risk losing their press passes. And, as guest host of Kirk’s podcast, Vice President JD Vance personally attacked The Nation’s journalism and spread misinformation about the magazine’s funding.
In his remarks at Kirk’s memorial service Sunday, Trump dismissed his critics as merely “screaming fascism over a canceled late-night TV show where the anchor had no talent and no ratings.” However, the right is clearly using Kirk’s death as cover for escalating the repressive tactics that have marked the second Trump term. Since his inauguration, the president has presided over a regime of government suppression unseen in the US for decades—a regime designed to chill activism and dissent.
The administration has pursued wide-ranging assaults on the media. In February, the White House blocked the AP from its presidential press pool because of the news agency’s refusal to adopt Trump’s “Gulf of America” coinage. Later, the administration seized control of pool assignments from the White House Correspondents’ Association. HuffPost and Reuters were out—Newsmax and The Blaze, in.
Last week, on the heels of his lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, the president sued The New York Times for defamation. (A judge promptly dismissed the Times case, though Trump reportedly plans to refile.) Experts agree that his suits against news outlets are meritless, yet ABC and CBS’s parent companies settled with the president for the tidy sums of $15 million and $16 million apiece.
CBS delivered another line item on Trump’s media suppression wish list when it canceled Stephen Colbert’s Late Show this summer, and 60 Minutes’ top producer quit, citing infringement on the program’s journalistic independence. Outlets beyond US borders are feeling the squeeze, too: The administration is pushing to shorten the length of international journalist visas from five years to only 240 days.
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Universities and museums are also among the administration’s many targets. The Smithsonian’s exhibits are currently under review, as the White House scours them for evidence of “woke” thought crimes, like paying undue attention to slavery. In its war on universities, the administration is holding federal funding hostage and threatening schools’ tax-exempt status, all in an attempt to bend higher education towards its conservative ideological goals.
The institutional wreckage is vast, but individuals have not been spared, either. Earlier this month, UC Berkeley notified 160 students and faculty, including acclaimed philosopher Judith Butler, that their names had been delivered to the Trump administration in connection with unspecified allegations of antisemitism. “Will I now be branded on a government list?” Butler asked in a letter published in The Nation, “Will my travel be restricted? Will I be surveilled?” And just last week, a judge ordered the deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and the husband and father of US citizens.
Nor are the rights of citizenship inviolable. Florida Representative Brian Mast introduced a bill that initially featured a provision granting Secretary of State Marco Rubio the authority to revoke the passports of American citizens accused of supporting terrorism. After critics pointed out that the provision could be used to police political speech, Mast proposed an amendment repealing it.
Jobs lost, papers revoked, names compiled: America has been in similar territory before. During the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, millions of federal workers were vetted for potential communist associations; 2,700 were fired, and 12,000 more resigned. In Hollywood, hundreds were blacklisted, while university professors were dragged before the House Un-American Activities Committee. When playwright Arthur Miller—a longtime contributor to The Nation—applied for a passport in 1954, his application was denied because the State Department suspected that he harbored communist sympathies. Miller had wanted to visit Belgium to see a production of his now-classic McCarthy-era allegory, The Crucible.
The witch hunts subsided with the help of those who, when forced to choose between the easy way and the hard way, mustered the courage to take the latter path. Broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and his network, CBS, played an important role, producing a series of searing reports on Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting demagoguery. But thousands of everyday Americans also braved the political headwinds to fight censorship and restore freedom of speech. In 1954, after Republicans lost the midterm elections, the Senate censured McCarthy. Twenty-two of his fellow Republican senators joined with Democrats to condemn him.
Dissent is always possible. A few weeks ago congressional Democrats pledged to introduce a bill to strengthen legal protections for individuals politically persecuted by the government. With the party out of power, the move is largely symbolic. However, given the Trump administration’s efforts to cow its political rivals into silence, even symbolic opposition is preferable to none at all. Liberal nonprofits have also banded together to fundraise in support of democracy-bolstering efforts, such as waging legal challenges to Trump administration policies.
In an editorial on McCarthy, Murrow urged Americans not to be “driven by fear into an age of unreason.” It’s difficult not to feel that we’re currently living through such an age. But America’s witch hunt fever has broken before—and it will again.
Don’t let JD Vance silence our independent journalism
On September 15, Vice President JD Vance attacked The Nation while hosting The Charlie Kirk Show.
In a clip seen millions of times, Vance singled out The Nation in a dog whistle to his far-right followers. Predictably, a torrent of abuse followed.
Throughout our 160 years of publishing fierce, independent journalism, we’ve operated with the belief that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. We’ve been criticized by both Democratic and Republican officeholders—and we’re pleased that the White House is reading The Nation. As long as Vance is free to criticize us and we are free to criticize him, the American experiment will continue as it should.
To correct the record on Vance’s false claims about the source of our funding: The Nation is proudly reader-supported by progressives like you who support independent journalism and won’t be intimidated by those in power.
Vance and Trump administration officials also laid out their plans for widespread repression against progressive groups. Instead of calling for national healing, the administration is using Kirk’s death as pretext for a concerted attack on Trump’s enemies on the left.
Now we know The Nation is front and center on their minds.
Your support today will make our critical work possible in the months and years ahead. If you believe in the First Amendment right to maintain a free and independent press, please donate today.
With gratitude,
Bhaskar Sunkara
President, The Nation
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