Analysis

  • Trump Seizes Control of Who Covers the President

    BRIAN SNYDER

    REUTERS

    The pool has traditionally been overseen by the WHCA to ensure that access isn’t limited to those covering the sitting administration favorably.

    Published On: 02/25/2025

  • A Conspiracy Theorist Is Now Helping Run the FBI

    DAVID GILBERT

    Wired

    Dan Bongino rose through the ranks of right-wing media thanks to his unflinching loyalty to Donald Trump and willingness to push baseless conspiracies—including about the FBI.

    Published On: 02/24/2025

  • How Trump Could Use a Crisis to End American Democracy

    THOM HARTMANN

    The Hartmann Report

    There’s a long history of leaders using national emergencies to raise their popularity, expand their own power, overwhelm opposition politicians, scapegoat minorities, suspend constitutions and elections, and provide a legal façade for ending or weakening democracy.

    Published On: 02/24/2025

  • Federal Workers Fear DOGE Is Watching Their Every Move

    Paresh Dave, Dell Cameron, Alexa O'Brien

    Wired

    A federal law enforcement source warns that monitoring could theoretically be used to gather political intelligence on federal employees, while the administration looks for more palatable reasons to terminate them later; similar to how law enforcement may obtain evidence that's inadmissible in the course of a criminal investigation, but then search for another evidentiary basis to file charges.

    Published On: 02/21/2025

  • How Trump Is Dismantling Press Freedom in America

    Clayton Weimers

    Reporters Without Borders

    The newly-elected president, his administration, and his political allies have conducted a rapid series of attacks on press freedom that amount to a monumental assault on freedom of information.

    Published On: 02/19/2025

  • When Courts Fail: The Case for Civil Shutdown

    David Remnick

    The New Yorker

    Anthony Romero, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, talks about what he thinks could happen if the Trump Administration defies the authority of the courts.

    Published On: 02/16/2025

  • Two-Party Rules Are Breaking American Democracy

    The Center for Ballot Freedom

    The Ticket

    Without a healthy party system, you’re basically left with either violence or autocracy as the way disagreements get resolved.

    Published On: 02/14/2025

  • How Russia Quietly Shapes Western Elections

    Oana Popescu-Zamfir

    carnegieendowment

    Russia pursues a systematic strategy of undermining elections and influencing public opinion in the West. EU and NATO countries must recognize that Moscow often acts through agents within their own borders, and build resilience to such interference.

    Published On: 02/13/2025

  • Musk’s Playbook: Payments, Power, and Neoreaction

    Dave Troy

    The Washington Spectator

    ...Congress is baffled as to why Musk is doing all of this, and what he possibly wants from access to sensitive data including US Treasury records on social security numbers, bank routing and account numbers, healthcare data, and Department of Energy information on nuclear weapons. He has given free rein to a group of 20-ish boys — tech enthusiasts with no training or relevant experience — so they can “improve” things and harvest information.

    Published On: 02/12/2025

  • How Trump’s Aid Freeze Hands a Win to Propagandists

    Harriet Barber, Rebecca Ratcliffe and Deepa Parent

    The Guardian

    From Ukraine to Afghanistan, independent media organisations across the world are being forced to lay off staff or shut down after losing USAid funding.

    Published On: 02/12/2025

  • How Musk’s DOGE Quietly Privatized Federal Power

    Gil Duran

    thenerdreich.com

    Memo details how Elon Musk has orchestrated a stunning takeover of the U.S. government

    Published On: 02/10/2025

  • When Algorithms Replace Democracy

    Mike Brock

    notesfromthecircus.com

    Teams of young tech operatives are systematically dismantling democratic institutions and replacing them with proprietary artificial intelligence systems. Civil servants who raise legal objections are being removed. Government databases are being migrated to private servers. Decision-making power is being transferred from elected officials and career bureaucrats to algorithms controlled by a small network of Silicon Valley elites.

    Published On: 02/08/2025

  • Neo-Nazis Cash In as Meta Ignores Its Own Rules

    Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

    globalextremism.org

    In this new more permissive online environment, an investigation by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) has discovered neo-Nazi activity flourishing on Instagram, including degrading hate speech, antisemitic conspiracism, and even Nazi symbols being used to sell merchandise.

    Published On: 02/06/2025

  • How the Media Is Failing Democracy in Real Time

    Oliver Darcy

    Status

    After years of warnings about what Donald Trump would do if he returned to power, the president is dismantling institutions, warping law enforcement agencies, seeking retribution on his critics, treating undocumented immigrants with cruelty, imposing and threatening seismic tariffs, and openly musing about seizing foreign territories. The American experiment is convulsing before our eyes.

    And yet, you wouldn't quite realize it from the tone of the news coverage.

    Published On: 02/05/2025

  • Trump’s Press Lawsuits Are About Fear, Not Facts

    CHRIS LEHMANN

    The Nation

    Trump’s courts-based intimidation campaign against the press descends from handiwork of one of his most prominent Silicon Valley backers, venture capitalist and neo-reactionary ghoul Peter Thiel.

    Published On: 02/03/2025

Resources