To Defend Democracy From Trump, the Mainstream Press Must Cover Peoples’ Movements

A lawless madman, with cunning political skills, is at large in our White House. After less than five days in office, he has set a record for flamboyantly issued executive orders, many violative of federal statutes and the Constitution.

A partial list: He has withdrawn the U.S. from the World Health Organization (e.g., damaging international coordination regarding pandemics), quit the Paris climate accords (e.g., nations working together against climate violence), selected corporate ideologues to run regulatory agencies (the purpose of which is to save lives, prevent injuries, and stop consumer rip-offs), unleashed ICE to crash schools looking for undocumented kids to take away, threatened the media, readied more tax cuts for the super-rich and big companies, and halted the hiring of IRS staff needed to stop massive tax evasions by the plutocracy. He has moved to make massive cuts in spending for programs protecting children and the sick (e.g., slashing Medicaid), lifted controls over oil and gas drilling, reduced support for solar and wind energy, and gutted the civil service. Meanwhile he, a convicted felon, is pardoning hundreds of convicted jailed felons who assaulted Capitol Hill police on January 6, 2021, who will now be vengefully on the streets. The terrifying list goes on. (See the Brookings Institution tracking of regulatory changes in the second Trump administration: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/tracking-regulatory-changes-in-the-second-trump-administration/).

These actions harm all Americans—that is, they produce indiscriminate injustice against both liberal and conservative low-wage workers, consumers, parents, and children. This strengthens the resistance from the people with a more unified opportunity to stop President Donald Trump. Already the first torrent of federal and state lawsuits are being filed to block Trump’s power grab. Certainly, many state attorneys general are readying lawsuits. However, comfortable with his dominance over Congress and the Supreme Court, Trump’s response is one he has previously used—figuratively mocking so sue me, ha, ha, ha.

The reporters and editors at the Times, Post and the rest of the national and local newspaper, radio, and TV media must rise to higher levels of their own significance and give voice to the aroused resistance against the onrushing Trumpian dictatorial regime.

In anticipation of the Trump rampage, The New York Times published a lead editorial on January 18, 2025, titled: “Are We Sleepwalking Into Autocracy?” The newspaper’s answer is “Yes,” unless: “Defenders of democracy have to stay united, focusing on ensuring that checks and balances remain intact and that crucial democratic watchdog institutions (my emphasis) elude capture.”

Nice words. But the Times and other large newspapers and magazines have largely avoided a critical responsibility since the 60s and 70s. That is, without their covering the actions, litigation, initiatives, and reports of civic institutions and labor unions, little or nothing will flow from their efforts.

The Times editors know full well that without reaching millions of people, influential groups, and lawmakers, the power of civic and labor community is very significantly reduced. This lack of media coverage has been happening for the past 40 years.

Mass media coverage based on newsworthiness and editorializing empower these groups, gets the attention of more supporters, and makes it more difficult for the forces of often secret autocratic government to roll over the citizenry.

The regular reporting about what activists were doing in the 1960s and 1970s made possible the consumer, environmental, labor, and freedom of information laws. Similar efforts now cannot gather momentum without media visibility. Legislative hearings, prosecutions, and regulatory actions cannot get jumpstarted just by the people insistent on a just and democratic society.

Over the years I’ve highlighted this exclusion coupled with suggesting newsworthy stories to hundreds of reporters, editors, and a few publishers. To little avail.

Look at the scene at the Times and The Washington Post. How often do you see op-eds from civic or labor advocates? How often do you read reviews of their books? How often have the groundbreaking studies by Public Citizen, Common Cause, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Veterans for Peace, Union of Concerned Scientists, et al. received coverage? Look at the profitable Washington Post Live podcasts and see how civic and union leaders have been backhanded. How often do the celebrated Times and Post podcasts interview them? The exclusions are overwhelming, even when compared with the access extreme right-wingers receive, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Grover Norquist.

Some may say, well, they can always use social media. It is too cluttered, too fractured, and too impulsive. Whether we like it or not, the major newspapers’ original content feeds the radio and television stations and still has an unchallenged impact on getting attention for agendas underway that may have been floating around on the internet for years and going nowhere.

The same situation exists for local journalism, which could feed local TV and radio were it to stop ignoring incipient efforts from community activism, whistleblowers, or simply good stories called into them by alert citizens.

Official source journalism presently reigns. Our democracy can’t afford redundant and tepid reporting in the coming days. For example, there are about 500 full-time reporters covering Congress. The mostly ditto-head reporting misses all kinds of stories. We started the quarterly 40-page newspaper, Capitol Hill Citizen (capitolhillcitizen.com) to expose some of the goings on in Congress that fall under the rubric of ignored unofficial journalism to illustrate this point.

In an era of closing weekly and daily newspapers, one might expect some coverage of this unique effort reporting on Congress, the most important and potentially most powerful institution that can turn around our deteriorating democracy. For nearly three years, none of the major newspapers and news magazines have told their readers about this rising journalistic beacon.

To sum up: The reporters and editors at the Times, Post and the rest of the national and local newspaper, radio, and TV media must rise to higher levels of their own significance and give voice to the aroused resistance against the onrushing Trumpian dictatorial regime imposing fascistic government and more concentrated corporate power.

If they cave, if they cower, as Thomas Jefferson warned, the main bulwark for our Republic crumbles. More citizens then withdraw and give up. That calamity would freeze Congress and the people who are the last ultimate rescuers of our besieged constitutional Republic.