The president just published a "blacklist" of reporters — one giant leap toward autocracy.
Don't be fooled by the Christmas theme and the happy music. Trump's "Naughty List" puts him in the company of the Soviets and the Nazis.
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Last night, the White House published a video of a laughing Santa Claus entering a home and unfurling a parchment scroll. The music and vibe are festive. But the prop Santa holds is not. It’s a list of journalists and media outlets singled out by the President of the United States — a blacklist.
Throughout history, regimes on the march toward autocracy have relied on ritual humiliation of the press long before they relied on prisons. The press is criticized and branded as an “enemy of the people.” Trump has long done that, and now he’s taking the next step. He’s naming the specific reporters and outlets he deems disloyal, knowing that as long as a large portion of the public accepts that framing, everything that follows becomes easier.
And trust me, more will follow.
In the Soviet Union, this process was bureaucratic and quite relentless. Journalists who deviated from the party line were placed on watchlists, denied access to government buildings, stripped of credentials (sound familiar?), and eventually, as it all escalated, erased from public life altogether. Their names circulated quietly at first, then openly, until exclusion became normal and expected if they took positions that were contrary to the regime. The “list” was the initial warning shot; later, some were actually shot.
In Nazi Germany, the progression was faster and more theatrical, like the Trump administration’s approach. The regime published lists of “un-German” writers and journalists, accusing them of poisoning the nation’s soul. News outlets were threatened with closure and then later shut down. Editors were harassed out of their jobs, and books were burned. This was that era’s “crowd-sourced” violence. But long before folks were sent to the camps and the gallows, there were these catalogs of enemies and the public humiliation of them.
Here we are.
The White House is on a similar path. That’s not exaggeration or heedless historical comparison, meant to accuse Trump of being a “Nazi” to score political points. The man who is our current president — and the people around him — have a stated and demonstrated desire to subvert the free press in this country. The comparison isn’t just fair, it’s urgently necessary. They’re avowedly hostile toward the tenants of the First Amendment. And if we see it as anything less, we’ll be deemed fools of history.
The “Christmas” video is appalling, yes. But it rounds out a larger picture as we reach the end of Trump’s first year back in power.
Pair it with the fact that Trump’s team has been threatening virtually every major media outlet… suing networks that report about the president unfavorably… teasing the possibility of broadcast license revocations…. yelling at and demeaning journalists who ask questions the president doesn’t want to hear… stripping reporters of their credentials at the White House and Pentagon… stripping journalists’ legal protections to make it easier to investigate and prosecute them… orchestrating the sale of media networks to friendly allies to shut down reporting Trump doesn’t like… shutting down U.S.-funded media organizations that report truthfully… replacing U.S. broadcasting programs abroad with pro-Trump propaganda outlets… and so on.
Once you do that, it’s so unmistakably, obviously, glaringly apparent that the president is heading down the autocratic path. You cannot look the other way. Donald Trump and the White House are waging a Censorship War on the free press, and far too many Americans are lulled into laughter because the ghouls at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave pair it with a Michael Bublé song.
I want you to remember something: authoritarian power does not announce itself with midnight arrests at the start. Too many Americans have this image of World War II movies where the people are subjugated when men in fatigues start kicking down their doors. In reality, the subjugation happens way, way before that. And it begins just like we’re seeing here. Despots train citizens to laugh along. When the state names journalists publicly and invites the audience to enjoy their degradation, it’s rehearsing a new moral order and preparing for the next phase.
As we reported the other month, U.S. journalists and top media outlets are preparing for the possibility of raids and prosecutions. That’s an extraordinary sentence to write. But here’s the background context:
Reporters at major news outlets and independent media tell [us] they believe the Trump administration is preparing to ramp up efforts to expose their sources.
The shift comes in response to new threats from President Trump and his allies, as well as a policy change at the Justice Department that cleared the way for aggressive pursuit of both whistleblowers and the journalists they speak to…
After taking office, Attorney General Bondi quietly revoked policies that provided extra protection for members of the press — a move legal experts say clears the path for subpoenas, surveillance, and compelled testimony from reporters — with the threat of jail time.
Such tools had been severely restricted under the Biden administration following revelations that Trump’s DOJ had secretly seized the records of members of Congress, their staff, and multiple journalists in prior investigations.
I’d love to be wrong about this. I won’t be. The Trump administration is almost certainly monitoring some journalists’ communications and conducting “leak investigations” that are not yet known publicly. Just ask Barbara Starr about her experience. That will seem tame compared to what’s coming.
It bears reminding that democracies depend on a free press not because journalists are virtuous, but because power itself is not. The press exists to irritate authority, by design. We want our reporters to expose what leaders would rather conceal and to ask questions that make the powerful uncomfortable. For doing this, they shouldn’t be added to a blacklist; they should invited into the pantheon of free-speech defenders.
History does not repeat itself exactly. We know that. But it sure as hell rhymes with unsettling precision. In every regime that slid from democracy into authoritarianism, there was a moment when the targeting of journalists became a form of entertainment and when citizens were encouraged to enjoy the spectacle — or when they could just avert their eyes at the childish naming and shaming.
In the United States, that moment is right now. But don’t avert your eyes. Because what comes next is something we can never condone and never permit. A president who publishes a blacklist of reporters is not making a silly Christmas “joke.” He’s testing how far he can go, preparing to crack down, and seeing how many people will smile while he does it.
I hope you will be the reason he fails.
