I think we need to talk about something happening in America right now, and we need to do it without immediately jumping to the most dramatic conclusion.
Donald Trump has banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.
Not metaphorically. Not “he said something mean about them on social media.”
Their reporters showed up at the White House, and they were denied access. Press passes were confiscated.
And according to Trump himself, the reason is essentially that he doesn’t like their coverage. He calls it fake news. He has also suggested other news organizations could be next.
Now, I want to be careful with a word that gets thrown around way too easily these days:
Fascism.
Is America suddenly a fascist country because three news organizations were thrown out of the White House?
No. That’s far too simplistic.
But here’s the question we absolutely should be asking:
Is this the kind of behavior that can accompany authoritarianism and democratic backsliding?
That’s a much more serious question.
Because there’s a huge difference between a president saying:
“I hate CNN.”
And a president saying:
“I hate CNN, and therefore I’m going to use the power of the government to punish CNN.”
Presidents have complained about reporters forever.
Reporters piss presidents off. That’s practically part of the job description.
But the whole idea behind a free press is that the president doesn’t get to decide who gets to investigate him based upon whether he likes what they’re saying.
The press isn’t supposed to work for the president.
The press is supposed to watch the president.
That’s the point.
And when government power starts being used against institutions because those institutions criticize the person running the government, that’s when Americans should pay attention.
Not panic.
Not scream “dictator!”
Pay attention.
Because democracies usually don’t disappear because somebody wakes up one Tuesday morning and announces:
“Okay everybody, democracy’s over.”
Institutions erode piece by piece.
A norm gets broken.
Everybody argues about it for three days.
Then something else happens.
And eventually something that would have seemed outrageous ten years earlier becomes normal.
That’s why the important question isn’t just:
What happened today?
It’s:
What happens next?
Do courts intervene?
If they do, does the administration obey them?
Do other journalists continue investigating aggressively?
Does Congress exercise oversight?
Can political opponents criticize the president without governmental retaliation?
Are elections still genuinely competitive?
Those are much better measurements of whether a democratic system is functioning than whatever label happens to be trending on social media.
But there’s another elephant in the room.
Actually, there’s an elephant, a donkey and Jeffrey Epstein sitting in the room.
Because while all of this is happening, the Epstein story hasn’t disappeared.
The Justice Department’s own Epstein Library remains online and says it will be updated if additional documents are identified for release.
So naturally people are asking:
Is attacking the media simply a gigantic distraction from Epstein?
Maybe.
But here’s where we’ve got to be disciplined.
We don’t know that.
Timing is evidence of timing.
Timing isn’t necessarily evidence of motive.
Trump says he’s banning these organizations because of what he considers years of false reporting.
His critics believe he’s trying to control the narrative.
Those are claims we can examine.
But unless somebody produces evidence showing that the White House deliberately created this controversy specifically to bury Epstein coverage, we shouldn’t present that theory as established fact.
And frankly, we don’t need the conspiracy theory.
Because what actually happened is interesting enough.
A president of the United States decided certain journalists shouldn’t have White House access because he objects to their reporting.
That’s worthy of scrutiny all by itself.
And here’s where I think Americans sometimes make a mistake.
We immediately want everything reduced to two choices.
Trump is a fascist.
Trump isn’t a fascist.
This is authoritarianism.
This isn’t authoritarianism.
This is about Epstein.
This has nothing to do with Epstein.
Reality usually isn’t that cooperative.
Instead of fighting over labels, watch the behavior.
Watch the institutions.
Watch what happens when somebody tells the president no.
Because that’s the real test of political power.
Anybody can govern when everybody says yes.
What happens when a judge says no?
What happens when a journalist says no?
What happens when Congress says no?
What happens when voters say no?
And most importantly:
Does the president accept that there are institutions in America whose authority does not come from him?
That’s the question.
Because presidents come and go.
Republicans come and go.
Democrats come and go.
News organizations come and go.
But the principle underneath this experiment is supposed to remain:
Nobody owns the government.
Nobody owns the press.
Nobody owns the courts.
And nobody owns the truth.
So don’t just watch what Donald Trump says about CNN.
Watch what the government does to CNN.
And then watch what happens when somebody tries to stop it.
Because that will tell us considerably more about the health of American democracy than any label we could slap on it today.
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