Bribes, Bias, and South Park: Trump’s Authoritarian Agenda Hits Primetime

 

The media’s job in a democratic society is to speak truth to power, not to suck up to it. But last week, CBS and its parent company Paramount waved the white flag, handing Donald Trump a $16 million bribe and agreeing to censor their own newsroom to curry favor with a twice-impeached, multiply indicted rapist authoritarian who lost the popular vote twice.

That is not journalism. That’s capitulation. And it’s devastating to democracies.

The CBS merger with Skydance should never have been a political issue. In normal times, regulatory agencies like the FCC operate independently, applying laws without fear or favor. But these are not normal times.

Trump’s FCC — under the control of far-right ideologue Brendan Carr, who helped draft the fascism-friendly blueprint known as Project 2025 — made it clear they’d block the deal unless CBS “cleaned house.” Carr even bragged on CNBC that the merger only went through because Skydance promised to remove “bias” from CBS News. By “bias,” of course, he means “truth.”

Trump and Carr appear to be demanding that CBS stop telling the truth about the GOP’s fascist drift, stop investigating corruption, and stop airing facts that make Trump and the MAGA movement look bad. And CBS didn’t just roll over: they cut a personal check to Trump for $16 million, reportedly threw in an equal amount in free advertising, canceled Stephen Colbert’s show to eliminate critical comedy, and agreed to install a literal “monitor” in their newsroom to hunt down and eliminate so-called “leftwing bias.”

This is not just grotesque. It’s dangerous.

Installing government-friendly “monitors” in newsrooms to silence dissent is one of the first things authoritarians do when they take power. It happened in Hungary under Viktor Orbán. It happened in Russia under Putin. In Germany in the early 1930s, Hitler handed control of the media to Joseph Goebbels and banned reporting that contradicted Nazi talking points.

What Trump and Carr are doing is textbook fascism: co-opting the press, criminalizing dissent, and demanding personal loyalty above all else across both government and the media. The problem, of course, is that reality has a well-known leftwing bias. That’s because reality, unlike rightwing ideology, is rooted in facts. For example:

Trickle-down economics has never helped the working class; it’s a scam to transfer wealth to the rich.

Immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes; they’re less likely.

Late-term abortions are rare and almost always involve severe fetal abnormalities or risks to the mother; women don’t “love getting abortions” or do so with little thought.

Unions raise wages and reduce inequality; they don’t “steal from workers.”

Climate change is real and accelerating, and fossil fuel companies and Republicans have known it — and spent billions to cover it up — for decades.

Renewable energy is cheaper than coal, gas, or oil in most of the world.

People on public assistance are usually not “lazy” but are either disabled, working or actively seeking work, or living in areas where there is no work.

Raising the minimum wage doesn’t increase unemployment; it boosts the economy which increases employment.

Universal healthcare works in every other developed nation; it’s not “impossible” to implement here in America.

The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation, but as a secular republic.

Yet when these facts and others become “too political” for CBS to air — when truth is treated as liberal bias — we’re in real trouble. If CBS can’t push back on obvious lies because it’s afraid of offending Trump’s FCC, how long before every newsroom falls in line?

This is exactly how freedom of the press — and then freedom for everybody — dies: not with a bang, but with a checkbook and a veiled threat. When media companies start self-censoring to avoid regulatory retribution, they become lapdogs, not watchdogs.

And Trump isn’t even trying to hide this. He’s bragging about it.

Last week, the White House even released a full-on tantrum of a statement attacking South Park for mocking Trump. The show dared to suggest that combining the powers of the presidency with lawsuits and bribes might be a bad thing for democracy. In response, Trump’s staff accused the show of being “irrelevant” and “desperate for attention.”

Can you name any other president in American history who issued a press release attacking a cartoon? But Trump’s not just punching down with his words: he’s using the full weight of the federal government to go after anyone who defies him. He’s already targeted universities, law firms, prosecutors, and journalists with bogus DOJ investigations and regulatory harassment. Now he’s turned the FCC into his personal censorship bureau.

The bribes paid by CBS and ABC weren’t one-offs, they were the first installment in a classic protection racket.

That’s not America. That’s a mob state being run by a man who behaves like a mob boss.

So, what do we do? First, we must stop pretending this is normal. It’s not. CBS didn’t make a “business decision,” they submitted to a political shakedown. And the rest of the media should not let them get away with it.

Second, we must speak out, loudly and relentlessly. Let CBS know that rolling over for a wannabe strongman is unacceptable. Tell your local stations you want truth, not Trump-approved propaganda. Support independent journalism and media outlets willing to tell the truth even when it’s unpopular. Subscribe. Donate. Amplify their work.

And finally, we need to get serious about defending our democracy. That means voting like our freedoms depend on it, because they do. It means rejecting candidates who would silence the press and stack the courts and install “monitors” in our newsrooms. It means recognizing authoritarianism when it’s right in front of us and calling it what it is. It means getting inside your local Democratic Party and fighting for real progressive change and the survival of our republic.

Trump has shown us, again and again, that he will use every lever of power to silence his critics and punish his enemies. Now he has the FCC and a major news network doing his bidding. If we stay silent now, we may not get another chance.

Democracy dies when people stop caring. Let’s prove that we still do.

-Thom Hartmann

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