Listen To This Story

What if a German news organization had, as things were getting really bad there in the 1930s, published an article with this headline: 

“Hitler Denies Crackdown on Jews”  

Or this one: 

“Inside the Mess Nazi Bureaucrats Are Creating” 

Given what we now know of the monstrous projects undertaken by “Nazi bureaucrats” like Adolf Eichmann, we would be appalled at the inadequacy of such a narrative. But every day, as America slips toward a dictatorship reminiscent of 1930s Germany, the large media organizations report individual facts — but do not explicitly telegraph their significance.

The horror lies not just in what has been happening — the relentless assault on our democratic institutions and the trashing of our most cherished traditions and values — but in the euphemistic and quasi-benign ways in which the most shocking of transgressions are presented. 

Major news organizations still act like we’re in a bad but manageable version of some prior noxious presidency from past decades. 

Here’s an example of a headline that, to me, grievously fails to capture the full story as reflected in the article itself:

It’s from The New York Times. “How Health Care Remade the U.S. Economy.” 

Now, that’s a compelling headline, in part because it states something that sounds unfamiliar. I admit, it made me read the article. But, oddy enough, such a headline can be intriguing and deflecting or punch-pulling at the same time.

What troubled me was that, in light of the crisis in this country, something like this feels academic, like optional education for the already enlightened. But when I read the article, what I came away with was this:

The American population, like that in many other countries, is rapidly aging, and so health care services are expanding accordingly, becoming a larger factor in the economy. This development has many implications, but right now, the most serious is that Donald Trump and his “big” budget bill slashes health care access at a time when doing so is especially crazy considering the article’s core premise. 

What if the headline read, instead,

“Trump Slashes Underpinnings of Health Care Just as Need Surges”? 

That blunt shot across the bow would likely gain public attention — preferably inciting alarm — and foster discussion that might even lead to action. The bland actual headline will lead to, well, nothing.

Now, we can assume that MAGA doesn’t read The New York Times. But plenty of people who do read it know people who voted for Trump but are not dyed-in-the-wool MAGA. It is those readers who need the talking points. 

***

Here’s another essential piece of journalism that I think was also undersold. It’s about Elon Musk and DOGE. 

Even with the chaotic swings in his relationship with Trump, his consistently volatile behavior, and bad news for Tesla, we’re still constantly told… Don’t count Elon out. 

Here’s an article that should have finished him off, headlined,

“The Bureaucrat and the Billionaire: Inside DOGE’s Chaotic Takeover of Social Security.”

The long “teaser” says:

“The drama offers a case study in how Musk’s team sought to run a critical government agency through misinformation and social media blasts — and how longtime employees responded.” 

While the headline and teaser are accurate, once again, I don’t feel that they convey the weight of the information being reported within. 

Right at the beginning of the article, we’re shown how Musk blatantly lied about and exponentially hyped the prevalence of a kind of fraud that, in reality, barely existed at the popular agency: that 40 percent of all calls to the Social Security customer service desk were from those seeking to commit fraud. (The actual number is “just a fraction of 1%”.) And when Social Security staffers, contacted by journalists, tried to correct Musk’s falsehood, the White House responded angrily, insisting that they stick with the 40 percent lie. 

The headline should have been something like: 

“Musk Created Chaos at Social Security and Made Up Fraud Claims.”  

And the tease could have been: 

“Confronted with Musk’s lies, the Trump White House angrily doubled down and insisted Social Security staffers keep repeating them.” 

These are facts, not opinions. So why hide them under a basket? Why not just come out and say them — in a headline and teaser whose entire purpose is to induce readers to go deeper into the article?

Now, it shouldn’t take too many incidents like this — with the beloved and essential Social Security, no less — to convince many Americans, including quite a few who voted for Trump, that Musk had no business running roughshod through the government, or being brought in at all. 

And the White House response should have been fodder for getting Americans to focus on the incompetence and evil at the top. 

In the case of Musk and the scale of what he’s done, can you imagine, say, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, or AOC accused of even one-tenth of this? What would the reaction be? 

Who exactly is supposed to lay all this on the line? 

The Democratic leadership, so unpopular at the moment, doesn’t seem able to break through. 

The plain truth is that damning reportage like this — even from a premier news organization and involving a huge amount of work — typically vanishes without a trace. That tells you something ominous about where we are. And about the need for us in journalism to rethink whether our approach is getting the job done.

The fact that the massive incompetence and constant lying and cover-ups are not front and center all the time, but instead buried in a sea of noise — with controversy and charge-and-countercharge framing — goes a long way to explaining why we are where we are. 

The capitulation of CBS, ABC, and Meta (so far) to Trump’s ludicrous lawsuits underlines the larger context of fear and restraint and the prioritization of financial gain. The Tiffany Network’s promise to donate millions to Trump’s library and museum brought to mind a wry proposed headline from my friend, the journalist Jonathan Z. Larsen: “Trump Library to Feature Large Grift Shop.”

As for all the charges and countercharges, this is what happens when two people, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, whose moral faults should have ensured they never attained great power, find common cause — and then see the other person for what he is. 

The Daily Horror

Such collisions of massive ego notwithstanding, Trump and company continue to move so fast to wreck this country that it seems impossible to keep up. 

I just saw this development as reported by the New York Daily News: 

In a sudden escalation in President Trump’s mass deportation efforts, ICE agents are snatching and detaining migrants with pending immigration court cases at lower Manhattan courthouses, a move which city officials and attorneys blasted as “utterly unlawful.”

This is a dangerous inflection point that raises the stakes in the ongoing battle to defend that bulwark of democracy known as “the rule of law.” But everyone’s so numb that it’s all but certain that many will think this is not even newsworthy. 

Indeed, things that would have provoked a huge uproar now just pass, almost unnoticed and unremarked upon. 

Like, we’re not hearing enough outrage about the Trump administration’s targeting the immigration status of naturalized citizens it doesn’t like — such as New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. (Of course, Musk could be next.) To say nothing of Trump’s desire to send American citizens to foreign prisons. 

The assault on everything everywhere is relentless. 

Here’s another, awful example: The Trump administration is trying to kill the most indisputable evidence of human-caused climate change by shuttering a critical Hawaiian observatory. Don’t like the message, just shoot the messenger! 

Well, no one can say Trump and his crew aren’t busy — doing things. That’s certainly the view in MAGAworld, even on its fringes: Praise Jesus, a dude who gets sh*t done! And because both the political opposition and the media are doing such a piss-poor job of laying out just how bad that sh*t is, how terribly dangerous, the MAGAs just get bolder and bolder — and more dangerous every single day.

Celebrate Freedom — But Protect It 

With Independence Day and its reminders of this country’s long-standing, if often betrayed, commitment to liberty, justice, and dignity, this seems a moment to pause and ask ourselves: What do we do now that so much of the good of America seems to be slipping away? How do we stop the bleeding? 

The exhausting truth is that, at least so far, nobody knows the answer. 

What do we do when all the places we’d normally turn to for adult, fair treatment — our legislators, the high courts, agencies from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Federal Communications Commission — are all taken over by those driven solely by loyalty to a dictator? 

For the moment — and until and unless rational forces can retake Congress and then the presidency — our options are extremely limited. Certainly, at the top of the list are continuing demonstrations that (peacefully) speak, or better, SHOUT truth to power. 

What else can be done? While some folks regularly show up at public protests and others zealously document the excesses of the dictatorial regime in Washington, the vast majority of Americans continue to go about their lives as if their well-being and that of their children were not endangered. 

For those who are taking action of any kind, guidance is essential. Here’s a column from an attorney noting that yes, you can film ICE and auxiliary personnel during raids and arrests. 

Let’s keep bearing witness, speaking out, and resisting, even if our options are limited — and some, like street protests, come with risks of worsening things by playing into Trump’s hands. That’s why I like the proposal from my WhoWhatWhy colleague Jonathan Simon, for economic boycotts: 

A sustained economic action — preferably a general strike paired with a consumer boycott — would turn much if not all of the corporate world against Trump, and the political pressure they would exert on lawmakers would be overwhelming.

If … we band together to stop working and buying, it will … force the reckoning that civil disobedience is intended to bring about — but crucially without giving Trump a target to shoot at.

Ultimately, though, even that won’t work unless legacy media either get behind it or at least provide the consistent, frank, urgent reporting that will spur the public to action. 

That is something journalism can do, and do right now. But then, there’s the problem of our big media being primarily controlled by wealthy individuals, families, and interests. Would those interests be willing to sacrifice in the short run for the good of all? 

It would make a great story.