Where to find the truth?

Robert Reich

Friends,

I hope your Thanksgiving Day was peaceful.

Today I’d like to raise a less peaceful question that many of you are asking me: As we enter the darkness of the Trump regime, where can we find trusted sources of information? What and whom can we count on to give us the truth?

I will give you the sources I rely on in a moment, but first let me explain why reliable and independent sources of news are threatened by a growing alliance of oligarchs and authoritarians.

The mainstream media doesn’t use the term “oligarchy” to describe the billionaires who are using their wealth to monopolize information and turn it into propaganda — but it’s the most accurate term, because that’s exactly what’s happening: from Elon Musk’s X to Jeff Bezos’s The Washington Post to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to Vladimir Putin’s worldwide disinformation campaign to Donald Trump’s continuing stream of lies on Truth Social and X.

Even legacy mainstream media — which mostly answer to corporate or billionaire ownership — refrained during the 2024 campaign from reporting how incoherent and bizarre Trump was becoming, normalizing and “sanewashing” his increasingly wild utterances even as it reported every minor slip by Joe Biden.

The New York Times headlined its coverage of the September 2024 presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris — in which Trump bellowed conspiracy theories about stolen elections and Haitian immigrants eating pet cats and dogs — as: “Harris and Trump bet on their own sharply contrasting views of America.”

Trump has called the free press “scum” and the “enemy within.” He has threatened to revoke the licenses of television networks and jail journalists who don’t reveal their anonymous sources. Last month, Trump sued CBS, based on conspiratorial claims that “60 Minutes” made “edits” favorable to Harris for the final cut of its interview with her.

Come January 20, Trump and his billionaire toadies — including Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent, Doug Burgum, and Linda McMahon — will control the executive branch of the United States government, and Trump’s MAGA Republicans will be in charge of both chambers of Congress.

Members of the Supreme Court (some of whom, like Clarence Thomas, have been beneficiaries of billionaire gifts) have already signaled their willingness to consolidate even more power in Trump’s hands, immunize him from criminal liability for what he does, and further open the floodgates of big money into American politics.

All of this is sending a message from the United States that liberalism’s core tenets, including the rule of law and freedom of the press, are up for grabs.

Elsewhere around the world, alliances of economic elites and authoritarians similarly threaten public access to the truth, without which democracy cannot thrive.

It’s a vicious cycle: Citizens have grown cynical about democracy because decision-making has become dominated by economic elites, and that cynicism has ushered in authoritarians who are even more solicitous of such elites.

Trump and his lapdogs lionize Viktor Orbán and Hungary’s Fidesz party, which transformed a once-vibrant democracy into a one-party state, muzzling the media and rewarding the wealthy.

Trump’s success is already encouraging Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party in France; Alternative in Germany, or AfD; Italy’s far-right Giorgia Meloni; and radical right-wing parties in the Netherlands and Austria.

Trump’s triumph will surely embolden Russia’s Vladimir Putin — the world’s most dangerous authoritarian oligarch — not only in Ukraine and potentially eastern Europe but also in his worldwide campaign of disinformation to undermine democracies.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk — the world’s richest person, self-described “First Buddy” of Trump, and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts — has been in regular contact with Putin since late 2022.

Evidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign agents used Musk’s X platform to disrupt the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign in favor of Trump. Musk did little to stop them.

During the campaign, Musk himself reposted to his 200 million followers a faked version of Harris’s first campaign video with an altered voice track sounding like the vice president and saying she “does not know the first thing about running the country” and is the “ultimate diversity hire.” Musk tagged the video “amazing.” It received hundreds of millions of views.

According to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Musk posted at least 50 false election claims on X, which garnered a total of at least 1.2 billion views. None had a “community note” from X’s supposed fact-checking system.

Murdoch, another oligarchic champion of authoritarianism, has turned his Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post into ever-louder outlets of right-wing propaganda, further amplifying Trump’s lies.

Artificial intelligence may make it even easier for oligarchs and demagogues to manipulate the public. Trump has nominated right-wing FCC commissioner and Musk bro Brendan Carr to chair the agency. Don’t expect him to do anything about weaponized disinformation. Carr ranted publicly about NBC featuring Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live” during the election.

Bezos barred The Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris. Evidently, he didn’t want to raise Trump’s ire because Bezos’s other businesses depend on government contracts. The mere possibility of a Trump presidency forced what had been one of the most courageous newspapers in the U.S. to censor itself. Marty Baron, former editor of the Post, called the move “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”

The billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked his newspaper’s planned endorsement of Harris as well, prompting the head of the paper’s editorial board to resign. Mariel Garza said she was “not OK with us being silent,” adding: “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up.”

Honest people standing up is precisely what resisting authoritarianism and protecting democracy require — monitoring those in power, acting as watchdogs against abuses of power, challenging those abuses, and sounding the alarm about wrongdoing and wrongful policies.

But how to “stand up” without reliable sources of the truth?

So, as we enter the darkness of the Trump regime, please make sure you and others you know have access to accurate information about what’s occurring.

Here are the sources I currently rely on for the truth: The Guardian, Democracy Now, Business Insider, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, Americans for Tax Fairness, The Economic Policy Institute, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.

Please add in the comments any additional sources you rely on.

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