\n
![](\"https:\/\/progressive.org\/downloads\/23278\/download\/WhiteHousePress.jpg?cb=fc24e8274685a2e65d68a22df46b9b28\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
On September 18, in another attack in his long-standing war on the media, President Donald Trump\u00a0expelled<\/a>\u00a0three major news outlets from the White House. His claim is that these outlets published \u201cfake news\u201d; it is demonstrable that he simply dislikes their coverage. This episode is, as Liz Oyer, former U.S. Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice,\u00a0puts it<\/a>, \u201cOne of the most blatantly illegal things he has done as President.\u201d<\/p>\n It is also something that these media outlets in particular helped to engineer and encourage.<\/p>\n The corporate media\u2019s failure to live up to its duty as the\u00a0Fourth Estate<\/a>\u2014the watchdog of the three official branches of government and a check on their power\u2014is part of what got us here. Where is here? A United States in which voting rights have been gutted and dissent openly criminalized, where essential public services have been eliminated and entire agencies shut down, where critical regulatory enforcement and public service have been largely left to the individual states, where citizens and noncitizens alike are abducted and detained without warning by masked federal agents.<\/p>\n The outlets cast out are MS Now,\u00a0Politico<\/em>, and CNN, news organizations with long track records of acting as stenographers to power, building consensus for government intervention, and failing to inform the public in favor of presenting sensationalist coverage. CNN\u2019s\u00a0State of the Union<\/em>\u00a0program with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash,\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0In These Times<\/em>, did not book one Palestinian or Palestinian American guest in the first fifteen months of the genocide in Gaza despite running multiple segments on the topic, instead giving free rein to Biden Administration officials.\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0is infamous for its cozy insider relationship with the people and government agencies it covers, and has for years taken money from Big Oil to fund its climate and energy coverage. MS Now, back when it was still MSNBC in 2025,\u00a0canceled<\/a>\u00a0programs hosted by Joy Reid and Ayman Mohyeldin, who were critical of Israel. In more recent days MS Now has been under fire for its\u00a0out-of-touch interview<\/a>\u00a0with progressive Twitch streamer and\u00a0political lightning rod<\/a>\u00a0Hasan Piker.<\/p>\n This is not new. Certain segments of the press often serve national interests. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, prolific newspaper editor and printer Benjamin Franklin famously expounded on the virtues of the timber rattlesnake as a symbol of national identity. Native to \u201cno other quarter of the world besides America,\u201d he\u00a0wrote<\/a>, the animal is vigilant, courageous, and solitary. Franklin was referring to the image of a timber rattlesnake next to the words \u201cdon\u2019t tread on me,\u201d which was everywhere at the time. It was popularized by a flag\u00a0designed<\/a>\u00a0by a slaveholding Southern army brigadier general and flown on the ships of the Continental Navy, newly established to protect the nascent country\u2019s emerging trade interests. This symbol of the American Revolution was\u00a0reappropriated<\/a>\u00a0after September 11, 2001 and\u00a0again<\/a>\u00a0by the anti-government Tea Party movement. What started as a symbol of freedom from imperialism shed its layers over the centuries and became an emblem of American individualism and exceptionalism. It\u2019s a snake that swallows democracy whole just before its own tail.<\/p>\n In this October\/November issue, we chronicle the devouring of our democracy in the lead up to a highly fraught midterm election. John Nichols breaks down the failure of corporate media to substantively cover the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary election and insurgent democratic socialist candidacy of Francesca Hong. Emily Markwiese reports on how the labor union National Nurses United works to prevent the termination and deportation of its members. Melinda Tuhus documents how one Connecticut child care provider is tackling the affordability crisis by offering its employees free housing. Brea Baker reports on the health impacts of hundreds of data centers concentrated near the nation\u2019s capital. For our \u201cOn the Line\u201d photo essay, Cristina Panagi captures the goings on inside 26 Federal Plaza, a Manhattan immigration court notorious for immigrant intimidation and detention. We share an excerpt from Mahmoud Khalil\u2019s new book,\u00a0No Land To Stand On: Notes From Detention<\/em>. Our publisher Norman Stockwell speaks with\u00a0New York Times\u00a0bestselling author and political strategist Ben Wikler, former chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, about his prescription for resuscitating U.S. democracy.<\/p>\n As this issue went to press,\u00a0Politico<\/em>\u00a0sent out a new edition of one of its many email newsletters,\u00a0Surge<\/em>, which covers global energy markets. The subject line on it\u00a0was<\/a>: \u201cthe world laps America on climate.\u201d It reported a shift in the United States\u2019 global positioning on climate change, summarizing what Democratic Hawai\u2018i Senator Brian Schatz said was his new message for international leaders: \u201cLeave the United States behind.\u201d A disclaimer ran at the top of the newsletter, stating: \u201cPresented by ExxonMobil.\u201d<\/p>\n As a popular slogan, \u201cLeave the United States behind\u201d doesn\u2019t have the same ring as \u201cDon\u2019t tread on me.\u201d But it is that vision of America that got us here.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n