The New York Times is back with another editorial trying to sound the alarm about President Trump. This one is under the title "Are We Losing Our Democracy?"
The editorial board's piece starts this way:
Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.
Our country is still not close to being a true autocracy, in the mold of Russia or China. But once countries begin taking steps away from democracy, the march often continues. We offer these 12 markers as a warning of how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose.
They wrote the editorial "with the help from scholars," and to me that has a real "51 former members of the intelligence community" ring to it.
One of the first signs the U.S. might be "losing our democracy," according to the Times' editorial board, is this (beverage warning):
In addition to restricting speech and dissent, autocrats use the immense power of law enforcement to investigate and imprison people who have fallen out of favor. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department has become an enforcer of his personal interests, targeting people for legally dubious reasons while creating a culture in which his allies can act with impunity.
In that section there is ZERO mention of all the prosecutions that happened during the Biden years or Arctic Frost. We're just supposed to pretend history didn't start until January 20th of this year.
But as ridiculous as most of the editorial is, there's one part that manages to outdo the rest.
Check this out:
From an NYT editorial today: "[Trump] has also taken steps to control the media, both traditional forms and new ones. ... He pushed Congress to end funding for public radio and television."
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) October 31, 2025
Trump is controlling media by not having the government fund it? Moronic. pic.twitter.com/6QajuSnqjC
By making the media not dependent on government funding Trump is trying to control the media? Do these people ever listen to themselves?
Mr. Trump has sought to manipulate government information in several ways.
[...]
He pushed Congress to end funding for public radio and television. He extracted multimillion-dollar payments from ABC, Paramount (which owns CBS), YouTube and Meta to settle baseless claims that he has been treated unfairly
My other favorite part is that Trump "extracted multimillion-dollar payments" from media outlets. They're called "settlements," NY Times. And if they were baseless claims maybe the Times should call on the media to take these cases all the way to court. Or maybe they fear the discovery process.
More like de-control the media, which has been run by liberals for decades
— Jon Remington (@Strider5925) October 31, 2025
What really bothers the Times and many other media outlets is that the new media has rendered them essentially irrelevant and they can't control public opinion like in previous decades. The Times' editorial board's piece makes that abundantly clear in the most laughable of ways.
