Nothing says First Amendment like "we will reform the media."
Kari Lake, Arizona's authoritarian sourpuss candidate for governor, scolded the press today about how they've treated her and what she plans to do about it. "I'm going to be your worst frickin' nightmare for 8 years, and we will reform the media as well," she said. "We're gonna make you guys into journalists again."
Threats against the press are a fascist staple.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote, "It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation." He often used the term "Lugenpresse," or lying press to describe the media in Germany that was reporting the truth about what was going on.
In Mussolini's Italy, the government set up a Ministry of Popular Culture to control all forms of expression, including the press.
In the United States, President Trump has called the press the "enemy of the people," and his administration has proposed changes to libel laws that would make it easier to sue journalists. The president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, declared that the media was "the opposition party" and that it should "keep its mouth shut." Trump later tweeted that the media was the "enemy of the American people."
Lake isn't doing anything new here. She's just repeating the same old fascist trope that the media is the enemy of the people.
