A comedian steps onto the stage and makes a
joke or barbed
comment that offends a powerful leader. Or maybe it’s a cartoon or television
program that pushes
buttons(AI
摘要"Pushes buttons" can refer to physically pressing buttons
on a device or the idiom "push someone's buttons," meaning to
intentionally provoke a strong emotional reaction in someone, usually anger.
The phrase can also be a more positive idiom, "push all the right
buttons," meaning to say or do the things that produce a desired effect or
outcome.).
Regardless, the targets and their ilk accuse
the creators and their bosses of violating moral standers and national virtues.
Then the states crack down. Authorities issue threats, exert financial pressure
and hint at shutdowns as the humorists hire lawyers, executives cower, and
everyone learns the obvious: Nothing negative or embarrassing will be allowed
about the government or its friends.
Those who live in China, India, Iran,
Russia, Turkey and Venezuela are familiar with his scenario. Each is governed
with various levels of authoritarianism; all have seen comedians, broadcasters,
journalists and cartoonists squeezed toward silence.
Now President Donald Trump, with his threat
Thursday to revoke broadcasting licenses from networks with late-night hosts
who make jokes or comments at his expense, has pushed the United States closer
to that club. With lawsuits against media companies, cuts to public
broadcasting, and threats to rescind licenses or deny mergers
while rewarding friendlier outlets, Trump’s tactics fit a disturbing global
pattern.
“Controlling information and media is the
one of the early and necessary steps of the authoritarian,” said Jennifer McCoy,
a professor of political science at Georgia State University who studies the deterioration
of democracy. “Then, repressing dissent and criticism, not just among the
media, but among political opponents and citizens follows.”
No expert or organization that tracks free
expression is comparing Trump to the world’s greatest violators. The worst
authoritarian regimes have murdered critics and imprisoned anyone deemed
questionable. Many dictators shut down newspapers and seized television
networks when they came to power.
But the United States has historically been
a defender of free speech, and the tactics Trump has embraced—suggesting that
only presidentially approved opinions are valid and protected—place the United
States in awkward company.
Free of expression is deteriorating in
America and 43 other countries, a quarter of the world’s nations, according to
the 2025 Democracy Report issued by the Swedish—based V-Dem Institute. That’s
up from 35 a year earlier, and the institute says the problem has been getting
worse for at least a decade.
In democracies and dictatorships, those who
bundle their critiques with humor have become frequent targets.
(Damien Cave)
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