THE NEW YORK TIMES—SEEMINGLY CATCHING ON PART 2

YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE BEGAN AN ASSESSMENT of The New York Times Editorial Board’s “Are We Losing Our Democracy?” Here we continue with tidbits gleaned from this article which suggested 12 indications of a path in this lamentable direction. I also contribute opinions of my own in this regard. 

“Mr. Trump’s recent predecessors were not perfect on this issue,” the Board concedes. “They sometimes declared questionable emergencies. He has gone to another level. He has used manufactured emergencies to sidestep Congress and impose tariffs, deregulate the energy industry, intensify immigration enforcement and send the National Guard into Washington. Chillingly, he has claimed that a Venezuelan gang invaded the United States to justify the killing of foreign civilians in international waters, in defiance of U.S. and international law.”

The Board continues, “Mr. Trump’s willingness to kill people without due process, through the blowing up of boats that American officials could instead stop and search, represents one of his most extreme abuses of power. It raises the prospect that he may expand the use of emergency power to other areas, including domestic law enforcement.” 

Again, only halfway on the scale from Democracy to Autocracy?

“Mr. Trump,” the Board says, “has repeatedly suggested that marginalized groups are responsible for the nation’s problems.”

Among those groups he has included immigrants, Hispanics, Blacks, transgendered, and women in general. The very word “diversity” has become a Trump/Republican obscenity.

Ah, but there’s another marginalized group that has done ok: the Capitol insurrectionists of January 6, 2020. 

“Democratic governments,” the Board notes, “prize accurate information as a guide to decision-making. Authoritarians seek to suppress inconvenient truths.” 

Consider the LRB firing, public radio and television defunding, climate-change data-collecton reduction, and Trump’s mobster extortion of ABC, Paramount (which owns CBS), YouTube, and Meta to settle baseless claims, and his lawsuits against The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

’Nuff said. Or shall we be satisfied with the likes of Truth Social, One America News, and Fox?

Considering all the extortion already enacted (and only a few thus far resisting), it’s chilling that the Board finds Trump only a fifth of the way in controlling academe.

“Huge banners with Mr. Trump’s face,” the Board observes, “hang from government buildings. He posts memes in which he wears a crown, including an A.I.-generated video that depicted him flying a jet that dropped fecal matter on protesters.”

How very classy.

The Board cites “the comically petty (like charging the Secret Service up to $1,200 per night for rooms at his hotels) to the shamelessly greedy (like the $40 million that Amazon paid for the rights to a Melania Trump documentary or his recent demand that the government pay him $230 million because he was investigated for breaking the law).”

This last one absolutely astounds me. And perhaps it’s only two-thirds of the way to autocracy?

Here, the Board gives a mulligan to Trump’s January 6, 2020, attempt: “Even if he backs away from any scheme to serve more than two presidential terms, Mr. Trump’s attempts to tilt the electoral field in favor of Republicans is anti-democratic and could pervert American elections for years.”

Could pervert? It already has. 

Let us continue with actions such as “A Necessary, Significant, Occasionally Joyful ‘No Kings’ ” and “The Atlantic’s Unfinished Revolution.” ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025