Summary
Donald Trump, the president-elect and convicted felon, has escalated his legal attacks on media outlets critical of him, sparking fears for press freedom under his second term.
His lawyer recently demanded $10 billion in damages from The New York Times and Penguin Random House over alleged “defamatory” content.
Similar lawsuits target the Daily Beast, CBS News, and others, accusing them of “malicious” reporting and election interference.
Media groups and watchdogs, including the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, warn these actions threaten press freedom and the public’s right to information.
Half of voters, and still 47% voted Harris last I checked. And turnout was especially bad, too, hence it technically only being a fraction of Americans. That’s not to say it’s not terrible, but even when Trump didn’t get a majority last two times it was alarmingly high.
But my expertise is in education, I can say definitively that Americans fail at civics and we haven’t done much to fix that in close to half a century. But failing civics doesn’t mean you deserve persecution or deportation or skyrocketing costs or nuclear death-- especially when people can legally lie to you to sway your vote. Systems fucked, but I wouldn’t place the blame on that slight majority of subset of the population.
On the contrary, Republicans have fought tooth and nail to destroy public education and keep people as dumb as possible. This is their desired result.
Yes, I know. Well actually, technically No Child Left Behind was a bipartisan attempt to improve education under Bush but was designed by people with conservative values (hence being a shit show designed to improve public education by punishing it).
But yes, on average, they’ve mostly pushed privatization of education and in more recent years, homeschooling for religious values. Dumbing down of society is probably a welcome side effect of stealing money from kids to fund tax breaks for the rich, though.