“The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech and religion. In this field, every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.”
Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, 1945
This was bound to happen. Donald Trump’s fragile ego has compelled him to bar certain media outlets from the White House. No elected official likes everything said or written about them – certainly not in the press. But outright forbidding reporters or journalists from covering important national matters is blatant censorship.
It’s ironic that recently Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House. Jinping oversees one of the world’s strictest systems of censorship. At the 2024 World Internet Conference, he emphasized establishing a “community with a shared future in cyberspace”. But he also stated that, while citizens have the right to express their thoughts online, that freedom requires “order” and governance. Various human rights groups and free speech organizations, such as Reporters Without Borders, have openly condemned Jinping’s control of the Chinese media.
As Banned Books Week 2026 comes to a close – and as a natural born writer – I know I shouldn’t be surprised that a despot disguised as a democratically-elected president like Trump would launch such attacks on the media. I’m really not. But I’m angry – not just a pissed off upset type of angry. I mean truly fucking angry!
During Trump’s first term in office, a former friend posted a photo on his Facebook page of the late Francisco Franco who ruled Spain from the late 1930s until his death in 1975. I’ve often referred to him as Western Europe’s last dictator. The picture was a formal photographic portrait – a “Glamor Shots” type of image – with Franco attired in military regalia.
I expressed my disappointment at the image and pointed out that Franco was an oppressive tyrant who terrorized his own people for some four decades, including heavily censoring media outlets. Millions of Spanish citizens either were imprisoned or disappeared, as usually happens in totalitarian states. But then I noted the obvious: my then-friend was a devout Trump disciple. “Of course you would think so highly of Franco.”
I don’t want the U.S. to sink to that level. Societies are supposed to evolve; that is, improve and grow. With right-wing extremists in positions of power, it seems we’re doing the opposite.
Image: Dave Granlund
