Donald Trump’s recent battle with CNN, MS NOW, and Politico is just the latest in a long list of conflicts with the press over what he views as unfavorable or inaccurate coverage. Many people believe his actions are becoming increasingly authoritarian. Some are quick to reach for the term Nazi or fascist when describing his actions. I know this can be tempting because I’ve done it myself.
While his actions are becoming increasingly authoritarian-like, have they really reached the level of previous totalitarian dictatorships? Let’s look at a few totalitarian regimes from the last 100 years and see how the Trump administration’s approach to the press stacks up against theirs. While there are many examples to choose from, I’m going to look at two familiar and one not so familiar example — Nazi Germany, Communist China, and Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Nazi Germany
Prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Germany had a free and diverse press. In 1933 there were more than 4,700 newspapers in Germany covering almost every political, social and religious segment of society. Less than three percent of newspapers were controlled or heavily influenced by the Nazis.
Hitler rapidly seized control of the German press through a series of emergency decrees and laws he justified through a series of trumped-up events such as the infamous Reichstag fire. Hitler blamed the fire on the communists despite any clear evidence that they were involved.
Hitler also used it to justify mass arrests of political opponents and to issue emergency decrees suspending basic civil liberties and he made it illegal to criticize the government. Within just a few months, communist and social democratic newspapers had been shut down and their printing presses confiscated. Independent newspapers faced increasing pressure to comply “voluntarily” with government restrictions on their reporting.
In March 1933, the Nazis created the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. He quickly took control of film, radio, theater, and newspapers. The Editor’s Law of October 1933 required every editor and journalist to register with the government. It excluded Jews and anyone married to a Jew, or anyone considered politically or racially unacceptable from taking part in either newspaper writing or publishing.
Editors were given specific instructions about what they would be allowed to report and how stories should be prepared. They were ordered to omit anything “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.” Acceptable content was provided through weekly press conferences in Berlin and was relayed to local newspapers. Those who didn’t comply could lose their jobs or even face the concentration camps. By the middle of 1941, the Nazis controlled approximately 80% of German newspapers. By the beginning of 1942, independent newspapers had virtually ceased to exist.
Communist China
China is an important example of media control in the digital age. They have found an effective way of controlling information in a society where almost everyone has a smartphone and almost anyone can post content.
China is not new to the game of media control. The Chinese Communist Party first established the Central Propaganda Department in 1921 and has been in total control of the country’s media since 1949. It found a way to effectively control a commercial media market by allowing some private ownership of closely controlled media companies.
What China has created is an effective system of self-censorship where media outlets employ their own in-house content managers who review all published items based on censorship guidelines from the Central Propaganda Department that are updated on a weekly basis. Publication rights can be granted, revoked, or restricted at the discretion of the party. There is no appeal of decisions.
The party has the “Great Firewall” that blocks foreign platforms and scrubs all sensitive topics from the Chinese internet. Websites can be blocked, social media posts removed, and accounts deleted. In 2016 Xiao Jinping stated, “all the work by the party’s media must reflect the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority, and safeguard the party’s unity.”
According to nonprofit democracy watchdog groups, Freedom House, and The Committee to Protect Journalists, China has the world’s most restrictive media environment, and it is the world’s most aggressive jailer of journalists, holding at least 50 in prisons.
Hungary
Hungary is important to consider because it is a 21st century example of a state attempting to establish authoritative style control over national media. It’s equally important because it’s an example of an authoritative style government being voted out of office and actually leaving office.
Viktor Orbán used a strategy in Hungary this been referred to as “media capture”. He used organizations meant to provide oversight and protection for journalists and society at large and turned them into instruments of political influence; it’s the way he built and maintained his political power.
He cultivated friendly relationships with wealthy media owners, he made targeted advertising expenditures, and he exerted pressure on independent journalists. He assisted wealthy supporters in acquiring media organizations and provided them with favorable regulatory decisions. Without ever formally banning the opposition press, he wound up with indirect but nonetheless effective control of about 75% of the Hungarian media.
Orbán also worked tirelessly spreading propaganda through news outlets. His government regularly portrayed the opposition media as spreading false information and working for foreign governments. He seems to have a particular fascination with the Hungarian-born American businessman and philanthropist George Soros, something he shares with many American Republicans.
Media outlets that were favorable to Orbán enjoyed institutional and financial support. Critical organizations operated with greater difficulty. The combination of friendly ownership, public spending, and reduced regulatory authority gave an advantage to Orbán’s supporters. While Orbán made sure the competition was unequal, Hungary still retained some independent journalism as is evidenced by his recent election defeat.
How Trump Fits The Pattern
To be fair, I cannot say that Trump is completely replicating the authoritarian management of the press seen in countries such as Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, or modern authoritarian states. The legal, regulatory, and social environment in the United States makes that kind of overt government control of the press extremely difficult. But within the constraints of the American legal and political system, I believe Trump is applying some of the same principles wherever possible.
One example is his effort to control access to news events. The White House does not control reporters or what they write, but it has considerable control over who gets access to the president and his administration. It can influence who attends certain press events, who travels aboard Air Force One, and who receives interviews with the president, cabinet members, and other high-ranking officials. Privileged access is a powerful tool for rewarding friendly coverage and discouraging hostile reporting.
Trump has also benefited from the growing importance of friendly media ownership. Wealthy individuals and corporations increasingly control major news organizations, and their political and business interests can potentially influence editorial decisions. Jeff Bezos’s ownership of The Washington Post and the Ellison family’s influence over CBS and its corporate parent have raised questions about how ownership may affect coverage. An even more direct example is Truth Social, Trump’s preferred social-media platform, in whose parent company he holds a substantial financial interest.
Trump is also skilled at using delegitimizing language, a favorite tactic of authoritarian governments. Repeated attacks on journalists and news organizations can weaken the public’s willingness to defend an independent press. Trump’s frequent use of terms such as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people” does not, by itself, facilitate the creation of an authoritarian program and rhetoric alone does not create a dictatorship. Historically, however, authoritarian movements have often attacked the credibility and legitimacy of the independent press before attempting to restrict its influence or bring it under greater control.
Perhaps the strongest parallel is the use—or threatened use—of government licensing, regulation, investigations, and litigation as instruments of pressure. Even when direct government action does not follow, repeated threats of lawsuits, license challenges, investigations, or adverse regulatory decisions can influence the behavior of media executives. Companies with billions of dollars at stake in mergers, licenses, acquisitions, and other government decisions may become more cautious about pursuing stories or commentary likely to antagonize the administration.
No single action constitutes government control of the press, and many individual actions may fall within existing law. But when media companies make concessions to the government while seeking favorable regulatory decisions, settling lawsuits, or protecting other corporate interests, the cumulative effect can be significant. Control of the press does not necessarily arrive through censorship laws or government seizure of newspapers and television stations. It can develop gradually, as economic pressure, political intimidation, restricted access, and regulatory uncertainty encourage media organizations to become increasingly cautious and compliant.
How He Doesn’t Fit
The most significant way Trump does not fit the traditional authoritarian pattern is legal. Authoritarian governments typically move quickly to suppress or abolish a free press, either by law or decree. In the United States, however, the First Amendment remains intact, and—for now—the courts continue to serve as an important check on presidential power. Numerous actions by the Trump administration have been challenged in court, and the administration does not have the legal authority simply to abolish freedom of the press. This is an essential distinction that cannot be ignored, even by those who are highly critical of Trump’s attempts to influence the news media.
There is also no equivalent in the United States to the systematic physical coercion employed by many authoritarian governments. Totalitarian regimes have imprisoned journalists, closed newspapers and broadcasting facilities, seized printing presses, and, in some cases, tolerated or encouraged violence against journalists. Whatever the seriousness of Trump’s attacks on the press, the United States has not reached that point.
Most authoritarian governments also attempt to establish centralized control over propaganda, censorship, and the distribution of information. The fragmented nature of the American media makes that extraordinarily difficult. Competing newspapers, television networks, radio stations, internet publications, podcasts, social media, and independent journalists provide Americans with an enormous variety of information. The ready availability of foreign news sources provides another safeguard against any government effort to monopolize information.
There is also an important difference in the speed and effectiveness of government action. Authoritarian regimes often move rapidly against an independent press. The Bolsheviks began closing opposition newspapers within days of taking power, while the Nazis largely brought the German press under their control within the first few years of Hitler’s rule. By contrast, Trump’s efforts to exert greater influence over the American media have encountered resistance from the courts, journalists, media organizations, political opponents, and civil society. The historical pattern of a rapid conquest of the press has not occurred in the United States, and it remains more of an ongoing contest.
Most importantly, Americans keep the ability to change their government through elections. Trump continues to have a substantial political base, but opposition parties and candidates remain free to organize, campaign, criticize the president, and compete for political power. As long as genuinely competitive elections, an independent judiciary, and constitutional protections for speech and the press remain intact, there are substantial barriers to comprehensive media control.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The more relevant comparison for the future may be not Nazi Germany or China, but Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, creating an American version of “media capture.”
The Trump administration may continue moving in that direction. It could place pressure on media owners through regulatory decisions, licensing disputes, government investigations, or the threat of litigation. Lawsuits and threatened lawsuits may also make media organizations more cautious about particularly aggressive coverage. Efforts to reduce or eliminate federal support for public broadcasting could further alter the media landscape.
Several potential developments deserve particularly close attention. Will the administration comply with adverse court rulings, or will it attempt to circumvent or delay them through prolonged litigation? Will the FCC use licensing or regulatory authority in ways that appear connected to the political content of news coverage? Will the Justice Department investigate or prosecute journalists for legitimate news gathering activities rather than for conduct involving clearly established violations of law? And will government power increasingly be used to reward friendly media organizations while imposing economic or regulatory costs on hostile ones?
These questions matter because authoritarian control of the press does not necessarily arrive in a single dramatic act. It can develop gradually as political leaders weaken independent institutions, intimidate critics, reward friendly owners, and make journalists increasingly cautious about challenging those in power.
For that reason, the most useful approach is neither to declare that the United States has already become an authoritarian state nor to assume that its constitutional protections make such a development impossible. It is better to watch what happens to the institutions that stand between political power and control of information: the courts, independent media organizations, regulatory agencies, opposition parties, and ultimately the electorate.
Trump’s relationship with the press clearly does not duplicate Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, or Orbán. The question is whether the safeguards that distinguish the American system from those regimes remain strong enough to resist political pressure.
Illustration generated by author using ChatGPT
Sources
- Committee to Protect Journalists. “Alarm Bells: Trump’s First 100 Days Ramp Up Fear for the Press, Democracy.” May 12, 2025.
- Associated Press. “Paramount Settles with Trump for $16 Million over ’60 Minutes’ Interview.” July 2, 2025.
- Reuters. “Democratic FCC Commissioner Blasts Paramount Settlement with Trump as ‘Desperate’ Move.” July 2, 2025.
- Reuters. “CNN, MS NOW and Politico Sue Trump, Challenging White House Ban.” September 21, 2026.
- Reuters. “White House Media Ban Faces Long Odds in Court, Legal Experts Say.” September 22, 2026.
- Associated Press. “A White House Press Ban Was Lifted This Week. But the …” September 25, 2026.
- American Civil Liberties Union. “Trump’s Attacks on Press Freedom Escalate: NPR, PBS Funding Cuts Explained.” August 5, 2025.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Press in the Third Reich.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nazi Propaganda and Censorship.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Editors Law.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “What Was Nazi Propaganda?”
- Council on Foreign Relations. “Media Censorship in China.”
- Freedom House. “China: Freedom in the World 2025 Country Report.”
- Freedom House. “China: Freedom on the Net 2025 Country Report.”
- U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Censorship Practices of the People’s Republic of China. Prepared by Exovera’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis. February 20, 2024.
- Committee to Protect Journalists. “2025 Journalist Jailings Remain Stubbornly High; Harsh Prison Conditions Pervasive.”
Why Is Everyone Talking About Socialism Again?
By John Turley
On August 22, 2026
In Commentary, Politics
For much of the late twentieth century, “socialism” was almost a forbidden word in American politics. Republicans used it as an accusation, Democrats generally avoided it, and politicians who actually described themselves as socialists occupied a small place on the political fringe.
Things have changed dramatically. Today, politicians on both the right and the left talk about socialism—although they usually mean entirely different things.
On the right, “socialism” has become a broad warning label applied to proposals ranging from universal health insurance to government regulation and higher taxes. On the left, a growing number of politicians and activists have reclaimed the word, associating it with economic equality, stronger labor rights, universal public services, and restraints on corporate power.
The interesting question may be less whether America is becoming socialist than why Americans are suddenly arguing about the meaning of socialism.
Socialism Originally Meant Something Specific
Historically, socialism was not simply another word for government spending. It developed during the nineteenth century largely in response to industrial capitalism. Although socialist thinkers disagreed considerably among themselves, they generally believed that the production resources of society—factories, mines, transportation systems, land, and eventually large corporations—should be owned collectively or controlled by workers rather than by private investors.
Karl Marx advocated a transformation by revolution. Other socialists eventually pursued democratic and parliamentary approaches.
That distinction matters because many policies routinely described as “socialist” in American political debate do not meet the traditional definition at all. A government can tax corporations, regulate banks, provide health insurance, and maintain a generous welfare system while leaving most businesses privately owned. Economists would normally describe such a country as a mixed capitalist economy or social democracy, rather than a socialist economy.
What the American Right Means by Socialism
For many conservatives, socialism has acquired a much broader meaning. The term is frequently applied to policies that increase government involvement in the economy such as progressive taxation, environmental regulation, student-debt relief, subsidized health care, expanded welfare benefits, government-supported child care, or other programs that redistribute income or provide services collectively.
In this usage, socialism is less a precise economic system than a direction of travel. Conservatives argue that as government assumes greater responsibility for allocating resources and providing benefits, individual choice and private markets become less important.
There is a legitimate philosophical argument here. There has always been a debate over where the boundary should lie between private markets and collective responsibility.
But calling every government economic intervention “socialism” stretches the word almost beyond recognition. By that definition, nearly every modern industrial democracy—including the United States—has been partly socialist for generations.
The political usefulness of the word helps explain its persistence. For Americans who remember the Cold War, “socialism” may evoke the Soviet Union, communist Eastern Europe, Cuba, or more recently Venezuela. Calling an opponent socialist therefore does more than criticize a particular tax or health-care proposal. It associates that proposal with an entire political system many Americans regard as oppressive and economically unsuccessful.
Polling illustrates how powerful that association remains. Pew Research Center found in 2022 that only 14 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had a positive impression of socialism. Republicans were also much more likely than Democrats to associate socialism with restrictions on individual freedom.
What the American Left Means by Socialism
The situation on the left is considerably more complicated because there is no single left-wing definition of socialism.
Many Americans who describe themselves favorably toward “socialism” appear to mean something closer to social democracy: a basically capitalist economy combined with universal health care, stronger unions, affordable higher education, progressive taxation, extensive social insurance, and stronger regulation of corporations.
Their preferred models are often Scandinavian countries such as Denmark and Finland. Yet those countries retain private businesses, private property, financial markets, entrepreneurship, and international corporations. They are heavily regulated capitalist welfare states, not classical socialist economies.
Pew’s research demonstrates this ambiguity. When Americans favorable toward socialism were asked what they liked about it, many emphasized fairness, meeting basic needs, and combining elements of capitalism and socialism rather than eliminating capitalism altogether.
Other people on the American left mean something more substantial when they use the term. The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, explicitly says democratic socialism should go beyond merely regulating capitalism. The organization advocates greater democratic control of workplaces and collective ownership of important parts of the economy, including areas such as energy and transportation. That position is much closer to the traditional meaning of socialism.
Consequently, it is misleading to assume that a liberal Democrat supporting Medicare expansion and a democratic socialist advocating worker control of corporations necessarily have the same economic philosophy.
They may support some of the same immediate policies while disagreeing profoundly about the ultimate economic system they want.
Why Has Socialism Suddenly Returned?
First was the financial crisis of 2008. Younger Americans watched banks and financial institutions receive extraordinary government assistance while millions of ordinary Americans lost jobs, savings, and homes. That experience weakened the assumption that an essentially unregulated market produces fair outcomes.
Then came decades of concern about wage stagnation, college debt, housing affordability, medical expenses, and growing concentrations of wealth. For some younger Americans, “capitalism” increasingly came to mean not neighborhood businesses and entrepreneurship but enormous corporations, billionaires and now trillionaires, expensive housing, and economic insecurity.
Bernie Sanders accelerated the transformation during his presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020. By openly calling himself a democratic socialist while attracting millions of votes, Sanders helped remove some of the Cold War stigma surrounding the word.
Generational change matters as well. Younger Americans did not experience the Cold War in the same way their parents and grandparents did. Pew found striking age differences in its 2022 survey. Americans under 30 were roughly as likely to have an exclusively positive view of socialism as an exclusively positive view of capitalism. Older Americans remained considerably more favorable toward capitalism.
The political right has responded by emphasizing the word even more strongly. That makes strategic sense. If progressive Democrats increasingly accept the socialist label—or propose policies Republicans can associate with it—Republicans have an incentive to connect those policies with a word that remains deeply unpopular among conservative and many older voters.
The result is a feedback loop: the left talks more about socialism because the word has become less frightening to some voters, while the right talks more about socialism precisely because it hopes to make the word frightening again.
Is America Already Partly Socialist?
The answer depends almost entirely upon our definition.
Under the traditional definition—collective ownership of the means of production—the United States is overwhelmingly capitalist. Most farms, factories, banks, hospitals, restaurants, stores, technology companies, media companies, and other productive enterprises are privately owned.
But America has never operated as a completely laissez-faire capitalist economy either.
The federal government operates Social Security, for example, which the Social Security Administration itself describes as a social insurance program. Workers and employers contribute through payroll taxes, and benefits provide partial income replacement after retirement, disability, or death. About 96 percent of American jobs are covered.
Medicare and Medicaid place government deeply into health-care financing while most hospitals, physician practices, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and medical suppliers remain private.
The government also insures private bank deposits through the FDIC. Deposits at insured banks are generally protected up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, per ownership category, backed by the federal government.
Public schools, public universities, highways, libraries, police departments, fire departments, water systems, parks, and numerous municipal utilities provide goods and services collectively rather than through ordinary private markets.
The United States even owns or operates certain enterprises directly. The Postal Service, for example, is an independent establishment within the executive branch that provides a nationwide public service while simultaneously operating in a competitive marketplace.
These arrangements contain elements of collective provision, social insurance, public ownership, or economic regulation, but calling all of them “socialism” creates more confusion than clarity.
A public fire department is not evidence that America has adopted a socialist economic system any more than a privately owned grocery store proves that government has no role in the economy.
America Has a Mixed Economy—and Always Has
Perhaps the greatest problem with the current socialism debate is the assumption that capitalism and socialism exist as two completely separate boxes and that a country must choose one or the other. Modern economies rarely work that way.
The United States relies primarily on private ownership, competition, investment, and markets to produce goods and services. At the same time, Americans have repeatedly decided that certain risks and services should be handled collectively.
Even organized labor introduces an element of collective economic power into a capitalist system, although union membership has declined substantially. In 2025, 10 percent of American wage and salary workers belonged to unions, compared with 20.1 percent in 1983.
The real political disagreement is rarely capitalism versus socialism in their pure theoretical forms. It is about where to draw the line between the market and the community.
Should health insurance operate primarily as a commercial product or a public service? Should housing be left largely to market forces or should government intervene to make it more affordable? Should corporations answer primarily to shareholders, or should workers have greater influence over corporate decisions? How progressive should taxation be? Which industries, if any, should be publicly owned? How much inequality should society tolerate in exchange for the incentives created by private enterprise?
A surprising twist is that some of the loudest recent “socialism” accusations are coming from conservatives — aimed at their own president. Since returning to office, the Trump administration has taken direct equity stakes in Intel, secured a “golden share” in U.S. Steel, arranged profit-sharing with Nvidia and AMD on chip sales to China, imposed sweeping tariffs, and directed the Pentagon to prioritize coal — an unprecedented degree of direct federal involvement in private enterprise for a Republican administration. Commentators across the spectrum — from the Council on Foreign Relations to the Wall Street Journal — have reached for terms like “state capitalism” or “state capitalism with American characteristics,” an explicit echo of the Chinese Communist Party’s own “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. One economist with more than three decades of market-watching called it plainly “the most economically interventionist government of my lifetime”.
Those are legitimate political questions. Calling one side “capitalist” and the other “socialist” obscures more than it explains.
The Word May Matter Less Than the Argument
There is one particularly revealing finding in the polling. Americans do not necessarily treat capitalism and socialism as opposites. Pew found people who expressed favorable opinions of both, suggesting that many Americans interpret capitalism as representing markets and opportunity while interpreting socialism as representing economic security and fairness.
That may tell us something important about the current debate. It appears that Americans want the vitality of capitalism tempered by the compassion of socialism.
The renewed interest in socialism doesn’t indicate that millions of Americans suddenly want the government to seize factories and abolish private enterprise. Instead, it reflects dissatisfaction with how the existing economic system distributes opportunity, security, wealth, and political power.
Conservative warnings about socialism often reflect a genuine concern that expanding government responsibility can gradually reduce economic freedom, increase taxation, and shift decisions from individuals and markets toward political institutions.
Those are fundamentally different concerns—and both become difficult to discuss when the same word means entirely different things to the people using it.
The question is not whether America should become “socialist,” it is what kind of capitalism we want.
That argument has been with us throughout American history. Only the vocabulary has changed.
For an additional discussion of the elements of socialism, see my post Three Shades of Left, published on November 10th 2025.
Image generated by author using ChatGPT.
Sources