Trump and the authoritarian drift in the US: layoffs and control of information
The American Axios report: the sacking of the head of statistics at the Ministry of Labour 'is just one example in a week marked by highly authoritarian traits: purges of dissidents, rewriting of history, criminalisation of the opposition and demand for absolute institutional loyalty'
2' min read
2' min read
Donald Trump's dismissal of the labour ministry statistics, accused of manipulating employment data to put him in a bad light, "is just one glaring example in a week marked by strongly authoritarian traits: purges of dissidents, rewriting of history, criminalisation of the opposition and demands for absolute institutional loyalty," writes Axios, a platform that became famous for its numerous journalistic scoops and was founded by three Politico journalists and bought in 2022 by Cox Enterprises for 525 million.
According to Axios, large sectors of society are adapting, the newspaper continued, recalling that the Smithsonian has quietly removed all references to Trump's two impeachments from its exhibition on American presidents.
"The overwhelming and all-encompassing nature of the Trump-generated news cycle makes it difficult to distinguish partisan hysteria from true democratic backsliding," notes Axios again, according to which five recent developments, if applied to a foreign leader - or even a former US president - would seem to be drawn from a autocrat's handbook.
The 'five-alarm fire', the red alert, according to the headline, includes the firing of McEntarfer, the investigation of Obama and his administration for the Russiagate 'hoax', the offensive against liberal power centres, the deportations of migrants in El Salvador's notorious Cecot, and the campaign against Powell.
Trump wins appeal, 'away with union protections for government employees'
Donald Trump, meanwhile, scored another judicial victory, albeit not a definitive one. A federal appeals court has allowed him to proceed with an order requiring a broad swathe of government agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions. It is unclear what immediate effect the ruling will have: the lower court noted that the agencies concerned have been ordered to refrain from terminating any collective bargaining agreements until the 'conclusion of the litigation', but also noted that Trump is now free to implement the order at his discretion. Trump had justified his order, which deprives workers of union protections, as essential to the protection of national security.
