Unprecedented facts in the US and institutions do not react
Never has a president so shamelessly stepped outside the perimeter of his role, without any serious resistance from traditional countervailing powers, public or private
3' min read
3' min read
Unprecedented things are happening in the United States. Never, at least since the days of McCarthyism, had political power trampled underfoot in such a short space of time and with such arrogance individual and collective rights that were considered untouchable, because they were the common heritage of the whole of society. And never had a president so shamelessly stepped outside the perimeter of his role, without any serious resistance from the traditional countervailing powers, public or private.
In particular, we are stunned by the daily erosion of the spaces of free information in what, perhaps only in our imagination, was considered the home of free speech. We cannot quell a question that spontaneously comes to our lips: how was this possible? Why don't the antibodies seem to be working?
In the USA, administrative authorities, which have always been jealous of their autonomy, seem to have become the armed arm of political power. The case of the FCC, the independent government agency that regulates communications, is emblematic: it lent itself to ventilating the possibility of revoking the licence of a television network if it did not fire an anchorman who had shown hostility to the president.
But it is another fact that seems even more worrying: in the face of the president's ukase, whether they are manifestations of his political line or personal interests matters little, the large private institutions have not shown the capacity to react that one might have expected.
Everyone, from web giants to the most prestigious universities, from the most influential law firms to traditional media companies, with rare exceptions at risk of martyrdom, have readily bowed to every wish, accompanied by often explicit threats.
