If you want a taste of what freedom of the press will look like under a MAGA dictatorship, look no further than GOP Sen. Jack Vance's demand that the Justice Department launch a criminal investigation against a Washington Post columnist who wrote a piece warning of a MAGA dictatorship.
Vance, who rose to prominence after his book Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller, told Fox News that Robert Kagan incited "open rebellion" against the United States for his opinion piece titled, "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending."
In his piece, Kagan wrote, "Resistance could come from the governors of predominantly Democratic states such as California and New York through a form of nullification. States with Democratic governors and statehouses could refuse to recognize the authority of a tyrannical federal government. That is always an option in our federal system."
Vance's demand letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland said:
"As you know, prosecutors in the Department of Justice have embraced several stunningly broad interpretations of federal law in their bid to ensnare President Trump in criminal wrongdoing. For example, prosecutors … argue that President Trump has conspired to 'threaten' or 'intimidate' one or more persons in their free exercise of the 'right to vote, and to have one's vote counted.' By that standard, I would like to know whether a supporter of President Trump might be 'intimidate[d]' into foregoing the right to vote after learning that Robert Kagan has encouraged large blue states to rebel against the United States if Trump is elected. If so, I wonder further whether the editors of The Washington Post, having put Kagan's call to arms in print, might have conspired to suppress the vote."
If Trump is victorious, we'll see a lot more of this kind of harassment against journalists.
From Raw Story:
Vance's demand to prosecute an opinion columnist comes as allies of Trump are ramping up their threats to curtail press freedom under a second Trump term. Kash Patel, a top security official in the Trump administration, threatened that Trump will "come after" reporters and other "conspirators" in media who "helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections."
