(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



A Historian's Perspective: As Trump Savages Freedom of the Press, He Tramples the Founders' Vision [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-23

This week, Donald Trump turned his ruination to the First Amendment, specifically the Freedom of the Press. Most of the headlines have focused on the White House’s move to bar the Associated Press from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other routine media functions due to its refusal to use the Administration’s approved phrases, but there were several other moves taken by the Trump Administration this week that deserve equal attention. On Wednesday, the State Department sent a memo to American embassies and consulates world-wide to pause all media subscriptions, specifically singling out the New York Times, The Economist, Reuters, Politico, Bloomberg News, and the Associated Press as priorities for cancellation. It’s been reported that exemptions can be requested, but they must be no longer than one sentence and need to explain how the media subscription will lead to American prosperity and support the Administration’s America First agenda. Equally chilling is the Pentagon’s move to vacate a number of mainstream media outlets from their work stations, including NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, Politico, NPR, The Washington Post, and The Hill, replacing them with Breitbart, One America News Network, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, the New York Post, and the Washington Examiner. Let that sink in for a minute.

It’s clear the Trump Administration is attempting to damage and reduce access and influence from “mainstream” media outlets that do not always report favorably on its actions. Trump’s message is implicit: if you are critical of me, we will cut you out of the loop. Every administration has its favorites; every administration throws a few more questions to reporters it believes will provide more sympathetic coverage, or gives the big interview to the outlet that will allow it to control more of the message. But the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Hill are certainly no left-wing propaganda outlets, as most Progressives will readily tell you. The sheer scope of this attack on all non-right-wing media that provides a modicum of critical coverage is frightening. And it’s a frontal assault on the well-planned out and deliberate intentions of the Founders.

For a political movement that purports to believe strongly in the “Original Intent of the Founding Fathers,” MAGA and the modern conservative movement (it’s getting difficult to tell them apart nowadays) sure act as if they have never picked up a history book or bothered to study what any of the Founders actually said or did. It’s no secret that Freedom of the Press was a paramount concern to the United States’ early leaders, enshrined in the First Amendment passed in 1789. But they left us a legacy far beyond that. Almost entirely unknown to most Americans in the 21st century is the Post Office Act of 1792, which many historians of the period would argue is among the most consequential laws ever passed in American history. The Post Office Act of 1792 is a testament to the Founders’ view of the importance of a free flow of communication in a republic. Not only did the Act establish the first Department of the Post Office under the Constitution, but it provided for building post roads and networks to connect peoples throughout the states, explicitly prevented the Post Master and other mail carriers from “spying” on private letters and communications (a legitimate concern in the 18th century), and subsidized the delivery of mail, and therefore settlement and political participation, in rural and far-flung parts of the country with cost offsets born by more urbanized areas.

Of most concern to us today, though, in light of Trump’s attacks on the press, is the Post Office Act’s treatment of newspapers. As the Post Office Act was debated in the House of Representatives, and the early political press itself, the dissemination of newspapers played a prominent role in the discussion. Newspapers had been formally barred from being sent through the official post during the Revolution and the more rudimentary national post office in operation under the Articles of Confederation. The Post Office Act explicitly allowed for newspapers to be sent through the official mail, regardless of how bulky or how much additional weight they added for the carrier, enshrining their importance to the political life of the young country as the primary means of disseminating information. Newspapers themselves were subsidized and were cheaper to send through the post than other letters or packages. In fact, printers could send and exchange newspapers with other printers for a considerably low price comparatively to other mail and even the delivery of papers to subscribers. This was an explicit move on the part of Congress to facilitate news exchange and reporting between different states and far-flung parts of the country, the creation of a national news network, or maybe an “Association of Presses” if you will.

But that’s not all. During the debates over passage of the Post Office Act of 1792, some Congressmen argued that allowing any and all newspapers to be freely and cheaply sent through the post was a burden on the postal system itself, both in terms of volume and cost when considering subsidies. Some Congressmen wanted to limit the newspapers that could be disseminated with subsidies to only those with a subscriber base above a certain number. Not surprisingly, these Congressmen were more closely aligned with the Washington Administration, and one of the few papers that met this criteria was the Gazette of the United States, widely viewed as the paper most friendly to the Washington Administration. This idea was defeated, and the final bill set every newspaper across the country on an equal footing- regardless of location, scope, point of view, or readership. The government would not play favorites.

Let’s repeat that once more for emphasis: THE GOVERNMENT WOULD NOT PLAY FAVORITES. All papers were equal. The dissemination of information was so important, and such a foundational principle, that all papers, of all viewpoints, were necessary to the political well-being of the United States, even those that criticized those in power. In fact, this precedent had already been established years earlier when, among the very first acts passed by Congress in 1789, Congress voted to supply each member of Congress with a newspaper of their own choosing at government expense. Again, not only was it seen as fundamentally important that officers of the federal government be supplied with information as provided by newspapers in order to do their jobs, but that they should be allowed to choose what information they felt they needed, and the government would not choose for them. Yet again, the government would not play favorites.

To recap, the Founders saw newspapers and the information they conveyed as essential to a republican form of government, so much so that they provided generous subsidies for the spread of all newspapers, regardless of viewpoint, throughout the country. They saw as an absolute necessity that those leaders charged with administering government be furnished with information at public expense, information no less, that would not be chosen or approved by the government itself, but rather that our leaders be allowed to seek out the information they felt they need, from whatever location or viewpoint they felt would best help them carry out the public good. The new federal government would not play favorites with friendly newspapers. Contrast this with Trump, who has nothing but disdain for any information that does not come directly from his administration and that does not completely tow the party line. For him, information is a weapon to be wielded by those in power. He wants to use access to information to force those that disagree with him to get in line and follow. The men who literally wrote the Constitution felt that a free press was so important and so essential that they subsidized all newspapers to make it as easy as possible to send them throughout the entire country, regardless of viewpoint or message because the idea of a free press was more important than any regime or policy. Republicans have long said we need to follow the Constitution as originally intended. Apparently that does not include any of the parts they don’t like, such as Freedom of the Press.

-Peter Porcupine

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/23/2305416/-A-Historian-s-Perspective-As-Trump-Savages-Freedom-of-the-Press-He-Tramples-the-Founders-Vision?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.