In a typically astute column, Ron Browstein points out something I don’t think I’d fully understood. Trump has a two pronged strategy to dominate America and I think we’ve only focused on the first:
The administration’s moves against Kimmel last week demonstrated both prongs of President Donald Trump’s strategy to undermine opposition. One is a determination to transform every component of federal authority into a lever to punish Trump’s perceived political adversaries and reward his friends. The second is a systematic attempt to enlist people and institutions operating in conservative regions of the country into Trump’s crusade to diminish the political and cultural influence of the Democratic-leaning parts of the country.
Kimmel’s swift fall, after incorrectly suggesting that Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin belonged to the MAGA movement, underscored how much pressure these twin tactics can apply against basic democratic safeguards that many Americans have long considered inviolate.
From one angle, Carr, in his moves against Kimmel, simply extended the playbook the Trump administration has developed to deploy federal pressure against other institutions it considers obstacles.
Carr warned ABC’s affiliated stations that they could face FCC punishment, or even the loss of their license, for failing to uphold the public interest and/or engaging in “news distortion” if they allowed Kimmel to remain on the air. The unspoken blade looming over Carr’s threats was the fact that the Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which together own about one-fourth of all ABC affiliates, need FCC approval for an assortment of planned mergers and acquisitions. Soon after Carr’s first Kimmel criticisms, Nexstar announced it would preempt the show, which helped force Disney’s hand; Sinclair soon followed.
With those warnings, Carr was following the familiar strongarm strategy of Trump’s second term. But the Kimmel controversy also illuminated a second strategy the Trump administration is using to consolidate power. Carr not only bullied the local ABC affiliates; he also cajoled them to identify as part of a movement to break the political and cultural influence of blue America.
Carr explicitly urged local stations to reject “the programming that is coming from Comcast and from Disney that’s being generated in New York and Hollywood and has been fed like foie gras to the entire country.”
Carr’s appeal echoed the argument Trump has made to Republican-controlled states to redraw their Congressional district lines, and that Trump’s aides have raised to suggest that red states supply the administration National Guard forces to deploy into blue states.
In each case, the administration is signaling that institutions in red states should view themselves less as a component of a unified nation — or even as individual states with their own priorities — than as a member of a red team. The Trump administration can then call on those “red team” states to use their leverage to entrench the MAGA movement’s national power, which provides it the means to subjugate blue America.
This part of the strategy acts as a force multiplier for Trump’s overt transformation of the federal government into a vast machine to reward friends and punish opponents. On this score, Trump has already far surpassed President Richard Nixon, who privately raged against many of the same targets (the media, universities, the “eastern establishment”) and ultimately prompted his aides to compile a White House “enemies list” of individuals he wanted to harass through IRS audits or other federal enforcement. Trump has gone further, repeatedly seeking to coerce other perceived adversaries by subjecting them to direct federal pressure — cutting off research grants for universities, barring law firms from federal contracts, withholding federal dollars from blue states and cities, and conditioning business deals (like the Paramount sale to Skydance Media) on adoption of policies the administration demands. Federal investigations disappear for allies and descend on adversaries.
We knew they had weaponized the federal government. I don’t think I had fully understood how they were working with the red states and conservative institutions within them to advance his agenda.
Just look at Texas and Florida. At every step they’re pushing the MAGA agenda, working as force multipliers. How does Blue America fight that? I haven’t the vaguest idea. But I would guess that in the case of both Texas and Florida there is a substantial threat to business if people start voting with their feet.
I have to have faith that the worm is going to turn at some point or I just won’t be able to get out of bed. The destruction of our institutions that literally threaten our lives and livelihoods has to start becoming dire for many people, even MAGA true believers. It’s clear we won’t be able to do much until Trump is gone because his hold on the cult is just too strong. But if we can hang on until that happens (thank God he’s so old) we might be able to start anew. To do that we’ll need to be aware of where the landmines are and there are many of them being laid in red states around the country as we speak.