Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
A few months ago, I read about the Ministry of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, and the parallels to our current political climate were hard to ignore. It led me to think less about individual acts of misinformation and more about how systemic changes--initiated under Trump--have altered the way information is controlled or obstructed. While there’s no official Ministry of Propaganda today, we are witnessing efforts to reshape institutions in ways that centralize narrative control and suppress dissent.
Science
Press and Media
Film, Arts, and Entertainment
Social Media and Online Information
Government Agencies/Cabinets
What we are seeing is a deliberate march toward consolidating narrative control: reward those who obey, erase or punish those who don’t. Whether by defunding, firing, restructuring, or installing yes-men, the goal is clear—control what the public sees, hears, and ultimately believes. This goes far beyond political favoritism; it’s an attack on the very idea of objective information. Science, journalism, education, and the arts are being bent to serve a single political narrative. And in doing so, the administration isn't just breaking norms—it’s laying the groundwork for authoritarian-style information control.
Science
- Without Congressional approval, removal of grant money from anything challenging to Trump doctrine
- Without Congressional approval, removal of agencies and information inconsistent with oligarchy profiteering such as climate change agencies' removal and NOAA climate database shutdown
- Without just cause, purges of scientists who could challenge Trump doctrine
- Appointing fringe "scientists" who exclusively support Trump-aligned narratives to replace legitimate experts
Press and Media
- Without Congressional approval, attempting to destroy and defund public networks that show objective or unbiased reporting such as NPR and PBS
- Without Congressional approval, threatening and restructuring Voice of America to become a clone of far rightwing OAN
- Going after whistleblowers more seriously than ever before so that anything illegal will not be reported to the media
- Undermining press freedom by punishing media outlets—through bans from Oval Office briefings and exclusion from direct military coverage
- Exerting control over the FCC to criminally target networks that could be critical of him
Film, Arts, and Entertainment
- Without Congressional approval, creating foreign film tariffs so that the film industry window of control is tighter
- Without Senate approval for confirmation or Congressional approval for appropriations, promoting conservatives as special ambassadors to Hollywood with taxpayer money
- Taking over the Kennedy Center board to exert tighter control over the arts and nominations for yearly awards
- Without just cause and to move the entertainment industry rightward, threatening criminal charges against some entertainers who endorsed anyone other than him, or who do not share his ideology
Social Media and Online Information
- Forming an alliance with social media oligarchs, propagating persistent false political narratives
- Without just cause, criminally threatening educational websites such as Wikipedia in order to exert tighter control of narratives
Government Agencies/Cabinets
- Without the consent of the Senate or an impeachment process, removal of inspectors general across agencies to reduce objectivity, transparency, and reporting mechanisms
- Without just cause, created a climate within the DoJ that will consider various media outlets to be illegal when they do not follow the Trump doctrine
- Targeting colleges that educate students of reality where it disagrees with Trump doctrine by defunding them, with a goal of creating new generations of conservative college graduates
- Reshaped the DOJ's civil rights division to prioritize executive orders aligned with his agenda, paving the way for biased enforcement and politicized narratives around issues like alleged anti-Christian discrimination
What we are seeing is a deliberate march toward consolidating narrative control: reward those who obey, erase or punish those who don’t. Whether by defunding, firing, restructuring, or installing yes-men, the goal is clear—control what the public sees, hears, and ultimately believes. This goes far beyond political favoritism; it’s an attack on the very idea of objective information. Science, journalism, education, and the arts are being bent to serve a single political narrative. And in doing so, the administration isn't just breaking norms—it’s laying the groundwork for authoritarian-style information control.
