The Erosion Of Civil Liberties Under Trump Continues As Business Becomes Willingly Complicit

The erosion of civil liberties is not something that happens overnight but is usually a subtle process that happens over time. For budding autocrats like Trump, when it comes to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, that process usually involves limiting criticism of the ruling party and creating a media environment where the press begins to self-censor and becomes a willing participant in the propaganda machine that the ruling party wishes to create.

The bicyclist who gave Trump's motorcade the finger as it passed by her on its way to deliver the President to yet another golfing weekend has been fired for ostensibly violating her company's social media policies. Juli Briskman was simply riding her bike on her own personal time when Trump's motorcade passed. A pool reporter captured her gesture with his camera and the picture went viral, but never identified the cyclist who had her back to the camera. Briskman posted the image on her own social media accounts without comment. On none of those accounts is Briskman's employer noted. But Briskman took the precaution of self-reporting this incident to her employer so they could be prepared if her identity did become known. Yet her company, Akima fired her for violating their social media policies which state, "Social Media Activity that contains discriminatory, obscene malicious or threatening content, is knowingly false, create [sic] a hostile work environment, or similar inappropriate or unlawful conduct will not be tolerated and will be subject to discipline up to an [sic] including termination of employment." I guess giving the President the finger might be considered inappropriate, (perhaps not when you consider what Trump himself has done), but Briskman's actions had absolutely nothing to do with her job or her work environment. It is probably relevant that Akima is a government contractor and relies on being in the good graces of the federal government in order to make money.

In addition, as we might suspect in a company that fires a woman for actions taken outside of the workplace, there is an element of sexism in Akima's actions as well. One of Briskman's roles at Akima was to monitor her firm's social media presence. In that job, she discovered a senior director at the firm whose online presence includes his position at the firm calling a supporter of Black Lives Matter "a f%*!king Libtard a#%hole". She reported the director and of course nothing happened. And now she is the one getting fired. This is just par for the course for corporations which continue to be complicit protecting abusive management and engaging in generic workplace abuse.

Tom Steyer, the multi-millionaire former hedge fund manager now progressive, is spending $10 million running an ad demanding that Congress take action and impeach Donald Trump. Fox News ran Steyer's ad for a number of days and eventually it appeared on Fox and Friends, where Donald Trump probably became aware of it for the first time. That ad prompted Trump to tweet, "Wacky & totally unhinged Tom Steyer, who has been fighting me and my Make America Great Again agenda from beginning, never wins elections!" Four days later, Fox informed Steyer that it would no longer run his ads, writing, "Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money." I'm pretty sure that Fox News would take money from anyone. More importantly, however, Fox is simply censoring Steyer based on no standard other than they do not like his political views. As Steyer's lawyer notes, "The only plausible explanation seems to be that Fox News capitulated to political pressure from the Trump administration itself.  President Trump has threatened retaliation against broadcasters who provide him with negative coverage and Fox News appears to have answered these threats with servility."

What happened to Juli Brinksman and Tom Steyer is typical of what you see in a "managed media" environment that autocrats strive to create. Businesses will terminate employees who are openly critical of the government for fear of losing the government's favor and thereby saving the regime from restricting speech itself. The Trump administration's constant attacks on the media, from Trump's tweets to Sessions' threats, are designed to foster this environment, as is the demanded sycophancy of all who work for Trump. The government's restriction of access to information, combined with a pliant propaganda platform in the form of Fox News and the right wing social media echo chamber, also contributes to this environment. It is the exact same path that Putin used to gain and maintain control in Russia. It did not happen overnight, but evolved over a handful of years. The similarities to what we are seeing in the US today should frighten us all.