This is a great post from Mike Masnick about why Techdirt is writing more or less full-time about the Trump regime’s attack on democracy: Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not).

I agree with every word of it. One of the points he makes is that media outlets like Techdirt (and Wired and 404 Media, etc) and reporters like Masnick that cover tech and the law are uniquely positioned to understand what has been going on, particularly w/r/t to Musk’s seizure of the government’s computer systems:

This is the kind of thing tech and law reporters spot immediately, because we’ve seen this all play out before. When someone talks about “free speech” while actively working to control speech, that’s not a contradiction or a mistake — it’s the point. It’s about consolidating power while wrapping it in the language of freedom as a shield to fool the gullible and the lazy.

This is why it’s been the tech and legal press that have been putting in the work, getting the scoops, and highlighting what’s actually going on, rather than just regurgitation of administration propaganda without context or analysis (which hasn’t stopped the administration from punishing them).

I’m not a legal expert or a reporter, but I have been covering & writing about technology for almost 30 years and when I saw what Musk was doing (in conjunction with Trump’s EOs and what Project 2025 promised), I recognized exactly what was going on and started to cover it almost exclusively:

I keep hearing people saying this is a five-alarm fire but I feel like it’s a 500-alarm fire…we need metaphorical fire trucks coming from thousands of miles away to fight this blaze.

Masnick’s other main point is even closer to my heart:

When the very institutions that made American innovation possible are being systematically dismantled, it’s not a “political” story anymore. It’s a story about whether the environment that enabled all the other stories we cover will continue to exist.

We’ve always covered the intersection of technology, innovation, and policy (27+ years and counting). Sometimes that meant writing about patents or copyright, sometimes about content moderation, sometimes about privacy. But what happens when the fundamental systems that make all of those conversations possible start breaking down? When the people dismantling those systems aren’t even pretending to replace them with something better?

This x 10000. Like Masnick, I’ve gotten lots of feedback about my pivot to covering the coup, the overwhelming majority of it supportive — even the people who have told me they need to tap out from reading (I totally get it!) are generally approving. But there have been a few disapprovals as well, in the vein of “shut up and dribble” or “keep politics out of it” — which I also understand. To an extent. They want the Other Stuff back, the art and beauty and laughter and distraction, and for me to cool it with the politics.

But echoing Masnick, I believe that covering the rapid disassembly of American democracy is not some separate thing from the Other Stuff and never has been. The reason I have been able to write freely about those things for the last 27 years is because the US has had a relatively stable democracy¹ under which people feel free to innovate, create art, take risks, and be themselves. Those things become much more difficult under fascist and autocratic rule. In a recent piece, Masha Gessen describes how autocracy stifles creativity:

Life under autocracy can be terrifying, as it already is in the United States for immigrants and trans people. But those of us with experience can tell you that most of the time, for most people, it’s not frightening. It is stultifying. It’s boring. It feels like trying to see and breathe under water — because you are submerged in bad ideas, being discussed badly, being reflected in bad journalism and, eventually, in bad literature and bad movies.

I’m covering politics in this particular moment *because* the actions of the Trump administration are threatening all of that Other Stuff, because I want to be able to go back to covering design & photography & movies & science & food & travel & cities & all the cool things humans can do, and because I want my kids and everyone else’s kids to live in a stable, free society where they can make art, pursue scientific truth, be freely gay or trans, have health care, be able to have families, have a place to live, and, if they want to, write about frivolities on their websites. All of that becomes much more difficult if Trump/Musk get their way, and if I can help push back on their efforts in some small way with this platform that I have, I’m gonna do it. ✊✌️

1. I realize the phrase “relatively stable democracy” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. American democracy has never been as inclusive as it could be and a lot of people have been (and are still being) left out of participating fully in our society.↩

Tags: 2025 Coup · Donald Trump · Elon Musk · journalism · kottke.org · Mike Masnick · politics · USA