Gareth O'Callaghan: The alarming consequences of Trump’s crackdown on media and democracy
People gather outside of a New York court to protest the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Picture: Getty Images
There’s a famous saying that “radio waves know no borders; they transcend barriers and unite listeners around the world”. Radio has been a part of me since I was a young boy. It has taught me about life and impacted my imagination more than a formal education ever did. It is the ultimate storyteller to the theatre of the mind.
My love for radio began in earnest when I discovered shortwave radio, thanks to my old school friend Ray. We were both 11 years old, the year was 1972. Ray's father, who was an amateur radio enthusiast, had over the years converted their attic into a radio wonderland with all sorts and shapes of wireless gadgetry.
The holy grail was the radio receiver. We would swap the headphones back and forth and take turns sliding the pointer along the bright panel. Names like Radio Moscow, Tirana, Belarus, Botswana, come to mind when I recall the hours spent searching for distant voices. Our ears became a window on new worlds.
In June that year, we found the Voice of America (VOA). A ghostly voice with an American accent was talking about a burglary in Washington DC, in a building called the Watergate complex. As young kids, it meant nothing; it would take years before we realised we had learned of what would become one of the greatest political scandals of all time that would take down Richard Nixon.
Almost two weeks ago, Donald Trump silenced the pro-democracy-driven VOA news network that reached hundreds of millions of listeners globally each week, calling it “anti-Trump” and “radical”. Trump’s order to end the service would “ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda”. In Trumpland, free speech is an endangered species — something I could never have imagined. Two lawsuits are underway against the shutdown.
I spoke to my friend Ray by phone last weekend. He’s been living in upstate New York for over forty years, having carved out a successful career as a lawyer. Ray’s reaction to the muting of VOA was angry: “What does that tell you about a man who once campaigned to protect free speech? By gagging an entire newsroom in the space of a few hours, he abandoned his promise.”
I wasn’t surprised when he told me he has finally decided to up sticks and move back home with his wife and son. His reason? “I don’t feel safe anymore. I worry about my family. In a single word? Trump.”
Ray retired two years ago. He told me about his family’s own personal upsets since Trump started his second term in January. “It’s as though people no longer trust each other, because you don’t know if you’re talking to a die-hard Trump supporter or not. I see prejudice and discrimination that wasn’t there before.”
Ray’s son is autistic. He no longer attends school because he’s afraid. “Two kids in his class called him a spastic a few weeks back. Not even I’d heard that word since I was a kid. He hasn’t left the house since.”
More recently, the Irish have been accused of antisemitism because of our country’s support for Palestine. Two weeks ago, Ray’s wife, a schoolteacher, was accused by a parent of being xenophobic. “The level of ignorance and bigotry from people you once thought were intelligent is off the scale. So many people here think the Irish hate Jews. My wife is Jewish, for God’s sake. Since Trump came back, anyone who doesn’t support him is a target.”
What neither of us were aware of was that, the following day, Trump would direct his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to target law firms “who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.” This new enforcement is also retroactive, which will allow Bondi to look back at the behaviour of lawyers over the past eight years to see if they have crossed Trump in any way.
Almost 70 days into a second term as the world’s most powerful man, Trump's pattern is quickly developing.
In recent days, the Trump administration announced they would be pursuing the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and a Columbia University graduate student who led protests in support of Palestine on the university campus following Hamas’ attack in October 2023.
Without providing any evidence, Trump has accused Khalil of supporting Hamas (an allegation his wife denies) and that he didn’t reveal connections to two organisations (both respectable) in his application to become a permanent US resident.
But his detention could deter other non-citizens who now feel that speaking freely about any issue that annoys Trump could result in their deportation. While the law appears to favour Trump’s decision to deport anyone who acts against US foreign policy goals, it raises a much wider concern surrounding free speech.
What about the lawyers supporting women fighting to protect their reproductive rights and their access to birth control, or their rights to equal pay and how they are treated in the workplace? Are they now engaging in “vexatious litigation against the United States”?
And what about all those children who are entitled to a basic education? It would take an act of Congress to shut down the Department of Education, but it hasn’t stopped Trump directing his Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “return authority over education to the States and local communities”.
Just like Voice of America, and the country’s lawyers, the education playing pitch is now facing an uncertain future. Parents of children with special needs and disabilities are terrified they could lose the federal grants that are the lifeline to their education.
In Trumpland, education will depend on which side of the great divide of prosperity and poverty you find yourself. Children in wealthy states like New Jersey and Massachusetts will have better education opportunities than those in West Virginia, or Middletown, Ohio, where JD Vance is from.
Vaccine sceptic Robert Kennedy Jr’s Department of Health and Human Services will now handle special needs and nutrition programmes, including, “more than likely” according to McMahon, support grants for children with disabilities.
Trump’s presidency makes no sense if you read him as a politician. He doesn’t do politics, he does brands. He's not a traditional political president, he's a brand craftsman. The US Constitution is about as relevant to him as an old-fashioned telephone directory.
His dismantling of the civil service and his antagonism towards judges and lawyers are a reflection of how much he hates democracy. His ideology demands blind submission to authority and the suppression of individual freedom and free speech.
He became a star thanks to reality television, which he once said “was for the bottom-feeders of society”. When Trump talks about making America great again, he’s not talking to people who live in trailer parks, or to the 38m Americans who are living in poverty. To Trump, poor people aren’t a brand, they’re a burden.
For years he sold real estate. Under his reign as CEO of United States Inc, as he sees it, the north American continent is nothing more than a chunk of lucrative land that needs redeveloping and rebranding, just like he did in the 1980s in locations all over midtown Manhattan and across the outer boroughs of New York City.
During his campaign last year, he spoke of Election Day as Liberation Day, an occasion, he said, when the “vermin” and the radical left would be eradicated. There's no doubt that to him, doing that includes undermining aspects of constitutional law, and those who protect it just because he doesn’t like them.
George Washington once said: “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like lambs to the slaughter.” While freedom of speech remains a fundamental human right, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that Trump silenced the Voice of America because his is the only voice he wants America to hear.
