Source: The Bulwark
by Will Saletan
“One of the authoritarian practices Donald Trump has brought to America is propaganda. Every government lies now and then, but authoritarian regimes go further. They don’t just stretch or hide the truth. They look you in the eye and tell you that what you just saw didn’t happen. This is what President Trump’s advisers did last week when he suspended his ‘reciprocal’ (actually not reciprocal) worldwide tariffs. They reversed their previous statements, invented a new story, and pretended that the president’s plan had never changed. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. The tariff turnabout illustrates what sort of people now populate the upper reaches of the U.S. government. They’re the sort of people you’d find in a regime like North Korea’s, willing to say whatever the great leader wants them to say that day.” (04/17/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/presidents-propagandists-trump-lutnick-navarro-bessent-tariffs