Taking stock and reassessing the political war: It's worse than I thought

What is going to happen next is becoming pretty clear, pretty fast. It is going to be authoritarian, ugly and shockingly corrupt. What to do next isn't obvious. Most of my common sense-grounded predictions are well on their way to being more right than wrong. No surprise there. He's doing what he said he was gonna do and tried to do the last time.[1] 

Reflecting on America's current political situation, its feels reasonable to think that my understanding of the war between deeply corrupt authoritarianism and less corrupt democracy was significantly off the mark about the democracy side of the war. It appears to be significantly more corrupt and authoritarian than I previously believed. That reassessment comes from factors like (i) blind Dem support for the corrupt authoritarians running Israel and their goal of making criticism of Israel by American citizens illegal, and (ii) the plutocratic neoliberal wing of the Dems, which is in control. In essence, the Dem party has its own internal deeply corrupt plutocratic authoritarian war going on against already unacceptably corrupt democracy. 

I now think that internal war has made the Dems rather ineffective in dealing with at least ~20 years of constant Repub attacks on democracy and inconvenient facts and truths. The war seems to be better framed like this: Deeply corrupt radical right authoritarianism (autocratic, plutocratic, theocratic) against too corrupt democratic-plutocratic impulses. That doesn't look very good for democracy.

Worse, the MSM seems to be buckling under the open threat of radical right authoritarianism and the pressures of corporate ownership and demands for profit. Since Bezos bent his knee to protect his wealth in the face of DJT's very credible public threats, the tone of the WaPo has begun to change for the worse. I won't renew my subscription when it ends next April. The NYT is already under a massive threat that could put it out of business, i.e., a $10 billion defamation lawsuit. All or most of the rest of the non-MAGA mainstream media is in disarray and under intense economic pressure to simply survive. 

There is a hint that some in the non-MAGA MSM are starting to sense a deadly threat to democracy. What will lead to, if anything at all, is unclear. A WaPo opinionologist (not paywalled) put it this way, democracy needs a different model for journalism. Well, duh. One could reframe that as journalism needs a different economic model. The opinionologist suggested a non-profit model based on what ProPublica is doing.[2] 

I support ProPublica and recommend it to anyone who can afford to donate. It may wind up being among the last survivors standing in defense of democracy. Capitalism is implacably hostile to professional journalism, so the money for operations has to come from a different economic model. MSNBC and CNBC are up for sale and they could, probably will, wind up under the control of a MAGA billionaire or consortium. Again, all forms of authoritarianism are incompatible with professional journalism. Bye, bye Rachael Maddow, hello morally rotted, lying, slandering, crackpot MAGA propagandist.

Q: Is American democracy and honest governance on a bumpy road, in a rough patch, on the way to being great again, and/or something else?

Footnotes:

1. The one important prediction that might be going off the rails is about DJT handing Ukraine to Putin by a mutual agreement, presumably in secret, followed by mass slaughter of Ukrainians. It may be the case that Putin is going to be openly contemptuous of DJT and his blither about ending the war in one day. A lot of Russians are dead. Putin is probably implacably furious and out for bloody revenge, regardless of DJT's nonsense. 

Complicating the analysis is Biden's unexpected decision to allow the Ukraine to shoot long-range US missiles into Russia. In response, Putin issued a warning that aggressive move gives Russia the right to use nuclear weapons and to attack countries that supply the missiles. We just inched closer to nuclear war, in Ukraine, NATO and/or the US. Regardless, one probably can still reasonably expect the start of mass slaughter of Ukrainians in the next 2 years. NATO seems to be a steaming pile of uselessness.

What's the range, ~100 mi or ~180 mi?

2. The opinion comments:

The plight of the news business has gotten steadily worse over the past decade. Cable TV networks are shedding audience share at an alarming rate. Increasingly, they seemed to have forgotten who their audience even is. The hosts of “Morning Joe” visiting Mar-a-Lago was the sort of move, judging from the backlash, that is likely to increase its progressive audience’s flight from MSNBC. CNN, in its effort to be all things to all people, is also hemorrhaging viewers. Many national newspapers are losing subscribers (and hollowing out their coverage), and local media has been shriveling for years. (The Post’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate unleashed an exodus of hundreds of thousands of readers who had expected a clarion voice in defense of democracy.)

It is not merely this shrinkage in conventional news consumption that should be alarming. The preponderance of voters who get no news whatsoever suggests the very notion of an “informed electorate” might become a thing of the past. 

ProPublica has pioneered an inventive partnership with local papers all over the country. ProPublica provides an enterprising investigative reporter with salary for a year plus the infrastructure necessary to report the story, including editors, research assistance and lawyers. 

Was the notion of an “informed electorate” ever more real than illusion? I doubt it, but that depends on how one defines the concept of “informed” in this context.