Throughout this year’s presidential election campaign, we’ve warned Democrats that if they’re really as worried as they claim to be about authoritarianism in a second Trump term, they need to pass some bills to mitigate that risk. Or at least stop handing authoritarians legislative weapons.
They didn’t listen. Now they’ve got two months left to do some damage control. We wrote an opinion piece for the Daily Beast about what can still be done.
First, Democrats need to prioritize passing the PRESS Act. The bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality has broad bipartisan support because surveillance of journalists is far from just a Trump issue.
They also need to grow a spine when it comes to (among other things) pushing for press freedom in the Israel-Gaza war; increasing transparency; safeguarding encryption; cracking down on strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs; fixing a dangerous surveillance law many of them voted for earlier this year; taking Trump up on his offer to drop the TikTok ban; and fighting back against efforts to weaponize anti-terrorism laws against the press.
