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Trump's Media Enablers
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Trump's Media Enablers

Heidi Siegmund Cuda investigates the role that social and legacy media are playing in accelerating the rise of global autocracy

Heidi Cuda
Jan 14, 2024
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Still from ‘God Made Trump’, shared by Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform

Driving to Joshua Tree, California, after seeing the world premiere of Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy at the Palm Springs Film Festival, I see a billboard advertising the extremist pro-Trump newspaper Epoch Times as being ‘#1 Trusted News’.

That ain’t true.

My mind was still processing how Bad Faith exposes the methodical and well-funded decades’ long plot to turn apolitical religious non-voters into weapons of mass democratic destruction. They did it by deploying a well-oiled and well-funded media machine of lies. These lies were deployed in churches, on AM radio, and fertilised in journalism deserts throughout the US. When I see that Epoch Times ad — with its churchy looking avatar of a pious young man, I wince. I also see what they don’t advertise — a dark-money base, which includes far-right religious extremists and conspiracy peddlers Falun Gong and US Christian nationalists.

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