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Trumpian media censorship has been seen before
PAULINE MURPHY sees a parallel between the US president’s hatred of free speech and Mussolini’s suppression of the press
Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini and the Quadrumviri during the March on Rome in 1922

THE First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” 

Those words are a simple act of democracy in which free speech and free press can be guaranteed in a free society, but those guarantees are being eroded by the very person who is essentially the guardian of the constitution — the US president. 

In the aftermath of the US midterm elections, Donald Trump held a rare press conference in which he spouted his own “greatness” and berated anyone who did not agree. 

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