Joshua Scheer
For much of American history, moments of political crisis have been accompanied by campaigns to silence dissent. From the Palmer Raids and McCarthyism to COINTELPRO, governments have repeatedly portrayed critics, journalists, and social movements as foreign agents or internal enemies whenever established power felt under pressure. Today, many observers argue that familiar pattern is resurfacing.
After the House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News—seeking internal communications, financial records, and other documents despite no criminal charges against the nonprofit newsroom—the dispute has become a flashpoint in a broader debate over press freedom and political repression. In this conversation, BreakThrough News host Brian Becker argues that the subpoena is not an isolated legal dispute but part of a wider effort to intimidate independent media, anti-war organizations, and left-wing movements. Drawing on the history of anti-communist campaigns in the United States, Becker contends that the latest crackdown reflects a recurring political strategy: redirecting public frustration by casting dissent as a threat to national security rather than engaging with the issues being raised.
“It’s kind of in the DNA of American bourgeois capitalist politics: demonize your enemy, call them a communist, and that’s the end of the story. But there’s another element, which is the Republican Party, the MAGA project, Project 2025 — the Trump White House is failing.” The House Ways and Means Committee has sent a subpoena to BreakThrough News, demanding internal communications, financial records and more. We are not charged with any crime, because our only “crime” has been to tell the truth – about the Palestine solidarity movement, about ICE’s terror in our streets, about Washington’s crimes around the world, from Cuba to the Congo. This is a flagrant abuse of power, and a direct attack on our work as journalists and on the First Amendment. The State Department’s dangerous “Cuba report” released Monday – blasting Havana as the global center of a sinister anti-American communist plot by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea– is just the latest step in the Trump administration’s McCarthyist revival. But attacks on the left didn’t start with Trump: Brian Becker, host of the Socialist Program, joins the show to discuss how this latest crackdown on free speech is rooted in US history: From the Palmer Raids to COINTELPRO, every time a mass movement for a more just world starts to gain real traction, the state reaches for the same playbook. DONATE / SIGN THE PETITION: https://breakthroughnews.org/bt-under…
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