Video by The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel
Ralph Nader argues that the collapse of American democracy is rooted in a deliberate shift by the mass media, especially the New York Times, away from covering grassroots civic movements. He traces this to the early 1970s, when the Times, under managing editor A.M. Rosenthal, began suppressing investigative reporting on corporations to protect advertising revenue, a pattern the Washington Post soon followed. The 1971 Powell Memo gave corporations a blueprint for fighting back, and the simultaneous capture of the Democratic Party by corporate money, accelerated under Tony Coelho’s fundraising, destroyed the liberal wing that had once partnered with Nader’s Raiders to pass landmark consumer, environmental and safety laws.
Without press coverage, Nader contends, the civic cycle of exposure, hearings and reform breaks down, leaving unions, public-interest groups and legal institutions unable to resist. He places primary blame on the media for this censorship, which he says handed the country to Trump and a lawless executive. His prescription is to rebuild that civic infrastructure from the ground up: organizing one percent of constituents in every congressional district, mobilizing progressive alumni, and conditioning votes on universal demands like a living wage and healthcare, trusting that concentrated public pressure can reclaim Congress from corporate supremacy.