CEOs are funding one of America's most dangerous shifts

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.” —Donald Trump Dec. 10, 2024 The 1986 American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as: “fascism n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.” We’re about to be there. Indeed, as the evidence at trial… makes clear, the jury found Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.” It’s also extraordinarily difficult for a public figure to sue for defamation, per the Supreme Court’s 1964 Times v Sullivan case, which requires proof of “actual malice,” a very, very high legal standard. An article in The New York Times this past weekend added this gem of a paragraph, although ABC insists the meeting wasn’t arranged to discuss the defamation claim: “Debra OConnell, the Disney executive who directly oversees ABC News, dined with Mr. Trump’s incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, in Palm Beach last Monday, according to two people briefed on their interaction. The dinner was part of a visit by several ABC News executives to Florida to meet with Mr. Trump’s transition team.” Whether OConnell and Wiles discussed the defamation case or not is almost beside the point; the reasonable assumption is that Disney didn’t decide to pay off Trump because they were concerned about the lawsuit but, instead, because they wanted to be on the inside, rather than the outside, of the group of corporations that will make up the “friends of Trump” as he takes over the reins of government.