At first, it seemed like just another small change in a long line of power grabs. The White House press secretary, standing at the podium, her face bright with manufactured confidence, had said it was about restoring power back to the American people. That the Chairman’s administration would now be handpicking which media outlets were allowed into the presidential press pool.
The phrasing was perfect, so slick that it almost sounded reasonable. Of course, the Chairman’s followers ate it up, their social feeds flooded with applause. Finally, the media would be held accountable! They called it a victory over the fake news, over the deep state, over the enemies of the people. The Chairman himself beamed as he reposted their celebrations, throwing in his own quips.
But the journalists, the ones who still thought their work mattered, knew exactly what this was. It was a purge.
A statement from the press corps landed that same afternoon, stiff, formal, and terrified. “This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” Eugene Daniels, their president, wrote. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
It didn’t matter.
The decision had already been made.
Within days, the major networks were cut down to size. The critical voices—gone. Replaced by those who had never once questioned the Circle, whose reporting was little more than state-approved repetition of whatever the Chairman declared to be true. News anchors delivered their broadcasts in perfectly measured tones, their scripts echoing across channels with eerie uniformity.
“America is stronger than ever.” “The Chairman is fighting for you.” “Dissenters want to see this country fail.” “Our enemies lurk within.”
Cora watched in horror as it happened in real time. The channels she had once trusted were gutted, their anchors quietly dismissed, their investigative reporters reassigned or simply disappeared.
The ones who remained?
They adapted. They learned how to survive.
They smiled a little wider. Laughed at the Chairman’s jokes a little harder. Read from the prompter with a little more reverence.
Even the so-called “resistance” voices softened, their fire reduced to a flickering candle. They still pretended to challenge authority, but their outrage became carefully curated. Criticism was permitted, but only the kind that made the Circle look strong.
Cora noticed the shift in her mother first. The same woman who once sneered at government overreach now watched the Chairman’s speeches with a strange kind of admiration. “At least he’s honest,” she’d say.
Honest.
That was the word they used for him.
Honest, even when he lied. Honest, even when he rewrote history before their very eyes. Honest, because he never pretended to be anything other than what he was.
And then came the laws.
The Ministry of Truth wasn’t built in a day. It started with the press pool, then the elimination of “dishonest” media outlets, then came the new regulations on misinformation, sweeping reforms that allowed the state to dictate what was and wasn’t real.
Before long, unauthorized reporting became a crime.
Whispers turned into raids. Dissenting bloggers vanished overnight. Social media platforms scrubbed old posts, accounts were banned in waves, history rewritten before people even realized it was happening.
Cora still remembered the day one of her favorite independent journalists stopped posting. No goodbye. No warning. Just gone.
A week later, the same journalist reappeared on state media, smiling, nodding, reciting the words as if they had always been his own.
And maybe, now, they were.
The Chairman had won the war on truth.
And with it, he had won everything.
Discover more from AJB Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
