A source of inspiration for the signatories of the Constitution of the United States of America, Montesquieu placed political virtue at the very foundation of democracy. It would be an understatement to say that the man who on Monday, January 20, will be at the helm of the world's most powerful republic for the second time, has built his existence on the very opposite of this principle. Lies, violence, manipulation, extortion, cynicism, selfishness, sexism, racism and detestation of the law and institutions – these are the hallmarks of Donald Trump, throughout his career as a real estate tycoon, candidate and president elected in 2016, then defeated in 2020.
None of this, nor the attempted coup he helped foment four years ago with the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, or the multiple judicial convictions that threatened him, prevented him from being clearly re-elected, winning this time popular vote. This fact speaks volumes about the evolution of our societies, not only across the Atlantic from France.
In this inner circle, of which Trump remains the center, new figures have emerged in recent months. The most prominent is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world – thanks to his companies Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, to which was added, in October 2022, the social media platform Twitter, which was renamed X. Musk has been promoted to a parastatal position that will place him de facto at the heart of power. Other tech billionaires have pledged their allegiance to him much more recently, such as Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram), and Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and the Washington Post.
This unprecedented alliance not only poses a major threat to US democracy, the devastating consequences of which Montesquieu foresaw, but also a far-reaching confusion between general and private interests. Made up of media and social platform owners, this "oligarchy" of "extreme wealth, power and influence," in the words of outgoing president Joe Biden on January 15, who was unsuccessful in opposing it, also represents a global threat to free access to reliable information.
Radicalized version
For the time being, this peril has been downplayed, if not masked, by many observers, including in Europe and France, the first to be targeted by the offensive. Overnight, the reactionary sphere has gone from being overly anxious about "woke culture," which was set to engulf the West, to an unabashed infatuation with free speech, as promoted in a radicalized version by Musk. The history of free speech in the US shows, however, that this notion is far more fluid and controversial than the conception defended by the boss of X would have us believe.
But this caricature makes it easy to launch into fiery pleas for unrestricted freedom, pretending not to understand that this amounts to advocating a return to the violence of the savage state, or at least to consenting to the law of the strongest, i.e. the richest. It also helpd bring out the tired narrative of pseudo-hegemonic cultural progressivism that has finally shattered. Whereas, for nearly 15 years, militants from every political camp, from the far right to the radical left, and also the center, have been using the same methods to achieve the same excesses on the digital battlefield.
The stakes are quite different. Far beyond freedom of opinion, it is once again the facts that are under attack, as well as the methods used to place them at the heart of public debate. Without these facts, no discussion is possible, no opinion is founded. The social purpose of journalists is to establish them, thanks to their professional know-how: investigative techniques, verification and cross-checking of obtained information, the precision of sources, the search for contradictory views and the separation of fact from comment.
By enlightening citizens in this way, they contribute all the more to the functioning of democracy if they know how to recognize any mistakes they may make as quickly as possible. We make sure of this at Le Monde, because no one can claim to be infallible.
In some ways, these methods are similar to those used by scientists, or to the work of uncovering the truth during legal proceedings. Yet it is no coincidence that these three professional categories are the ones that have the most been exposed to Trump's wrath in recent years, and to the future repercussions from those who make up his cabinet.
Medical research will have to deal with a health secretary who has made a name for himself through his anti-vaccine activism. The investigators who led the inquiry to determine the billionaire's responsibilities in a number of cases, including the assault on the Capitol, have good reason to fear retaliation from their superiors, appointed by Trump.
This is not a question of opinion but of the desire to dismiss or punish people whose work has in one way or another interfered with the Republican's rewriting of history. Countering this revisionism with precise facts and qualifying as lies the countless distortions or falsifications the MAGA leader imposes on reality are steps which in no way constitute acts of censorship, to use the word so often used on both sides of the Atlantic to discredit the women and men who try to maintain a principle of truth at the heart of public debates.
Le Monde to stop posting on X
As a social media specifically focused on news, Twitter, now X, has always represented a major stake in this battle. The battle for control of the narrative quickly became so vehement that the microblogging site ceased to be a place for debate many years ago. But since Musk's takeover, the platform has been moving in a different direction. The billionaire has transformed it into an extension of his political cause, a form of libertarianism increasingly close to the far right. He has turned it into an instrument of the pressure he wants to put on his competitors or on Europe's social-democrat governments.
This mix of ideology and business has continued to make Le Monde, like most other traditional media, increasingly invisible. This has prompted us to reduce our publications on X to a bare minimum – an automated feed. Today, however, the intensification of Musk's activism, the formalization of his position within the Trump power apparatus and the increasing toxicity of the exchanges led us to come to the conclusion that the usefulness of our presence weighs less than the many suffered side-effects.
We have therefore decided to stop sharing our content on this platform for as long as it operates in this way and to recommend that Le Monde journalists do the same. We will also increase our vigilance on several other platforms, notably TikTok and Meta, following Mark Zuckerberg's worrying statements.
We also hope that the European Union will not compromise on its definition of a public debate with rules that respect participants, the information that circulates and the opinions that it nurtures. This is an essential condition if we are not to be drawn into the serious abuses threatening American democracy at the dawn of Trump's second term in office.