Defying the Threats. Serving the People. Lincoln Square Needs YOU.

A special message from Lincoln Square's Founding Editor.

Illustration by Riley Levine

Donald Trump has never hidden his contempt for a free press. But in his second term, he’s moved from name-calling to open threats and the machinery of government being turned against journalists.

In a recent Truth Social screed, he claimed that coverage of his health by outlets like The New York Times is “seditious, perhaps even treasonous,” language he uses in the same breath that he reminds Americans that treason is a capital offense. When a sitting president implies that basic scrutiny of his medical exams, treatment, and fitness for office is tantamount to a crime punishable by death, he is not just lashing out—he is instructing his supporters which enemies to target.

This rhetoric does not stand alone; it is reinforced by official channels that are supposed to belong to the public, not to a man. Trump’s White House has repeatedly weaponized government communications—such as using the official, taxpayer-funded White House website—to single out specific outlets and individual reporters who refuse to flatter him or who cover the corruption, illegality, or stories that Trump wants silenced. When the government’s own site is used to paint independent journalists as disloyal or dangerous, it sends a clear signal to reporters, media outlets, and their corporate owners: fall in line, or you could be next.

That’s why independent, fearless outlets like Lincoln Square are no longer a luxury; they are one of the last safeguards between Americans and an administration that is systematically trying to own, intimidate, or silence the institutions meant to hold it to account. As Trump tightens his grip on both political power and the media megaphones that shape public perception, the choice to support independent journalism has become a choice about what kind of country our children will inherit.

Because while Trump rages in public, his allies and enablers are quietly buying the cameras, microphones, printing presses, and digital platforms that shape what most Americans see and hear. The recent shift in control at Ellison-family-owned Paramount, which owns CBS, has installed Trump‑friendly decision-makers and opinion‑shapers in key roles and fired those unwilling to submit. That is not journalism; it is message discipline in service of power.

At the same time, a Trump‑aligned group linked to his son‑in‑law Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has been positioning itself to wield enormous leverage over the American news ecosystem. Capital tied to Kushner and the Saudi Public Investment Fund—controlled by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi—would help underwrite a deal that joins Paramount (and CBS) with Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. The result would be a consolidated media powerhouse in which a president hostile to independent scrutiny and a foreign autocrat with a record of killing critics both enjoy outsized influence over what is covered, and how.

Corporate media’s vulnerability is not just about who owns them; it is about whether executives have the spine to stand behind their own journalism. Over the past decade, some of the largest, best‑resourced outlets in America have quietly written checks rather than fight lawsuits they were likely to win on the law and the facts. When powerful networks and publishers decide it is cheaper—or safer—to pay off Trump or his allies than to vindicate their reporting in court, they aren’t just protecting the bottom line; they are teaching every would‑be strongman that bullying the press is a profitable strategy.

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Those settlements reverberate far beyond one plaintiff or one newsroom. They tell editors to think twice before assigning a tough story about corruption. They tell lawyers to advise on watering down the language or to kill pieces altogether if a litigious billionaire might be offended. And they tell younger journalists—who watched their colleagues attacked on national television and then watched their employers fold—that speaking truth to power is, in practice, a career risk without institutional backing.

Authoritarians don’t just censor; they buy, and Donald Trump is the poster boy for that dangerous behavior. Trump’s comfort with autocrats is not theoretical; it is financial, personal, and increasingly structural. This convergence—of Trump’s public attacks on the press, of his private business entanglements, and of billionaires eager to trade coverage for access—demands something more than polite concern. It demands a counter‑power: institutions that do not answer to ratings‑obsessed boards or foreign sovereign wealth funds; journalists whose paychecks do not depend on whether they make the president look “strong.”

Lincoln Square was not built to curry favor with the powerful or billionaire investors. And it certainly was not built to cower before Donald Trump. Its work has been grounded in a simple, old‑fashioned premise: that a functioning democracy requires citizens who know the facts about what their government is doing, who is profiting, and whose rights are being trampled.

Lincoln Square’s coverage of Trump’s widespread corruption and cruelty, as well as the growing discontent of his supporters and the American people at large are the acts of courage that an independent press must commit in authoritarian times: provide news and analysis with honesty, without flinching, and without rewriting reality to please those who have their hands on the levers of power.

That is the kind of scrutiny Trump wants to label “treasonous.” It is the kind of analysis that billionaire financiers will not put their money behind. And it is precisely the kind of work that only grows more urgent as we head into 2026—a year in which control of Congress and the ability of Trump to continue enacting his dangerous agenda and escape oversight will all be on the ballot.

Resistance comes in many forms. Your support for Lincoln Square is an act of resistance.

Every authoritarian project depends on controlling what people know and fear. Trump and his billionaire enablers are covering that front from every angle: buying networks, leaning on regulators, dangling ad dollars, and threatening reporters with ruin or even “treason.” The one variable they do not control is whether enough Americans will choose to fund outlets that answer only to their readers.

That is where you come in.

A subscription to Lincoln Square does more than unlock articles; it ensures we can do our work without answering to billionaire investors who would put their thumbs on the scale in favor of Trump and silence and bothsideism that enables him. It keeps coverage accessible to people who cannot afford to pay but desperately need reliable information as they decide how to vote, organize, and protect their communities.

In a media landscape where the corporate giants are bending the knee to Trump and his allies, choosing to support fearless independent journalism is a civic act. If you believe that presidents do not get to decide which questions are allowed, that foreign despots should not help pick America’s anchors, and that your children deserve to inherit a democracy rather than a personality cult, then subscribing to Lincoln Square is one concrete, consequential step you can take today.

Authoritarians know that when scrutiny fades, impunity flourishes. Independent outlets like Lincoln Square exist to ensure that scrutiny intensifies—and that the American public, not Donald Trump or his billionaire backers, decides what kind of future this country will have.