They didn’t just lose their spine — they sold it for ratings.

can you buy disulfiram over the counter There was a time when journalism fancied itself the last line of defense against tyranny. Woodward and Bernstein hunted down a president and helped crack the spine of corruption. Cronkite looked into the camera and told us plainly when a war was lost. Murrow took on McCarthy and won.

But in the Trump era, the fourth estate has all but surrendered, a husk of its former self, afraid to print the truth and terrified to be sued into oblivion.

Meanwhile, Trump’s latest “mega bill” (and I’ll be damned if I’m going to call it beautiful) was heralded by the same media that once declared themselves guardians of democracy. Reporters spoke breathlessly of intra-party disputes, as if Republicans might miraculously grow a conscience and abandon their standard-bearer.

They never do, and they never will. The bill sailed through, and the nation learned nothing except that journalism today is more eager to spin palace intrigue than tell the simple, devastating truth.

What’s perhaps most troubling is that the media insists on pretending there’s still a functioning democracy here. There isn’t. We are living under a single ruling class that performs democracy like dinner theater.

The Republican Party has transformed into a single-minded organism, acting only in service to Trump, while Democrats play a polite parlor game of appeals and procedural scolding. The courts? His. The legislature? His. The streets? Bristling with supporters ready to “defend” him against any consequence.

Trump’s country. Let’s say it clearly: America belongs to him now, seized not only through political maneuvering but through a potent cocktail of white grievance, evangelical fervor, and ceaseless media amplification.

Trump has rebranded victimhood into power and sold a large portion of the nation on the idea that any loss is simply proof of conspiracy. Every time a court rules against him — if it dares to — outlets spin it as a grand blow to authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, they ignore that his Supreme Court majority can undo almost anything, that state legislatures are gerrymandered into submission, and that millions of Americans are pre-programmed to see every indictment as martyrdom.

A rebellious press once believed its job was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Now, it flatters the powerful and confuses access with integrity. Our newspapers read like marketing copy for strongmen; our television networks posture as watchdogs while cashing checks from pharmaceutical giants and defense contractors.

Journalism doesn’t need new guidelines or town hall panels. It needs rebellion. It needs to grow a backbone again, to stop fetishizing both-sides-ism and name the threat directly: America is in thrall to a man who scorns law and reason, and it will take a defiant press to pry the country back.

Until that happens, we remain a nation of cowardly editors and spineless anchors, narrating the slow collapse as if it were just another season finale. And we, the public, are left to sift through the ashes of a profession that once promised to hold the powerful to account — and meant it.

A big, beautiful con.