Our Master's Voice

TUCSON — World War II allies laughed off Tokyo Rose. We howled at Hanoi Hannah's clumsy agitprop in Vietnam. Now the United States is about to face global derision. Donald Trump's choice to run Voice of America is Arizona's own Kool-Aid Kari.

This will be brief. Americans need some time out for family, food and football. But day one in Trumpistan is three weeks away. Of all the creatures in a bestiary that shames a diminished nation, Kari Lake is hardly the worst. Still, she epitomizes the lot.

First, the big picture.

We old guys recall "His Master's Voice," the ubiquitous logo for RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, founded in 1919 as the pioneer in broadcast communications. A dog named Nipper peers quizzically into the huge trumpet-shaped speaker of a wind-up gramophone.

RCA, among others, marketed a one-way version of reality. Today, have-it-your-way "news" is everywhere, and big money spews big lies nonstop. Much of America, like ol' Nipper, is transfixed.

We all know the domestic impact of a weaponized X-Twitter. A multitude of rightwing "influencers" twist truth while guessing about distant events few of them understand. An un-silent majority equipped with hard facts can limit the damage at home.

But consider the irreparable harm if a boorish, self-obsessed America turns its back on the wider world.

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The United States gets a bad rap, often deserved, for flawed foreign policy. Until 2016, criticism was aimed mainly at the administration in power, seldom at American society. The answer to that hoary question — why do "they" hate us? — is simple. Not that many did.

A principal reason was the Voice of America. Its vast network of broadcasts reflected an imperfect republic of widely diverse points of view, warts and all. The idea, a good one, was that credibility mattered most.

Since 1942, VOA has grown to reach 326 million people a week in 48 languages. Though federally funded, it eschewed propaganda to the point of missing important stories if it could not nail down multiple sources. I've worked with countless correspondents I admire.

Along with Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, its reliable reporting was crucial in helping Eastern Europeans rip down a rusting Iron Curtain in 1989 and then push the Soviet Union into history.

Kari Lake pledges to maintain that tradition. But her first remarks hardly reassure.

"Sometimes I feel like I have to prove I don't have horns coming out of my head because the corporate mainstream media has done such a dishonest number on me," she said. "I can relate with President Trump. We've had just the worst stuff said about us."

True, no horns. As for the rest, I've been watching her in action for four years. If anything, the "corporate mainstream media" lets her off way too easily.

Trump tweeted that he picked her “to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media.”

Even Arizonans, who have put plenty of scurrilous, faithless incompetents in office, rejected Lake first as governor and then as senator. Recounting her lawsuits and futile efforts to prove fair elections were stolen would break my promise to be brief.

In earlier days, she was a Buddhist who reviled guns and supported abortion. During a long stint as a Fox News anchor in Phoenix, she began veering far to the right.

The New York Times found nine former friends, all asking anonymity in fear of reprisal, who described her past liberal views on undocumented immigrants and drag queens. She had admired Michelle Obama and donated to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. 

I first saw Lake at a 2020 rally near a sprawling Arizona prison complex, cuddling up to Trump with adoring eyes. Her speech, complete with a tearful response to applause — "You love me" — seemed aimed at evoking Evita Peron's appeal to the "shirtless" masses.

But I'd covered Argentina. She was closer to Isabel, Peron's second wife, a clueless but ruthless tool manipulated by a Rasputin-type adviser and a hardline fascist military. Lake demanded an impenetrable border wall, tax cuts for the rich and prison for Anthony Fauci.

Running for governor in 2022, she called reporters "monsters" and urged, "Let's defund the media." She counted on two terms. "I'm gonna be your worst freaking nightmare for eight years," she told a news conference, "and we're going to reform the media as well."

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The U.S. Agency for Global Media oversees VOA and other official media. It falls under the State Department but with a firewall that stipulates it must “respect the professional independence and integrity" of its journalists.

In June 2020, Trump named Michael Pack, a documentary filmmaker, as USAGM director. After internal dissent, Joe Biden replaced him soon after Inauguration. In May 2023, a 145-page watchdog report said Pack repeatedly abused his power and flouted laws.

David Seide, an attorney with the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, said the group represented more than 30 whistleblowers. It sent its dossier to the White House and congressional leaders. Seide told NPR:

"This report is remarkable in its breadth and depth and detail of the wrongdoing that was underway at these agencies (USAGM, VOA and others) in the last six months of the Trump administration. It just takes one's breath away."

It corroborated NPR's own reporting as well as findings by a U.S. inspector general and both federal and District of Columbia judges. NPR detailed "an ideologically driven rampage...to try to force its newsrooms and workforce to show fealty to the White House."

The report said Pack punished executives who warned of illegality. He signed a no-bid contract with a private law firm to investigate employees suspected of opposing Trump. Fees climbed into seven figures for work the agency's own lawyers likely would have thought improper.

No surprise now that Trump's hit list includes NPR, PBS and other nonprofits, along with commercial news organizations that won't be bullied or bought out for not listening to the master's voice.

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The upshot is obvious. Trump is out of date when he repeatedly says other countries laugh at the United States. That is so 2016. America's staunchest allies have moved on from amusement to disbelief, scorn and pity. Now they quietly harbor profound contempt.

Justin Trudeau came to Mar-a-Lago hat in hand for lack of choice. He can hardly be thrilled at the threat of painful punitive tariffs, let alone the idea that Canada should be the 51st U.S. state. Trump demands that Denmark hand over Greenland. Words fail.

Vladimir Putin is thrilled. He watched Trump trash NATO, leading him to expect a walkover in Ukraine, for starters. Biden fortified the crucial alliance, adding Finland and Sweden. Now Putin again has his fanboy, with a private line to Elon Musk, America's de facto CEO.

Xi Jinping is in a quandary. His tentacles across the resource-rich global south are weakening because of problems at home. He knows that neither America nor China can win a hot war. And a cold one depends on an artful minuet among smart, seasoned diplomats.

The Middle East backgammon board has been blown all to hell. Iran, humbled and weakened, may double down on nukes. Trump will protect Benjamin Netanyahu, sparking violence from Palestinians who resist ignominious apartheid. Syria needs America's help.

Meantime, a world addicted to fossil fuel will be run by multi-billionaires for whom riches are just a way to keep score. They are hastening the endgame for humans — themselves included.

Clearly, Kari Lake is not the main problem. But she personifies a willful blindness and an "America only" worldview that goes far beyond "the media."

Enough for now. Tamales and un-tariffed Mexican avocados await a New Year's Eve bash. But watch this space in the coming days. America needs relentless resistance. This is no time for anyone with a vote, a conscience and loved ones they cherish to opt out.