MAGAs think free speech is when they can say what they want and when you can say what they want. The truth is what their king says it is. Those who say otherwise are labeled an “enemy of the people” and threatened with jail time or violence. Federal funding could also be withheld.

This authoritarian regime is subjugating some of the country’s largest media companies, turning them into propaganda machines. Those media organizations that fail to comply with MAGA reality are called “fake news,” “unpatriotic,” and “traitors.” They’ll be kicked out of the press pool.

The regime has taken control of the White House press pool, stripping the independent White House Correspondents’ Association of its longstanding role in deciding which journalists have access to the president in intimate settings.

The regime blocked The Associated Press from having access to the nation’s biggest baby, because the 179-year-old news organization refused to follow the Mad King’s executive order that renamed the Gulf of Mexico. A MAGA adviser had this to say about the unserious matter: “The AP and the White House Correspondents’ Association wanted to f–k around. Now it’s finding out time.”

In the days that followed that pettiness, the regime broadened the group of outlets that participate in the White House coverage pool to include some that are MAGA bootlickers. Among those allowed access was the outlet whose reporter asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy why he wasn’t wearing a suit during a recent visit to the White House. The first thing the Mad King said to Zelensky when he arrived was: “You’re all dressed up today.”

Top-notch journalism from the chief White House correspondent for the cable network Real America’s Voice. Must be fulfilling to play the part of a court jester. Real Americans don’t bow to a dictator.

The Mad King and his minions constantly distort the truth. They blatantly lie, about everything. They tout alternative facts. They replace knowledge and expertise with emotion and fiction. Compassion for hate. They want to limit free speech, at least when it comes to things they don’t like, because the Mad King was furious over a disparaging new tell-all book about him. Anonymous sources are bad, unless the Mad King approves.

The Mad King and his miserable court create endless chaos, conflict, and danger. And only they can protect us, they say, from the very problems they create.

Soon after taking office, MAGAs began removing thousands of pages from the websites of government agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Justice, the Census Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The press and communications teams of several government agencies have been barred from speaking publicly.

MAGAs manufacture disinformation. On his first day back in office, the Mad King alleged that the previous administration “trampled on free speech” by censoring “Americans’ speech on online platforms” and forcing social media companies to comply under the guise of combating “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

Every MAGA accusation is an admission. To rectify the regime’s assault on free speech, the Mad King signed an executive order that reaffirmed that right, which is already enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

They’re trying to create a nation built on Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and George Orwell’s “1984.” (Three quotes from those books sum up the regime: “Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.” “[W]e weren’t allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field, which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.” “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”)

The Mad King’s reckless rampage began immediately during his first Oval Office go-around. It started with attacking the free press. The attacks have since escalated.

On the campaign trail, the Mad King routinely threatened reporters and news organizations, including 108 verbal threats in a four-week period. That figure doesn’t include social media posts or other MAGA remarks.

Earlier this month, during a rant at the Department of Justice in which the Mad King railed against people and entities that he claimed have targeted him, he said CNN and MSNBC are corrupt. He would know.

“I believe that CNN and MS-DNC, who literally write 97.6 percent bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party and, in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what do they do is illegal,” the Mad King whined. “These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop, it has to be illegal.”

Everything is illegal unless the Mad King does it.

Frank Carini can be reached at [email protected]. His opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.