Trump is so proud of authoritarian plans that he's feeding the story to the media: op-ed

There's been a deluge of reporting in recent weeks detailing how Donald Trump plans to end the rule of law if he's elected back to office. And, according to Salon's Amanda Marcotte, the media is learning about Trump's plans to "dismantle democracy" straight from the man himself.

"Much of this information comes straight from Trump's mouth on the campaign trail, where he directly channels Mussolini and Hitler by promising to "root out" the "vermin" who vote against him, while also valorizing the insurrectionists of January 6," Marcotte writes.

But, not content with openly declaring his aims in public, his campaign is contacting journalists and feeding them information, she contends.

She uses an example of a New York Times article published on Monday that detailed Trump's history of admiring dictators, though she says other instances are numerous.

"The New York Times published a lengthy exposé of Trump's long history of admiring authoritarian dictators, even ones who use murder to silence opponents. This follows another investigation into the ominously named "Project 2025," created by a team of very smart, but very evil, people who want to dismantle democracy and are working through the details of how to pull it off," she wrote.

She went on, "For close readers, what is striking about the reporting on Trump's nefarious schemes is that the journalists clearly got the information directly from Trump and his own team. The sources for the New York Times report on Project 2025, for instance, are primarily people working for or with the Trump campaign. It's a conspiracy to dismantle democracy, but not secret like most conspiracies."

Marcotte contends that Trump is open about his goals because he thinks the only people paying attention are his most diehard supporters or people who already plan to vote against him.

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The problem is not the MAGA diehards, Marcotte writes. It's the moderates and the people who claim to dislike "both sides" of the political spectrum — a viewpoint that Marcotte says is enabled by the media and its "bothsidesism."

"The result was a public that has come to believe ... nothing anyone says about anything in politics is trustworthy," writes Marcotte.

Read the full op-ed over at Salon.