The Trump administration, in short, is challenging agencies’ ability to go after wrongdoing through administrative adjudication, and is seeking to undermine the independence of both first-line agency adjudicators and the heads of the agencies they work for.

That the Trump administration wants to upend a long-standing system for assuring both the reality and appearance of fairness in agency adjudication may be shocking. But it is not surprising. If you consider yourself on block watch for threats to democracy, take your eyes for a moment off the president’s Twitter feed and turn your attention to administrative law. Danger is lurking amid the complexity.

As I tweeted, too much of our media has no idea how to confront Trump. You have the standouts like Yamiche Alcindor. (No surprise that she's a Black woman.) But journalists like her are not thick on the ground. Too many journalists cling to the fake standard of "objectivity", not wanting to be "seen as the story", and allow the Trump regime to get away with lie after lie, in their write-ups couching any disagreement in "both sides say".

Objectivity is an illusion. Objectivity only works, if it ever does, when all sides agree on a shared reality. We don't have that. Trump and his sycophants operate on a plane unrelated to the real world. To treat them as if they have valid points is not to present objective evidence, but to elevate their delusions to a place of prominence they don't deserve. It's the opposite of objectivity. It downgrades observable fact to just another "opinion". People who believe in a flat earth don't have a differing, valid viewpoint. They're loons who are shunned from any serious discussion. Likewise with Trump and his coterie. They're actually worse than flat earthers or anti-vaxxers, as they control a branch and a half of government. But because they occupy that unearned perch, too much of the media feels it has to accord them a respect which their words and actions don't deserve.

It took a pandemic to value the skills and expertise of scientists.
It took a pandemic to acknowledge the heroism of nurses and doctors on the front lines.
It took a pandemic to realize how essential grocery store workers, mail carriers, and municipal employees are.

If there's one thing Americans hate is thinking that they're worse at something than any other country. No matter how many statistics you show them that we're not, in fact, #1 in many indices, they still hold on to that nationalist chauvinism that we're God's Country. And, to be fair, most people's eyes glaze over dry statistics. But have the nightly news lead every evening with death and infection totals, and a government both unwilling and unable to take steps to stop the carnage, and you're setting up an untenable situation.