Maria Ressa: Trump Is Using ‘a Dictator Playbook’ Going After the Press, You Will Lose Democracy

EXCERPT:

RESSA: “It isn't just the Philippines. There is a dictator's playbook, and you can look first at Russia, actually, even before that, Turkey, Hungary, Russia, right, with Putin taking office. And the first step is really to get elected, once you're elected, to crush the systems of checks and balances, and then replace them with your own — we're starting to call them the broligarchy, because it's far more potent, the tech guys are more potent than just normal oligarchies. This is political largess, political patronage. You have to decide the world you want to live in. You have to decide whether rule of law exists. You cannot normalize impunity. And if you don't, over time, we normalize that and you lose more and more of your rights. But here's a positive note. Rodrigo Duterte's term ended. He had one six-year term. He did try to extend. And perhaps if the military had supported him, I wouldn't be here. But we now have another president and those 10 criminal cases that I have had, I have now won eight of those 10 and two left. I still have to ask the Supreme Court for approval to travel, but we're here. It's alarming to see it happening all over again.”