Before Trump, There Was Franco. The Playbook for Silencing Journalism Is Old.

How Mussolini, Perón, Franco, and Marcos silenced the press — and why the technique looks different today but works the same way

Last week we examined the first technique in the strongman’s playbook: capture the courts. Without a judiciary willing to say no, everything else becomes possible. This week, we move to the second technique. It follows the first almost immediately, because it has to. You cannot hold power indefinitely if people can still read accurate accounts of what y…