How free do authors living in the United States feel during Donald Trump's second presidential term? The New York Times said in a statement that the claims are merely attempts "to stifle and discourage independent reporting." Trump's defamation lawsuit against the newspaper was struck down by a federal judge on Friday for being unnecessarily long. If you're not focusing on that, you're not really talking about American political life," said the historian. The key, he added, is rather to identify the indicators of an authoritarian ideology at work: Is there a mass political movement backing it?