In 2005, Iraq had begun to descend into U.S.-fueled sectarian civil war, and support for the war was in a free fall. Joe Biden had already begun recasting his vote to authorize the war as a mistake, though he blamed it on a private conversation he claimed he had with George W. Bush in which the president had assured Biden that he had not committed to the war and was open to resuming United Nations weapons inspections.
In 2006, Biden had already decided that he was going to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 and wanted to find a way to distinguish himself from Barack Obama, who was set to run as an anti-war candidate. Biden also wanted to differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton as the man with a plan to end the war. With this in mind, he co-authored a plan to divide Iraq along sectarian lines with self-governing units for Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds. The plan, an ill-conceived attempt by Biden to recreate the partitioning of Bosnia, was widely ridiculed in Iraq and the Middle East. It gained no momentum in the U.S., except in the imaginations of anonymous Bush administration officials.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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