Dan Rather was a star of the news business for years before he left CBS. From the 1980s to the mid-2000s, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Dan Rather were the “Big Three” of TV news in the USA. At the peak, about one in five Americans watched them. Today, about one in twenty Americans see flagship news shows of the legacy networks.

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News was founded in 1996 and did not dominate cable news until the 21st century. Not having a major media outlet to confirm their own views meant that right-wing viewers often complained about the work of Dan Rather, his colleagues, and his predecessors. Texas Monthly magazine reported:

And the charge of liberal bias in journalism and CBS in particular preexisted Rather’s rise: segregationists and their sympathizers took to calling the channel the “communist broadcasting system” or the “colored broadcasting system” because of its reporting on the civil rights movement.

The stories Rather covered that earned him the liberal bias charge had the ultimate benefit of being true: Nixon knew about Watergate and attempts to cover it up; George H.W. Bush was lying and obfuscating about his role in Iran-Contra; and, as Texas Monthly reported seven years after Rather’s departure from CBS, George W. Bush almost certainly avoided fulfilling his Texas Air National Guard service while dodging the draft. 

At age 92, Rather is still providing news commentary. He presides over an account at online publisher Substack. Instead of speaking to tens of millions, Rather’s audience now measures in the hundreds of thousands. However, his output remains worthwhile.

The latest discusses freedom, a campaign theme with a double meaning. Excerpts:

The North Star and guiding principle of American democracy has always been freedom. It is, therefore, not surprising that Vice President Kamala Harris is centering her presidential campaign on that word and what it would mean for Americans under her administration…

A Harris victory could deliver freedom from Donald Trump. Hopefully forever… Not to put too fine a point on it, but the next three months will determine whether our democracy as we have known it survives. If he is defeated, 99 days from now might be the last time Donald Trump is a threat to our country.

…think about the possibility that we’d never again have to hear Trump’s outrageous demagoguery. At a rally in Florida last week, he told the crowd to “… get out and vote! Just this time — you won’t have to do it anymore. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.”

…As predictable as the sun rising, he and his allies have fallen back on their most basic instincts — a mix of denigration, disparagement, and belittling.

From his surrogates, it’s even worse, exploiting white male grievances and fears of women and people of color in power…

Trump and company’s denigration of Harris aligns with their agenda. As they keep saying, they want to “make America great again.” The America that they want to revert back to was one where women, people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community were considered to be lesser people. The idea of freedom was reserved mostly for white men.

Since Donald Trump entered the political arena, the American people have been subjected to nine years of chaos, gaslighting, and lies. If the Harris campaign can effectively promise freedom from the instability and regression that define Donald Trump, Democrats and others believe that alone may be a winning platform.

Would-be authoritarians believe that most other citizens should not have of a role in forming public policy. Some Canadians share the view of Trump’s cohort. To them, freedom means liberty to subjugate others. Since rights apply equally to all in a democracy, opponents first aim to undermine voting and democratic and representative institutions. To them, majority rule is unacceptable.

Americans will make a collective choice in three months time. Canadians will face a somewhat similar choice in 2025. If Trump wins in November, Canada faces an existential threat. An autocratic American government will not tolerate a liberal democracy on its northern border, particularly one with large supplies of clean water.