China, Iran, Russia Amplify “No Kings” Protests

Plus: Egypt is smuggling arms into Gaza via drones; NYT editorial backs JFK centrism

Clockwise from top left, China’s Xinhua, Iran’s PressTV, Russia's Izvestia, and the Iran Press News Agency cover the U.S. ”No Kings” protests against President Trump.

State-run or state-dominated media outlets in American enemies such as China, Iran, and Russia are amplifying Saturday’s “No Kings” protests in America.

Coverage of the events put such outlets in something of a bind. Typically they do anything possible to magnify division in America (almost like the Harvard Crimson, which this morning in a news article described Senator Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, as “divisive” merely for being a supporter of Israel.)

The catch is that by writing about public assemblies against the government, the outlets might remind readers in China, Iran, and Russia that those countries, unlike America, are actual dictatorships. In those countries, unlike in America, people who take part in anti-government protests are detained and in some cases shot or hanged. The editors at such publications had to weigh the upside of making America look unhappy and divided against the downside risk that reading about protests in America might inspire people in China, Iran, or Russia to follow suit and take to the streets in protests against regime authoritarianism there.

It’s a bit hard to parse from America what is intended for external versus internal consumption, but it appears that some of the foreign outlets decided that the opportunity to make President Trump look unpopular and to make America look riven by internal dissent outweighed the danger that the coverage might inspire copycat activity in Moscow, Beijing, or Tehran.