Fergus Finlay: Free press is the only active opposition to Trump's cruelty

Arresting a judge and disappearing students off the street among the evils being catalogued by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC

Rachel Maddow is probably the most outspoken journalist in America, and most certainly one they would like to shut up. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty

When they needed to silence the voice of the resistance in the past, tyrants and fascists were willing to use torture and murder. Modern autocrats like to think of themselves as more sophisticated. So how, I wonder, would they like to go after Rachel Maddow?

I remember years ago going to the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, to look for the grave of Oscar Wilde. There were visitors, as there always are, and traces of lipstick. (There is a long tradition of planting a kiss on the statue on top of the grave, and you’re supposed to put on lipstick before you do it.