In March of last year, a beacon of democracy for much of the world for the last 83 years, the storied Voice of America radio network, went dark. It was such a big win for Russia that some of its professional propagandists appeared on Russian television to praise the occasion. One of them mocked VOA's 1,300 employees and told them that they should all die.

After accusing the VOA of bias and saying it was the "voice of radical America," Donald Trump was the one who pulled the plug--not surprising for an administration that seems to hate the concept of a free press and whose greatest fear is uncontrolled narrative space.

Trump always wants the last and only word. If he can't get it, he works himself into a tantrum that generates threats, lawsuits and name-calling. Unlike the journalists he berates, Trump doesn't bother to provide any evidence for his assertions.

Now, the export of democracy as a desirable commodity for other countries has slowed to a trickle, and the U.S. has been downgraded in global democracy rankings as concerns about press freedom grow.

The VOA and its sister entities Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia may seem old-school in today's high-tech world, but not to its listeners in strategically important places, including Iran, China, Afghanistan, North Korea and Russia, where news is tightly controlled by the state.

RFE/RL President Stephen Capus condemned the closure........

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