Politicians going to war with the media isn’t a new thing: from JFK to Obama, presidents and their allies have long tried to pour cold water on investigative reporting into their actions.

But what President Trump is doing is entirely different—he’s pouring jet fuel on the Fox-News-sponsored conservative victimization complex in hopes of muddying the issues.

With the disclaimer that while I for the most part don’t consider CNN, the New York Times, or Politico to be very substantive news outlets focused on the real stories, struggles, and corruption happening around the country (in CNN’s case, it’s become sheer, Trump-obsessed infotainment), the fact that the Trump administration blocked them (and the LA Times) from a press gaggle this week is outrageous.

This goes with Trump now mostly calling on conservative news outlets at press conferences and, in a cringeworthy moment in presidential history, granting the alt-right/conspiracy theory Breitbart News an interview in the Oval Office.

I’m all for widening the press pool to give less Beltway-elitist platforms access—Mr. President, why don’t you start with the largest online news show in the world, The Young Turks (where I work)—but that’s not what Trump is doing.

The great wall he’s building around himself and the press, which includes evading his press pool to dine in the shadows, and shutting mainstream media out in favor of friendly outlets that swim in the same sea of make-believe he does, is really just Fox News on steroids.

By ranting and raving about “fake news” stories—i.e. any story critical of him—what Trump is banking on is continually manipulating and stoking the fears of the same people who have Fox News on 24/7—the people that swarmed his campaign rallies.

Borrowing Fox News’ genius strategy of making the “mainstream media” and facts the enemy, the president is banking on discrediting all investigation into him—from his relationship to Russia to Ivanka Trump‘s nosediving Nordstrom sales—and muddying the issue by vilifying the messenger.

“I want you all to know we are fighting the fake news…they are the enemy of the people,” he said at CPAC recently.

Why Trump’s Fox News-ification of the White House is so dangerous is simple: real-life Fox News is merely 24/7 right-wing radio moved to the television screen; it has no army, access to nuclear codes, or power to unilaterally remove critical environmental and economic regulations.

But Trump has all those levers of power; without a free, aggressive press close by to see what he and and his administration are doing—and what favors they’re handing out to their powerful, special interest friends (drain the swamp my ass)—we will have something not much different than state-run media.

Granted, the pathetic, let’s-play-Patty-cake-with-the-powerful state of our press today isn’t much better than state-run media—but what Trump is doing can make things much worse.

Which, in reality, is what he wants. In Trump’s mangled mind, he’s the only reporter the people need, and the stories in his mind are the most poignant and relevant to be told.

Just like Fox News, who for two decades has made billions by creating an alternative story of America that makes data, facts, and reason irrelevant.

For the sake of ensuring we don’t dumb down America more than it already is, the entire press must come together—mainstream, independent, right, left, and “neutral”—to make sure America doesn’t become an uninterrupted Fox News marathon.

I, for one, don’t want Bill O’Reilly shaping children’s minds.

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Jordan Chariton is a Politics Reporter for The Young Turks, covering the presidential campaign trail, where he’s interviewing voters on both sides. He’s also a columnist for Mediaite and here’s his latest column. Follow him @JordanChariton and watch videos at YouTube.com/tytpolitics.

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.