Thoughts on WaPo “bend[ing] to Trump’s threat of dictatorship,” “self-censoring because you are afraid of retribution from an authoritarian”

I’ve been posting all afternoon about the WaPo’s disgraceful decision not to endorse anyone (obviously, they WOULD HAVE endorsed Kamala Harris if they’d endorsed anyone!) in the 2024 presidential race, but I just wanted to collect my thoughts in one place for future reference.

First, let’s start with this brilliant thread by Jonathan V. Last, co-host of The Bulwark podcast. Key points:

“And that’s the take-away from the Washington Post’s refusal to endorse Kamala Harris. It’s not about the paper or the journalists. It’s about every wealthy executive and business owner in America being shown that if *Jeff Bezos* fears retribution from Trump, they should, too. What’s striking is that Bezos didn’t even have to get arrested for the lesson to be taught. Hell, Trump *didn’t even have to win*. It’s all “anticipatory obedience,” as Timothy Snyder and Ian Bassin would put it.”

Disturbing, scary sh**, that’s for sure. So if you’re canceling your Washington Post subscription in protest, good!  But also consider that the vast majority of Bezos’ money comes from Amazon.com, not from the Washington Post, which if anything LOSES some money for him. So no, Bezos doesn’t care about the WaPo’s readers/customers not at all, he just is petrified about what an unleashed President Trump (god forbid) might do to him and/or his companies if Bezos pisses Trump off badly enough…

Now, here’s the Washington Post Guild leadership’s statement, expressing that they are “deeply concerned” at the Post’s decision not to endorse, “especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election,” and asserting that this decision came from the WaPo’s owner Jeff Bezos and chief executive Will Lewis – “not from the Editorial Board itself.” The Guild also notes cancellations from “once loyal readers,” and argues that this decision “undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.” (Frankly, that trust should have been lost years ago, certainly after the WaPo plastered the b.s. “HER EMAILS!” hysteria all over its newspaper in the runup to the 2016 presidential election, which Hilary Clinton BARELY lost in the electoral college, and WOULD ALMOST CERTAINLY HAVE WON if the NY Times, WaPo, etc. hadn’t been so horrendously, relentlessly, maniacally anti-Clinton/effectively pro-Trump in their campaign coverage that year).

This thread by Ben Rhodes is superb – and disturbing:

“There is no logic that isn’t damning as to why the Washington Post and LA Times feel they can endorse in every local, state and federal election other than a presidential race. It’s not that these endorsements tip the balance in an election; it’s that self-censoring because you are afraid of retribution from an authoritarian tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of management. What’s truly depressing is how much this is a mirror to the rot in the American economy and society today: you end up governed by self-interested autocrats when there is no value higher than personal profit. A lot of the Russian oligarchs who owned media properties in the late 90s helped or enabled Putin’s rise to power thinking it would help them. Today, Putin controls every major outlet in Russia.”

As for what the WaPo’s staff should do at this point  – at the MINIMUM, they should be issuing statements and/or posting the WaPo endorsement (or leaking it to another news outlet) ASAP. What are they waiting for???

Yep – as former newspaper editor Mark Jacob explains, what the WaPo just did was “[bend] to Trump’s threat of dictatorship.” Cowardly. So yeah, canceling your Washington Post subscription – as Mark Jacob and many others (e.g., former Rep. Barbara Comstock – see below!) are doing – sounds like a very good idea right about njow.

There are some excellent comments from readers in the WaPo itself. Here are just a few top-rated ones:

Note that retired WaPo editor Robert McCartney retweeted this, which argues that the WaPo’s “appearance of cowardice will stick.”

Exactly right by the superb NY Times columnist Jamelle Bouie – just publish the WaPo endorsement of Kamala Harris and let Bezos fire everyone (and completely destroy his newspaper) if he wants to. But would he really???

“There are so many reasons for the Washington Post to endorse Harris, and only one not to: Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to piss Donald Trump off even more. It’s like I wrote in 2022: you can’t be independent if you’re owned by an oligarch” – Dan Froomkin nails it

Actually, the WaPo’s decline began years ago – check out their disgraceful emphasis on “HER EMAILS” in 2016, then their fawning, sycophantic, stenographic coverage of Youngkin in 2021 (and beyond), etc.

Former WaPost Executive Editor Marty Baron on paper’s decision not to endorse in WH race: “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty.”

On a related note, there’s this great thread by the brilliant NY Times “Pitchbot,” aka “DougJBalloon,” who argues (correctly) that – on the broader issue of the media’s framing/treatment of Trump this entire election cycle: “If the whole media climate was ‘Trump is a toxic narcissist in steep cognitive decline’ rather than “he’s a lovable scamp with a penchant for PR stunts”, the election might be very different right now.”

Meanwhile, in stark contrast to the pathetic, cowardly, scumbag Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer nails it:

By the way, if the Washington Post is going to have no official opinion on whether a fascist or a superbly qualified democrat (small-d) would make a better president, why even bother having an editorial page at all? Why publish opinions on anything at all if they can’t even figure out this no-brainer?!?