"The Guardrails Are Already Collapsing" (UPDATED)

 

We're still not over this, and probably never will be.  Betrayals cut deep.

Jonathan Last concludes his essay on Washington Post's Jeff Bezos' decision to not endorse Kamala Harris, Bezos joining the oligarch coalition of cowards who believe their wealth and position are threatened if they don't show Trump obedience:

... These guys can hear the music. They’ve seen the sides being chosen: Elon Musk and Peter Theil assembling with Trump’s gangster government in waiting. They see Mark Zuckerberg praising Trump as a “badass.” And now they see Bezos getting in line, too.

What’s remarkable is that Trump didn’t have to arrest Bezos to secure his compliance. Trump didn’t even have to win the election. Just the fact that he has an even-money chance to become president was threat enough.

Or maybe that’s not remarkable. One of Timothy Snyder’s rules for resisting authoritarians is that “most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” People surrender preemptively much more often than you might expect.

Two weeks ago, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter wrote what might be the most prophetic essay of the year. They warned about “anticipatory obedience” in the media.

Seventeen days later, Bezos made his demonstration.

In case you needed reminding: The “guardrails” aren’t guardrails. They’re people.

And they’re already collapsing. Before a single state has been called.

Reaction from Post writers and former luminaries here and here.

As we said yesterday, if ever there was a time to cancel a subscription, this is it.

And if ever there was a time to vote, this is it. 

BONUS:  The Philadelphia Inquirer won't be cowed!  Neither will The New Yorker --

 

Proud to work for the @NewYorker which unlike the @WashingtonPost knows who to endorse: Kamala Harris for President https://t.co/u2tauRkkIW

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) October 25, 2024

BONUS II:  Justin Peters has a good read on this. 

BONUS III:  WaPo columnists' statement here.

UPDATE:  Former WaPo editor-at-large Kagan makes an expolosive claim --

The Washington Post’s outgoing editor-at-large and longtime columnist has made explosive claims that its owner Jeff Bezos struck a deal with Donald Trump in order to kill the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Robert Kagan, who resigned from his position on Friday after more than two decades at the publication, told the Daily Beast that Trump’s meeting with executives of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company the same day that the Amazon founder had killed a plan to support Harris was proof of the backroom deal.

“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people,” he said on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”  [snip]

According to Kagan, “all the facts” lead in the direction of Bezos attempting to transform the Post into something akin to The Wall Street Journal, a center right “anti-anti-Trump editorial slant,” with Lewis by his side.

“Some journalists will stick around for that. Some will leave. If they leave, they can be replaced,” he said.

(Cartoon:  Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press;  more later in Today's Cartoons)

Darkness: Washington Post Owner Kills Harris Endorsement (UPDATED)

 

 

"Democracy Dies In Darkness."  That's the official slogan under the banner of the Washington Post, owned by billionaire Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and published by former Rupert Murdoch executive Will Lewis.  It's also utter bullshit.  From the Columbia Journalism Review:

On Friday, the Washington Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced that the paper would no longer make endorsements for president—after its journalists had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision was made by Jeff Bezos, the paper’s owner.

Over a period of several weeks, a Post staffer told me, two Post board members, Charles Lane and Stephen W. Stromberg, had worked on drafts of a Harris endorsement. (Neither was contacted for this article.) “Normally we’d have had a meeting, review a draft, make suggestions, do editing,” the staffer told me. Editorial writers started to feel angsty a few weeks ago, per the staffer; the process stalled. Around a week ago, editorial page editor David Shipley told the editorial board that the endorsement was on track, adding that “this is obviously something our owner has an interest in.”

“We thought we were dickering over language—not over whether there would be an endorsement,” the Post staffer said. So journalists at the Post, in both the news and opinion departments, were stunned Friday after Shipley told the editorial board at a meeting that it would not take a position after all. This represents the first time the Post has sat out a presidential endorsement since 1988. 

The meeting was quickly followed by an opinion essay from publisher Lewis, who wrote, “We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way.” In a news story, the Post made clear that the decision came from Bezos. [snip]

The decisions at both newspapers have angered staff members, who point out that both papers have published editorials for more than nine years now describing the threats Donald Trump poses to American democracy; his constant stream of falsehoods; his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol; his public policies; and his promises to be a dictator—for one day, at least—if elected.  [snip]

Ian Bassin, a democracy expert, calls these moves “anticipatory obedience”: fear by owners that if Trump wins he could take vengeance on companies that cross him. They noted that the leadership at CNN and the Post changed after the Trump administration tried to block the takeover of CNN’s parent company and tried to deny a cloud computing contract for Amazon, Bezos’s company...

What a cowardly, shameful abdication of every principle and value this paper has purportedly stood for for decades.  In an election in which the very existence of American democracy is at stake, with a fascist running to become its unbridled autocrat (and who calls journalists "enemies of the people"), a newspaper that has had the gall to dub itself as a beacon of democracy runs for the shadows. "Democracy Dies In Darkness" my ass.

 If you have a Washington Post subscription, this would be an excellent time to cancel it.

UPDATE:  Several notables, including Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, former editor executive editor Marty Baron, and editor-at-large Robert Kagan (who resigned in protest from the Post), denounced the cowardly decision not to endorse Harris. 

The Washington Post Guild issued this statement:

 

A statement from Post Guild leadership on the Washington Post's decision to not endorse a presidential candidate pic.twitter.com/fYU7hkr79K

— Washington Post Guild (@PostGuild) October 25, 2024

UPDATE 2:  Post columnists Ruth Marcus, Karen Tumulty, Eugene Robinson, Perry Bacon Jr., and cartoonist Ann Telnaes have joined the chorus condemning the decision.

(Image:  Billionaire Bezos)