Billionaires killed presidential endorsements

Yesterday NPR host Juana Summers talked to reporter David Folkenflik about the Washington Post deciding not to endorse anyone for president this year. The Post’s publisher and CEO William Lewis says the reason is they are returning to their roots as an independent paper that equips readers to think, not tell them what to think. But the lack of endorsement and the wimpy reason isn’t building a lot of trust. Instead there are a lot of anger in the newsroom. Editor-at-large Robert Kagan resigned from the editorial board. That board and the editorial page editor had approved they would endorse Harris. What happened? Owner Jeff Bezos killed any endorsement. The Post has repeatedly reported on the improprieties and illegalities of the nasty guy and its editorial page has said he is unfit for service. Other people are considering resignations. At least 1,600 people have canceled their digital subscriptions, a far higher rate than is usual. This comes only a day after the Los Angeles Times announced it was not endorsing anyone. The reason is the same. The Times is owned by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. He made his money through medical inventions and has patents and other issues in front of federal regulators. Bezos of Amazon and Blue Origin has a lot of big contracts with the government. And the nasty guy has been threatening media companies he claims have wronged him (by publishing the truth). So many of these outlets are wary of punching hard against him. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos covers much of the same story, though adds a few things. Shortly after the nasty guy took office in 2017 the Post changed its slogan to “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” So much for that. Lewis justified the decision by claiming:

We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.

The nasty guy has shown none of those traits. Harris has made all of them central. Which makes Lewis’ statement rather silly. Former Post executive editor Martin Baron wrote the decision is “cowardice” and that the nasty guy will “celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners).” Various people, including some with other media outlets, are posting photos to show they had unsubscribed from the Post. Mariel Garza, editorial editor of the Times resigned in protest. And the Philadelphia Inquirer endorsed Harris. Emily Singer of Kos reported:

A new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday found that 49% of registered voters view Trump as a fascist, which the pollsters described to respondents as "a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents.”

Only 49%. This could be a problem. Or it could be good news that almost half of voters recognize the nasty guy for what he is. The poll was conducted before the story of John Kelly, the nasty guy’s chief of staff, saying the nasty guy admired Hitler made the news. Singer’s story then list several ways we know the nasty guy is fascist. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few good quotes. First, from NBC is the story that election workers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania were investigating 2,500 fraudulent voter registration applications. The fraudulent forms came from paid canvassers and were submitted right before the registration deadline. The county leans Republican. The workers have confirmed election and criminal violations and are working with detectives. My main though is: They were caught. Our election system is secure. Some of these quotes are about the nasty guy’s praise of Hitler’s generals. From Jonathan Chait of New York magazine:

The reactions I’m collecting here are representative of the conservative movement’s impulse to dismiss or deflect from the overwhelming evidence that Trump is considered dangerous by many officials he appointed to office.

From Susan Glasser of The New Yorker, commenting that Harris has said she considers the nasty guy a fascist:

For years, something held Harris and Biden back from embracing the F-word for Trump. Perhaps they considered it too inflammatory or merely ineffective at making the case against Trump. Or maybe they feared exactly the moment we are now in, in which credible, on-the-record reports about Trump’s admiration for Hitler and his plans to dismantle key democratic institutions have apparently done little to dissuade Republicans from voting for him. Now that the fascist label is out there, a significant part of the G.O.P. has predictably gone ahead and normalized it, as they have with all Trump’s previous outrages.

In the comments there are, of course, several cartoons about the Post failure to endorse. A cartoon from Clay Bennett has the Post's slogan as a caption “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It shows a candle, labeled Presidential Endorsement, that is not lit. Tjeerd Royaards posted a cartoon showing the word “Democracy” made up of light bulbs and the nasty guy, along with the leaders of Italy, Russia, China, North Korea, and Belarus (they are identified by their flags and I had to look that one up) are throwing rocks at those light bulbs. Royaards added, “I was always proud when a cartoon of mine was published in the Post, but I won't be sending in my work anymore.” Quite a ways down in the comments is one by Kyle Bravo posted by The New Yorker Humor. It shows two men at a baseball game and one says, “I wish the election were this boring.”