Dear Jeff Bezos, Washington Post owner
10/26/2024
I don’t read a newspaper’s editorials to tell me what to think or who to vote for.
I read a newspaper’s editorials to tell me what its owner and/or editorial board believe. I use the editorials to inform my decisions, not to make them.
How and when those owners/boards want to state their view is up to them, of course. But when you use miles of newsprint to inform me during a year on everything from sewer bonds to education reforms to women’s health, why stop days short of what you keep telling me is the most important election of my life?
And, this is the most important election of my life.
It truly is, as the ex-President’s “best people” he hired have told us, a choice between Democracy and fascism.
It is that when a certain segment of our population views ex-President Donald Trump as “sent by God” to lead them to salvation. That segment of our population says believes in the Constitution — but they seem to be skipping over that pesky freedom of religion section.
It is that when a certain segment of our population believes only in freedom of the press that mirrors what they already believe.
It is that when a certain segment thinks it knows better than a woman what is good for her health and family.
It is that when a certain segment thinks that if you deport illegal immigrants that unrelated problems get solved — like drugs, like affordable housing.
It is that when a certain segment is voting for Donald J. Trump who promises nothing specific but lots in a macro-sense: he will solve centuries -old battles around the world or stop authoritarians from invading other countries and end seemingly impossible to end wars.
He will do this magically. Based on the largeness of his personality. He even promised doing some of those things before taking office. When he will have no authority.
He won’t tell us how he will do this because he says that will blow his strategy. (Much like, I assume, the “concepts of a plan” he has for fixing our health care system.)
He, who owns that he ended Roe V. Wade, will be the protector of women.
His BFF Tucker Carlson says “daddy” is coming home and he’s gonna “spank” his naughty daughter. The crowd cheered spanking the child.
Needless to say, to quote a phrase trumpeted from every podium Trump can rent (with other people’s money) — that is just “bullshit.”
But back to the point I began with (I call my train of thought “the weave”), when billionaires like Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, refuse to endorse, shortly before the most important election in our lifetime, then something is up.
Trump, known to be talking to folks like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, rooting them on in the face of U.S. foreign policy, (unsubstantiated conspiracy theory alert) those newspaper owners must be on his call list, too.
We know he’s talking to crypto advocates, vaping advocates and other advocates (so much for draining the swamp, Mr. Ex-President) and promising to enact policies they’ll profit from (well, make that he, too, will profit from to since his family is now into crypto).
But, I weaved again.
Things are happening in this country exactly as they have happened in too many other countries where fascists and authoritarians have taken over. Institutions — courts, regulatory authorities, elections officials, media– have had their credibility damaged with lies and now the people, at least those who mostly seem to be supporting Trump, think they are corrupt, when they are not. A somehow charismatic leader (Trump, for those who won’t say he’s charismatic) has risen to power, taking over one of the two major political parties in the country.
And, independent newspapers are being kowtowed into not performing a responsibility they, for decades, claim was theirs to perform. And they do this in advance of him even winning the election, so afraid are they of his revenge if they don’t.
They are taking pre-emptory action to prepare for Daddy’s election, afraid he’ll be spanking them too.
The polls are dead even. Importantly, Democrats typically are ahead in national polls at this stage — though maybe not the Electoral College). Importantly at least one Republican Member of Congress proposed that because of the devastation of the recent hurricanes, the electoral votes in North Carolina should magically be awarded to Donald Trump, taking away his constituents right to vote.
We are ripe for a fascist leader. He/they are not even hiding their efforts at ignoring the Constitution.
Since newspaper owners are stepping up to step down from their previously felt moral obligation to endorse a candidate for president, maybe those papers should do another appropriate thing: refer to the former president by all his earned labels: felon, sexual abuser, business, education and charitable institution fraudster, election denier, unrepentant liar. (OK, I stole that idea from a Washington Post letter writer, but she is right). Each of those descriptors are proven, not alleged.
Weaving home:
The time for a newspaper to abdicate its editorial freedom to endorse a presidential candidate is not just days before not only the most important election of our lifetimes but possibly the closest election of our lifetime.
Don’t tell me who to vote for — it wouldn’t affect me anyway. But tell me who, after your newspapers best reporters have given us the facts, who you think merits your endorsement.
Then you can tell me you aren’t gonna do that anymore.
But you just walked away from a responsibility at that responsibility’s most important time in my lifetime.
