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Yesterday, just before noon, The Washington Post, through CEO William Lewis, announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, the first time the nation’s third-largest daily newspaper by circulation hasn’t done so in nearly four decades.
The announcement was shocking for two immediate reasons.
The most grave—and, frankly, terrifying—reason is that the United States is obviously at threat of sliding into a horrific dictatorship from which it’s difficult to see how we’d ever recover.
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have made it abundantly clear that they aspire to devolve our nation into the world’s most powerful authoritarian regime. One need look no further than the chilling plans outlined in Project 2025.
But there are many other warning signs, too. A small sampling:
There’s Trump openly praising Hitler’s generals, according to his former chief-of-staff John Kelly (himself a retired four-star Marine Corps general), just the latest marker of fascist narcissism in Trump’s very long and documented history of being obsessed with dictators.
There’s Trump repeatedly pledging to carry out the largest deportation of undocumented migrants in American history, a sweat-lipped plan made in blustering tones that somehow manages to exceed its inherent cruelty with an inexplicable failure to understand basic economics.
(Not only is it logistically impossible to deport our nation’s 11 million undocumented migrants, not only would it cost taxpayers an estimated quarter trillion to do so, but the American economy would completely collapse from the loss in labor force.)
There’s Trump’s flagrant disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law: an indictment that resulted in a guilty verdict on 34 felony counts (his sentencing for that is on Nov. 26th), three other pending indictments on 52 more felony counts, two impeachments, being found liable for defamation of a woman he raped, etc.
Oh, and, of course, there’s Trump’s frequent statements to serve past the constitutional limit of two terms as president (I’m sure he’s just kidding), and the extremist conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruling last year that Trump is essentially a king beyond accountability for official acts in office.
That’s all an abbreviated version of why Donald Trump is obviously unfit.
The second reason is The Washington Post’s abdication of journalistic integrity under the ownership of Jeff Bezos, a development that is especially chilling for a publication that has long prided itself on being the vanguard for American democracy and free speech.
The storied newspaper has won 76 Pulitzer Prizes over its history—second only to The New York Times—one of which was for the investigative reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that eventually led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. Another was for the reporting on the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Washington Post has long been synonymous with the essential role of the free press in a healthy, functioning democracy in the same manner we associate Babe Ruth with baseball or July Fourth with fireworks or Dolly Parton with a clean soul.
And so, it was with great confusion and incredulity that I read Mr. Lewis’ painfully shameless attempt to justify the decision. He sure did try to put on a powdered wig and insist that the bowl of shit he wanted to feed to the American public was actually chicken soup for the American soul.
Most curiously, in writing about The Washington Post’s history of largely declining to endorse presidential candidates prior to 1976, he stated that year’s endorsement for then-Gov. Jimmy Carter was made “for understandable reasons at the time…”
Did you catch that? He’s obliquely referencing Watergate, the scandal that brought down Nixon with reporting by the paper — Nixon, who, by any measurable standard, comes across like Lincoln when compared to Trump.
Mr. Lewis, for some odd reason, thought it persuasive to essentially say: “Look, we don’t regret endorsing Carter because Nixon was terrible, but also: Trump is not nearly terrible enough to justify continuing this dangerous practice of presidential endorsements.”
Furthermore, aside from the dollar store cheap imitation of logic, he failed to mention in his desperate, sorry excuse for rationalizing that The Washington Post, for the past several weeks, had been drafting an approved endorsement for Vice President Harris.
He failed to mention that the endorsement was still on track a week ago, and there was no indication that it would be halted for any reason, let alone on the rather cringe-inducing reasoning he put forward in his announcement.
He failed to mention that Trump met today with corporate leaders of aerospace company Blue Origin—also owned by Bezos—which is, at best, godawful timing or a pretty clear signal of Bezos’ reasoning in killing the endorsement. Maybe both.
Probably both.
If none of this makes sense, you’re far from alone. It completely failed to persuade the staff and alums of The Washington Post.
Conservative columnist and editor-at-large Robert Kagan immediately resigned in protest.
Sixteen other Washington Post columnists—Perry Bacon Jr., Matt Bai, Max Boot, E.J. Dionne Jr., Lee Hockstader, David Ignatius, Heather Long, Ruth Marcus, Dana Milbank, Alexandra Petri, Catherine Rampell, Eugene Robinson, Jennifer Rubin, Karen Tumulty, and Erik Wemple—published this statement on the paper’s website:
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.
Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein issued this statement:
We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 12 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.
Retired WaPo executive editor Martin Baron, who led the paper from 2012 thru 2021, including the tumultuous years of Trump’s presidency, responded with a scathing statement:
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. Donald Trump will see this as invitation to further intimidate owner Jeff Bezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.”
The Washington Post Guild—the paper’s employee union—had this to say:
We are deeply concerned that The Washington Post—an American news institution in the nation’s capital—would make the decision to no longer endorse presidential candidates, especially a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election. The role of an Editorial Board is to do just this: to share opinion on the news impacting our society and culture and endorse candidates to help guide readers.
The message from our chief executive, Will Lewis—not from the Editorial Board itself—makes us concerned that management interfered with the work of our members in Editorial. According to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision to not publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos. We are already seeing cancellations from once loyal readers. This decision undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it.
Washington Post editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes published this jarring work on the paper’s website, titling it “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” referencing WaPo’s official slogan that was introduced in 2017, just a month after Trump took office.
As of 7:30pm yesterday, Semafor’s Max Tani reported that at least 2,000 subscriptions to the paper had been canceled in the previous 24 hours, the overwhelming bulk of those likely being in the seven-and-a-half hours following the announcement from Mr. Lewis.
Numerous public figures—including Stephen King, Mark Hamill, Jon Cryer, and former Congresswoman Marie Newman—publicly announced they were cancelling their own subscriptions.
Last night, I made the same decision. I had heard rumblings early in the morning from friends in media that WaPo was about to announce a non-endorsement, credible enough that I mentioned it during a 10am meeting with colleagues and they were understandably shocked.
I spent most of yesterday morning and afternoon, in the midst of a very busy schedule, privately agonizing over what I would do as a subscriber.
Over the years, I’ve published a number of op-eds in The Washington Post, pieces of which I’m quite proud in a paper I’ve put on a pedestal since I was a kid, and I’ve worked with numerous editors and reporters at the outlet whom I admire for their professionalism and public service.
It is not lost on me that cancelling a newspaper subscription will not hurt Jeff Bezos but will hurt those employed at the paper.
And yet, as much as my heart breaks for the staff of The Washington Post, who haven’t done anything to deserve this, I am still left with the simple truth that if Bezos is willing to kill an endorsement 11 days out, whether out of fear or ambition, what else is he willing to do with the paper?
There are numerous journalists at the outlet doing critical work, but how we do know anymore when Jeff Bezos is putting his thumb on the scale, backed up by a complicit CEO who blatantly lies about the paper’s direction?
There have to be consequences for an action this brazen and irresponsible and dangerous for our democracy. Something’s gotta give.
I respect the decisions of other subscribers, but I simply cannot stomach giving another dime in reward to a publication with such great influence that can be used to do such great harm moving forward.
It is my hope that there will be a time, after Vice President Harris is elected, after Trump is held accountable, after the craven capitalists of media have learned there’s not much to be made in the long run from these corrupt and shameless tactics, that The Washington Post will be restored to its former glory.
In the meantime, I will pay for my news elsewhere.
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