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Washington Post Will Not Endorse Kamala!
Stunner. Reported here at NPR so it must be true.
Even though the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris remains neck and neck, The Washington Post editorial page has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years, the editorial page editor told colleagues at a tense meeting Friday morning.
The meeting was characterized by someone with direct knowledge of discussions on condition of anonymity to speak about internal matters.
The editorial page editor, David Shipley, told colleagues that the Post‘s publisher, Will Lewis, would publish a note to readers online early Friday afternoon.
Shipley told colleagues the editorial board was told yesterday by management that there would not be an endorsement. He added that he “owns” this decision. The reason he cited was to create “independent space” where the newspaper does not tell people for whom to vote.
Just spit-balling here: The WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Post and even Amazon.com are not as profitable as his AWS, a prime competitor for hosting large-scale federal government data storage. Could it be that Jeff sees Trump winning and does not want to do anything to antagonize the incoming administration? Pure speculation — but is it wrong?
Meanwhile, will there be a delightful spate of hissy-fit resignations at the WaPo? The sound of just-ever-so-cross angry little feet being stamped?
Published in General
That is absolutely astounding.
Your reasoning is plausible, but I doubt it. Antagonizing Republicans is second nature to these people, and they often do so against their own interests. There must be another reason.
Although maybe you’re right. Not sure.
Wow. Absolutely astounding.
I was thinking that Amazon’s notorious market crushing scandals might actually get regulated if they invited Trump’s ire, but AWS federal contracts work, too. Musk will want to drill down on those, I’m sure.
I’ve been catching election fatigue, so I’ve maybe missed a bit in the last week or so. Still, everything I hear points to a Trump landslide. I don’t think/feel that is a possibility and I’ve been wondering if the whole thing is a coordinated psyop to lead Trump voters into complacency. Why go to the polls if you believe your man has already won?
As I understand it, the WaPo has never endorsed a Republican for President. In 1988 (the infamous “36 years ago” event) the post declined to endorse either Dukakis or Bush. And, in 1960, the Post failed to endorse JFK.
Still, the hypocrisy is stunning.
Either they believe that Trump is a fascist, a threat to the Constitution, and the end of the American way of life, or they do not.
That they have just declined their best opportunity to speak–on the record–against him is stunning.
That could be, but early election voting has been huge. If that’s what they were trying to do, they’re too late.
Good point.
If The Post believes anything they’ve written about Trump in the past 8 years, they naturally would endorse WHOEVER ran against him. Simple.
This is just remarkable.
I also think it doesn’t matter. Everybody knows who The Post supports – whichever Democrat is on whichever ballot. They don’t need to name names – nobody cares, because everybody knows.
Just thinking out loud here. Remember when Jimmy Carter was such a disaster that Dems were concerned that his administration gave credibility to the GOP? I wonder if they are concerned that Harris would give the country sixteen years of GOPe rule. Maybe just take the loss this year so they can run Gov. HairGel in 2028. Granted that he’d be as big a disaster for the country as Harris, but he’d do it with style. The style of an oleaginous used car salesman, but it sells in CA and maybe with half the electorate in the US.
By sheer coincidence, there are a slew of former Amazon people in defense and intel agency jobs involved in decision-making about IT vendors and some serious revolving door action because very big bucks are at stake.
In contrast, the Post loses money. The gesture of remaining neutral as if anyone will believe the bias has vanished will not cause readers to flock to some other large leftwing newspaper in town and is largely cost-free. If Kamala wins, blame the editor. If not, Jeff can claim a wink and a nod was a favor to Trump.
They are following in the LA Times’ footsteps, and query whether this would’ve happened had the Times not done the same. I suspect even some lefty moneyed people just do not like her, and the manner in which she became the nominee.
I find this even more interesting coming on the heels of the ownership of the Los Angeles Times denying the editorial staff’s desire to endorse Harris. [That even prompted the opinion editor to resign.] Is media ownership seeing something?
[I do not buy the theory that Mr. Bezos sees a retaliatory threat to the Amazon Web Services business, as Mr. Trump has no significant history of retaliatory behavior. If at any given moment you can be useful for his objectives, he will do business with you.]
Remember the Red Wave of ’22.
Nobody actually liked Hillary or Kerry either but the endorsements flowed pro forma. The owner of the LA Times is an innovative and highly successful guy who probably wants RFK jr’s tentative slot as head of HHS in the Trump administration. Newspapers are now just silly undergraduate toy shops useful to their owners only when they can sell a useful narrative or suppress or spin a bad one. There is zero additional cred or influence from endorsing Kamala whereas silence in this instance might be a cha ching, baby! opportunity.
Just like those Romney and McCain administrations: Awesome, weren’t they?
The other day the crazed Jennifer Rubin praised an editor at the LA Times who resigned, and indicated that those opinion page people who did not were cowards. Your turn, Jen.
Because the resignation of liberal twit clones who could be seamlessly replaced by any intern undergraduate majoring in nonbinary puppet street theater studies would be earth-shattering.
My guess is that its a reaction to the abysmal ratings the MSM gets from the public in the “do you trust ’em” category. They are incredibly biased in their coverage. And they will continue to be. But they want it to look like they aren’t and they need some data point to highlight when making the “we are as pure as the driven snow” argument.
Plus, if Trump wins its a useful fig leaf.
This breaks me up!
According to Zerohedge, Jeff Bezos did indeed put his foot down and squelch an endorsement. Opinion staff hardest hit!
Or they believe it, as do I, but believe Kamala is worse.
There is a feeling going around that this was done to provoke some resignations.
There is a good, short video on youtube of Dave Rubin and Megan Kelly talking about the changes at WaPo. The funny part starts at 1:35.
My point exactly. We should be prepared for a Goldwater level wipeout of our side.
Perhaps the moneyed people are ignoring her recent stagger towards the center and are recalling the insane drivel she promulgated before the nomination landed in her lap.
As I recall, Bezos rescued the Post from immanent collapse. If not for him, they’d be sitting on the curb holding up signs reading “Will Tell You My Presidential Preferences For Food.”
Robert Kagan, hubby of Victoria Nuland, buddy of Kristol, and author of recent article suggesting someone should bump off Trump, has quit the editorial page.
I see you’ve been to DC.
So the assassin supporter did himself. Very DC.
These leftwing rags need not make an endorsement, as their “news” stories already consistently slant their reporting and carry partisan water for the Democrats.