Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, and his subsequent exercise thereof, was ignominiously greased by rich opportunists – correction, rich assholes – who figured they would profit financially by toeing the line and, when necessary, averting their eyes. Gustav Krupp, Wilhelm von Opel, Albert Vögler, Fritz Thyssen, Edwin Bechstein, and so many more have been forever consigned to hell. They fueled fascism until their country went up in flames. When the ashes were sifted they said, “We didn’t know!”
Fascism thrives on corporate greed. Fascism metastasizes when moguls coldly calculate that it’s better for their bottom line to play ball, for fear of being benched and financially bled. Our current Exhibit A is Jeff Bezos, who has calculated that surrendering proactively to the fascist MAGAt – before the ’24 votes are even tallied – is a wise business move, and if that means eviscerating The Washington Post’s mission to serve the public interest, sabotaging in one day what the paper has long prided itself on, then so be it. The Post is just lint in his pocket.
Ever since word got around Friday that Bezos and his publisher-henchman (a Rupert Murdoch alum, natch) had muzzled the editorial writers, blocking the Post’s clearly imminent endorsement of the only anti-fascist in the presidential race, a dumb argument has circulated on social media: “This is no big deal because voters don’t pay attention to newspaper endorsements.” Indeed they don’t and never have; FDR won four times despite nationwide editorial antipathy. But so what. A newspaper’s endorsement, freely expressed, reflects the outlet’s core institutional values. The war on democracy is here, the madman is poised to conquer, and the free press is on the front line. Surrendering the institutional voice is self-destructive.
When the paper endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, it said that Trump was “uniquely unqualified as a presidential candidate. He has shown himself to be bigoted, ignorant, deceitful, narcissistic, vengeful, petty, misogynistic, fiscally reckless, intellectually lazy, contemptuous of democracy and enamored of America’s enemies.” Now the paper won’t even confirm its prescient assessment.
Bezos’ decision – reportedly fearing that a Kamala Harris endorsement could jeopardize an existing multi-billion dollar federal space contract if Trump were to win – is censorship at its most grotesque. He’s acting like those oligarchs who went belly up for Vladimir Putin. His decision trashes The Post’s bannered slogan (“Democracy Dies in Darkness”) as well as its mission statement. The latter is posted online:
“The newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners. In the pursuit of truth, the newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifices of its material fortunes, if such course be necessary for the public good. The newspaper shall not be the ally of any special interest…”
With America at the crossroads, on the eve of what’s arguably the most consequential election since the Civil War, with our freedoms imperiled, the editorial writers would’ve served “the public good” by taking an eloquent stand against evil. But what we’ve just witnessed, at the same paper that toppled a lawless president half a century ago, is a stark manifestation of what fascism scholar Timothy Snyder calls “obeying in advance.”
In his book On Tyranny, he wrote: “Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
Rest assured, Bezos’ decision to curry favor by throwing The Post under the bus will not satisfy Trump if he’s elected. A feral beast, temporarily sated, will always want more. Does Bezos not realize that when you offer your hand to a beast, the beast will eat the hand, then the entire arm?
Contributing Post columnist Robert Kagan, who has quit in protest, says it well: “If we want to know how Trump is going to stifle the free press in the U.S., this is the answer. This is how it’s going to happen, especially when the media is owned by corporate titans who have a lot to lose if Trump is angry at them.”
This time they came for the editorial writers. Next time it will be the newsroom reporters, fated to pull their punches and peer over their shoulders. (And canceling subscriptions to The Post will imperil the reporters, not Bezos. Yes, we readers are furious. And yes, the impulse to cancel is understandable. But those reporters have done a stellar job exposing Trump’s evil, and we need them to stay on the job. The last thing we should do is drain The Post’s revenue and put those jobs at risk.)
What we need, in the media business, are fewer rich assholes, people who goose-step with the likes of Elon Musk. Nonprofits at least provide some insulation. My old paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, falls into the latter category; hence its editorial endorsement the other day. This is how it’s done:
“This election is about us, and not only who we are as Americans, but as people. Do we still believe in the founders’ goal to form a more perfect union? Do voters still support the Constitution, the rule of law, and the peaceful transfer of power? Can we really be proud of a president who is a convicted criminal, insurrectionist, tax dodger, sexual harasser, serial liar, and Russian sympathizer?…America deserves much more than an aspiring autocrat who ignores the law, is running to stay out of prison, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. The better angels of our nature demand it.”
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell famously explained how fascism takes root. It attracts people who are prone to “brutality and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent.”
Russell lived in the heyday of Hitler and Mussolini; he saw fascism thrive in the sunlight with the consent of the intelligent. How many more times do we need to be warned?