Democracy Dead by Daylight at the Washington Post

William Lewis and Matt Murray must resign in disgrace.

Update (01-06-2024): Reports are coming in that the Washington Post will be laying off staff and reporters. This is some shameful shit.

Three months ago, in October 2024, a peer of mine was roasting the Los Angeles Times for declining to make a presidential endorsement. I smugly declared: "As a Washington Post subscriber, that could never happen here. The words ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ are even on the masthead.” They even ran a Super Bowl advertisement about it:

Yes, it was risible (although still better than their old tagline, “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it”), but like a teenager’s poetry, I assumed it was cringe because they were being too earnest.

And so, they made me look a fool. On October 25, eleven days before the 2024 Presidential election, the Post decided they would break with tradition and make no presidential endorsement. This was news to the editorial board, who had already written an endorsement of Kamala Harris. Several editors resigned in protest. Ex-Rupert Murdoch thug and Washington Post Publisher Sir William Lewis and the paper’s owner Jeff Bezos wasted ink justifying their kowtowing, when they could have simply said “we are obeying in advance.” Mr. Bezos explained why he made the decision using the pronoun “we.” Except the paper published a dozen columns criticizing its own choice, suggesting that “we” was a lie. At this time, I do not know if Blue Origins executives meeting with Mr. Trump hours later was connected to the non-endorsement, or if it were simply a fun coincidence.

• 21 Post Opinions columnists respond

• Democracy Dies in Darkness

• For The Post, the wrong choice at the worst possible time

• It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president

• Jen Rubin: What Really Happened at The Washington Post

• Refusing to endorse a candidate, The Post wounds itself

• A statement from Post Guild leadership on the Washington Post's decision to not endorse a presidential candidate

• For The Post, more outrage from readers who say they’ve canceled

• The true roots of The Post’s endorsement policy

• ‘Deeply, fundamentally saddened’ The Post decided not to endorse. Readers have questions.

• Retreating from its history, the paper risks its future.

A lot of self-critique over a self-inflicted wound. It would have saved paper if they had done the right thing, instead of enabling a man who promises to terminate the Constitution.

How shameful that the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” guys are willfully enabling the Mandarin Mussolini, who, by their fucking reporting, “plans to use all levers of power against the media” and attacked the press more than a hundred times.

Had it stopped there, I think subscribers would have come creeping back. But that is the thing about degradation—it continues until some effort is made to reverse it. On January 04, 2025, Mr. Bezos’s once-respected Washington Post killed a relatively mild cartoon by Ann Telnaes, leading to her resignation.

The cartoon, below, does not express anything other than a literal depiction of the Post’s language and reporting: “Leaders at Amazon, Google and Meta are reaching out to the incoming president . . . lining up in an apparent attempt to gain favor.” The opinion that these billionaires are “kissing the ring” and “paying tribute” is widely held. Jonathan V. Last summed it best: “It’s pure tribute. The inauguration fund is a way for rich people to funnel money to the incoming president . . . no different than feudal lords approaching the new king with gifts of rubies, or mobsters showering a new mayor with envelopes of cash.”

• “The president-elect has boasted about the donations for his inauguration, library and political activities from those seeking favor or perhaps in some cases, atonement.”

• “The donations, which are not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries and business leaders seek to curry favor with the incoming administration”

• “The Big Companies Funding Trump’s Inauguration Despite Denouncing Jan. 6”

• “The president-elect is expected to raise more money than ever for his second inauguration. He’s keeping tabs on who’s donating — and who hasn’t”

• “The donations present a ‘unique opportunity’ to gain influence with and access to the White House, experts told CNBC.”

• Saturday Night Live even parodied this “ring kissing” by declaring their allegiance to the 🍊🤡 shortly after Election Day.

Anna Talnaes’s rejected cartoon. It is perfectly accurate and she did nothing wrong.

How on Earth was this unacceptable?

E-mail Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray and demand he resign. E-mail the entire editorial board to demand Matt Murray and William Lewis resign.

To be clear: I am skeptical about Mr. Murray’s stewardship of the Post. He previously lorded over Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal—an institution also characterized as “declining”—replacing Sally Buzbee after she refused to kill a story critical of Sir William Lewis’s past life as a Murdoch henchman.

Washington Post's CEO tried to kill a story about himself. It wasn’t the first time

These are not times when our institutions should willingly make themselves lesser. It will not be enough that they reverse course—they must deliver a sort of allocution, wherein they make the public aware of whatever financial interests, cravenness, or petty motives drive this abdication of the public good.

Does this reflect the way the Post intends to approach journalism now? With constant genuflection?

As the Post continues to make questionable decisions at the expense of the institution’s legacy, I find myself thinking of a joke in comedian Katt Williams’s The Pimp Chronicles, Part 1, wherein Mr. Williams, after witnessing a Hollywood executive casually ingest cocaine mid-conversation, exclaims: “Did you know that I can see you?”

Do they know we can see them?

My friends, stepping in where the Washington Post has failed America falls to us. We must speak truth to power, tell it like it is, and bring back the daylight, lest Democracy die even more in the darkness. To do so, you must purchase a “Trump Is a Bitch” t-shirt, now available on Spreadshop. Because if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.