Darkness Visible

The Washington Post’s tagline is, Democracy Dies in Darkness. Well, Jeff Bezos just shut out the lights. For the first time in several decades, the newspaper that broke Watergate and is famous for holding the powerful to account, will not make any endorsement for president. I’ll let former Post editor Marty Baron chime in on this: “This is cowardice, a moment of darkness that will leave democracy as a casualty. Donald Trump will celebrate this as an invitation to further intimidate The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos (and other media owners). History will mark a disturbing chapter of spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” Follow the money just took on a whole new meaning.

+ Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris, paper reports. Note that this troubling news comes just days after the LA Times owner pulled a Harris endorsement. Of course, these endorsements wouldn’t have made much difference among Trump supporters. But it’s just one more example of a society willing to bend to authoritarian tendencies, even before the authoritarian takes charge. For those scoring at home, one billionaire turned Twitter into a MAGA megaphone, one billionaire turned out the lights on democracy, and another threw shade on the SoCal sunshine. No, this is not what I want to be writing about on a Friday, but this is really disturbing stuff, folks.

+ The key is to meet this news not with despair, but with determination. More than a million people signed up to attend Kamala Harris’ rally in Houston tonight.