Back in September, Jeff Bezos (Mr. Amazon, who also owns the Washington Post), told William Lewis (Post CEO and publisher) not to endorse anyone for president.
Lewis didn’t mention this to the paper’s Opinion editors, but when they sent him their endorsement of Kamala Harris, he killed it.
The Washington Post Guild, which represents journalists and other staff, asked readers to write a letter. So I did.
Dear Mr. Lewis,
I’ve subscribed to the Post for several years, and before that, I read as many of your articles that I could access. Your coverage of US and world news is solid, informative, and important.
I am writing today about Jeff Bezos’s terrible decision to stop the Post from endorsing a candidate for president.
We are just days away from an election that will have grave consequences if Donald Trump wins. He has made it clear that he intends to weaponize the government against his personal enemies, deport legal and illegal immigrants, end protections for people who are not gender-conforming (many of whom were born that way), make health care more expensive and harder to access, cut abortion and birth control, limit the freedom of the press (ahem!), censor teachers, eliminate support for people who are disabled, increase defense spending, reduce taxes on billionaires while increasing them on lower-income people, and reduce voting rights. And more. For most Americans, life under his agenda would be poor, nasty, brutish, and short, in the words of Thomas Hobbes.
It’s hard to believe, but J. D. Vance is worse. Trump lies, acts on impulse, and rejects science, and is just plain mean, because he is a deeply insecure narcissist. Vance parrots and doubles down on Trump’s spite, malevolence, and vulgarity, knowingly and deliberately, in the pursuit of power. Vance knows he can manipulate Trump to advance his own agenda of making the US a theocracy governed by the ideas of ultra-conservative, patriarchal, white-supremacist Christianity.
Bezos’s interference in the editorial freedom of the people who produce the paper he owns sets a very dangerous precendent. We’ve seen the damage Elon Musk (the only person in the US wealthier than Bezos) has done in politicizing Twitter. Neither man serves in goverment, but their wealth affords them great power in national affairs. This is very worrisome. I hope you will be able to persuade Bezos that this was a terrible decision.
Thank you for your consideration.
The Guild suggests a (less inflammatory) sample letter, but if you’d like to use or adapt any portion of what I wrote, please feel free.