Liberals are insane.
The Washington Post has carried so much water for the Democrats that the Hoover Dam would groan under the pressure if it were all dumped into Lake Mead at once.
Moreover, the only times a newspaper endorsement moves the needle a millimeter is when they go counter to type. If the Washington Post endorsed Donald Trump, people would notice. Endorsing Kamala Harris would never be noticed. It would be as exciting to learn as “water is wet.”
Yeah, we know what these guys think. They tell us all day every day.
But when Jeff Bezos told the editors to knock it off, they’ve attacked Trump enough and should go back to doing something other than virtue signaling, the “virtuous” (should I say petulant?) readers went insane.
Unfathomable: Washpost has lost 200,000 subscribers since Bezos pulled the Harris endorsement. That’s 8% of its base in a few days.
Keep in mind its net gain for most of 2024 was only 4,000 (not a typo) subscribers.
Major scoop via @davidfolkenflik https://t.co/ZLdj8GOnQg
— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) October 28, 2024
200,000 is a big number. Like a really big number.
It might even matter if the Washington Post were a business instead of a propaganda rag that lost money at an astonishing rate.
But of course, the Post is not a newspaper and it does lose money, so I don’t know that Bezos cares that much. I shouldn’t say that; he probably does, but the fact probably doesn’t keep him up at night.
Yesterday, crazy cat lady Jen Rubin applauded when staff at the LA Times resigned over their paper’s refusal to endorse a candidate (i.e Kamala Harris) in the election
Today Rubin’s own paper, The Washington Post, has made the same refusal.@JRubinBlogger, when will you resign? pic.twitter.com/OiGz32gSQJ
— Billy Swagspeare (@bswagspeare) October 25, 2024
Bezos has been blessed by the fact that several editors have left in protest, although for some reason (nobody else would pay her?) Jennifer Rubin has stayed on. Rubin famously complained that the Los Angeles Times editorial board didn’t all resign in protest after that paper declined to endorse in the presidential race.
Rubin did sign a strongly worded letter, though.
This is the text of the Post columnists’ statement, for those hitting the paywall:
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper…— Eugene Robinson (@Eugene_Robinson) October 26, 2024
There is something glorious about seeing the meltdown of preening public figures and something equally glorious about the people who run these institutions finally deciding that they don’t want to be held hostage by their puerile employees.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wants more conservative opinion writers at paper: report pic.twitter.com/SFwC99pTsi
— New York Post (@nypost) October 28, 2024
I have to suspect that in the WaPo’s case, Elon Musk’s leadership helped pave the way for other tech CEOs to stand up to the woke mob. They have tried to cancel Musk, and so far it hasn’t worked. Musk is showing that if you are courageous (and a billionaire) you can push back against the idiots.
Of course, the cancelations will hurt, though I suspect that many of the petulant readers will return. And, if Bezos follows through on his implicit promise to inject balance into the newsroom, the paper may actually gain more practical readers.
We’ll see.
