The troubling case of 2024 editorial nonendorsments: cowardice and/or practicality?

Note: This story, written October 30, was conceived and submitted too late for wire services, and is therefore published here. An excellent article from the Poynter Institute's Rick Edmonds is linked at the bottom.

Call it pre-emptive punching yourself in the face.

Your newspaper probably isn’t endorsing anyone for president or any other federal office, whatever the stakes or however stark the choices. That is more the norm than the exception.

This cycle, newspaper non-endorsements for federal offices are the thing, after recent waves when they tended to endorse Obama, Clinton, or Biden. The story is complicated but telling.

To one degree or another, the corporate decree has come from the mountaintop at Gannett (owner of USA Today and 200 other publications); Alden Global Media (200 newspapers) McClatchy (30 newspapers, including The Miami Herald and Philadelphia Inquirer); the Tampa Bay Times; the Minnesota Star Tribune; the list goes on. Owners say that the nation is too polarized, and that their mission is to focus on local issues so readers can decide for themselves.

If this sounds like chickening out, one can understand. News outlets that once printed money are squeaking by with thinner staff and triaged reporting, and struggling with aging and dwindling readership, social media pressures, and toxic polarization.

Local editorial pages matter, especially for local and state issues. Editorial boards like this ask careful, considered questions. Careful editorial endorsements help change my mind on issues and candidates, alike.

Such corporate decrees may be troubling, but I’m sensing a certain preemptive truckling to authoritarianism with the striking non-endorsements by The Washington Post and, to a lesser degree, the Los Angeles Times.

The Washington Post, with its theme “Democracy Dies in the Darkness,” is a national political brand. With its Kamala Harris endorsement ready to go, the publisher quashed it, driving away staff and 250,000 subscribers, about a tenth of its total. The owner, Jeff Bezos (net worth $215.2 billion), is the world’s second richest man (behind MAGA fan Elon Musk at $262.3 billion) and owner of Amazon. While president, Donald Trump threatened Bezos, Amazon, and the Post repeatedly, and Bezos held firm and even in 2019 blamed Trump for passing Amazon over for a Defense Department cloud computing contract. Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron recalled Bezos’s courage in his revealing book “Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post.”

This time, Baron came out of retirement with this post: "This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty. @realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage."

The Financial Times’ Edward Luce posted: “Democracy dies in oligarchs’ C-suites.” The Washington Post aired plenty of dirty laundry in its news coverage and editorial pages, revealing Amazon's closer interest in Washington with its Blue Origin space project, competing with Elon Musk's Space X, which is slated to return two stranded astronauts from space in February.

This came right after the Los Angeles Times’ owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong (net worth: $6.2 billion), refused to run a ready-to-go Harris endorsement. His daughter Nika Soon-Shiong told the media that her father was repelled by the Biden-Harris administration’s support of Israel through the Gaza humanitarian apocalypse. (Soon-Shiong had been an emergency doctor in his native apartheid South Africa, and has kept his counsel on the non-endorsement.)

That said, is it just me or can you smell the fear? Imagine if the Post had actually endorsed Harris and Trump won. Of course, Trump would unleash vengeance on Bezos, Amazon, and the Post. Just imagine the government contracts that Trump could yank or move elsewhere. Billionaires build fortunes by making money their alpha, beta, and omega.

Now just imagine the impossible: the Post endorses Trump and Harris wins. Would she exact vengeance and weaponize federal agencies against, say, Bezos, or The Post?

Almost certainly not. Whatever her perceived and actual faults and deficiencies, she is a trained lawyer and believer in democracy and norms. Trump is not. Nor is Elon Musk, nor, for that matter, Peter Thiel, backer of JD Vance.

This is about money and fear, playing ball with the unhinged autocrat, the worst character the Republicans can imagine, rather like German industrialists in 1933. One must be realistic, after all.

This is no ordinary election. It is likely the most consequential since 1860, and threatens to potentially end or suspend the American experiment as we know it in the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. This would undoubtedly empower far-right parties around Europe, fray remaining alliances in Asia, and make the world a more anarchic, dangerous place. We Americans are squandering our own blessings and luck.

Trump’s bottom line is improving. Thanks to betting markets turning his way, Trump Media’s stock has doubled in one month, boosting Trump’s net worth to $8 billion.

Trump’s closing argument is ugly, with mass deportations, barely veiled threats to put Liz Cheney before a firing squad, and much else. Elon Musk announced he would cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, force all Americans to “take a haircut” for the next two years, after which time all would be well and stable again. It is one October surprise after another, flooding the zone at the last minute.

Musk, a science fiction fan, runs SpaceX and has contracts with the U.S. government. He dreams of colonizing Mars.

On this election eve, it feels as if either the Martians have invaded or that we are entering a different and alien planet.

For various points of view, check these pieces from the libertarian Reason magazine, and from Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute. Then there's this. Bloomberg's Michael Bloomberg has endorsed Harris, as have The Economist, the New York Times, and The Atlantic.

My take: I give Trump great credit for accelerating our entry into an age of pre-emptive authoritarianism. This deserves our constant attention.