Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.—Yale historian Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny

Once upon a time, in a world that feels so very far away, stories of courage by the reporters, editors and publisher at The Washington Postinspired a generation of young people to believe that journalism was a way—and maybe the best way—to change the world for good.

The pivotal scene in 1976′s All The President’s Men—which burnished both the facts and some legend about the Post, star reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and their role in the Watergate scandal that took down Richard Nixon—takes place in the dead of night on the pitch-black lawn of top editor Ben Bradlee. The two journalists, fearful they are being bugged, relay their source Deep Throat’s warning that “people’s lives are in danger, maybe even ours.”

The cowardly Bezos can spend billions to erect a manmade projectile that sends him into space, but he’ll never have the cojones of a Katharine Graham.

In a famous monologue, Bradlee (played by Jason Robards, who won an Oscar) tells Woodward and Bernstein to keep reporting the story, that “nothing’s riding on this except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country,” adding his trademarked newsroom cynicism, “not that any of that matters.”

Yet perhaps an even more revealing scene occurs earlier, when Nixon’s campaign manager John Mitchell—called by the reporters for his comment on a damning article—instead issues a warning to the Post’s trailblazing publisher, saying “Katie Graham’s going to get her [crude word for breast] caught in a big fat wringer if that’s published.” Katharine Graham’s Post had a lot at stake—federal regulators could strip her company’s lucrative TV licenses—yet both the story and the quote, minus the T-word, were published and the Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its relentless pursuit of Watergate.

These are the stories that journalists tell ourselves in order to live—so much so that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos felt compelled when he bought the Post from Graham’s heirs in 2013 to invoke them to reassure a wary newsroom that he would never diminish the Post’s reputation for courageous journalism. The $200 billion man wrote in a letter to staffers: “While I hope no one ever threatens to put one of my body parts through a wringer, if they do, thanks to Mrs. Graham’s example, I’ll be ready.”

Bezos was lying.

On Friday, the world’s third-richest person, his scandal-scarred British publisher Will Lewis, and the iconic newspaper they control stunned both the American body politic and the media world by spiking their editorial board’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. The move came just days ahead of an election defined by her rival Donald Trump’s increasing threats to impose a tyrannical form of government with mass deportation camps and arrests for his growing enemies list, including journalists.

Lewis’ utterly incoherent defense of the decision—ending a tradition of presidential endorsements the Post launched in 1976, the same year that All The President’s Men was released—did nothing to quell the rampant, informed speculation that his boss Bezos has killed the already-drafted editorial out of fear a revenge-minded Trump 47 could terminate the billionaire’s extensive business dealings with the federal government. It seemed all too fitting that Trump was in Austin meeting executives of Bezos’ space venture, Blue Horizon, at the same time as the endorsement kibosh.

If this looks like the latest saga of open corruption in a nation that’s become a billionaire kleptocracy, it is—but this moment is also so much more than that. America is witnessing the raw power of dictatorship some nine days before voters even decide if that will truly be our future path. The cowardly Bezos can spend billions to erect a manmade projectile that sends him into space, but he’ll never have the cojones of a Katharine Graham. He is obeying fascism in advance, and he is not alone.

Three thousand miles west, Bezos’ fellow billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong—owner of the Los Angeles Times since 2018—pulled essentially the same maneuver in killing his editorial board’s endorsement of Harris that had been in the works for weeks, and which followed months of editorials warning of the authoritarian dangers of a Trump........

© Common Dreams