Dem
47
GOP
53
Back when Katharine Graham was running the show at The Washington Post, she tried to emulate The New York Times and be a high-quality paper of record. The current owner, Jeff Bezos, wants to emulate The Washington Times. This editorial about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is beyond despicable. It drops all pretense of being written by journalists and is openly auditioning for the role of mouthpiece for the billionaire class. Here is the first paragraph:
A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect's change of character since his Tuesday election victory.
Generalissimo? WTF? Not even mayoralissimo. The second paragraph says he ran a nice-guy campaign who wanted to bring the city together. Then comes this third paragraph.
Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn't about unity. It isn't about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies—from landlords who take advantage of tenants to "the bosses" who exploit workers—and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word "growth" didn't appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.
Mamdani's speech was about what you would expect from a candidate who had just won a huge victory. It was not the second coming of Karl Marx. Watch for yourself:
Readers posted almost 7,000 comments about the editorial, overwhelmingly critical of the editorial. Here is the AI summary of the comments.
The conversation explores a strong reaction to the Washington Post's editorial on Zohran Mamdani, with many participants criticizing the tone and language used in the piece. Several comments express disapproval of the editorial's use of terms like "generalissimo" and its portrayal of Mamdani's priorities, suggesting that it reflects a bias towards the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Some commenters argue that the editorial board's approach is more aligned with right-wing or pro-corporate perspectives, and they question the motivations behind the editorial. Others highlight Mamdani's focus on addressing economic inequality and supporting working people, contrasting it with the editorial's negative framing. Overall, the discussion reflects a significant dissatisfaction with the editorial's portrayal of Mamdani and raises concerns about the Washington Post's editorial direction under its current ownership.
We don't know Jeff Bezos' role in the editorial, but at the very least, he didn't kill it. Does he seriously think that Post readers are going to like this or be convinced by it? Has it occurred to him that, for many readers, this is going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back and they are going to cancel their subscriptions? Yes, he can put out all the propaganda he wants to since the Post is his personal toy, but if thousands of people drop their subscriptions, advertisers are not going to be willing to pay high prices for ads, which will be a double whammy: less income from subscribers and less income from advertisers. What's the end game here for Bezos? A heavily subsidized publication no one reads? For a guy as smart as Bezos, it is hard to fathom what he is up to. A gentle thumb on the scale, blocking criticism of Amazon and not endorsing candidates anymore, would have worked, but we suspect if editorials like this become the norm, he is on the path to destroying the paper altogether. (V)