Gutless Bezos: Democracy Dies in A Billionaire’s Bank Vault

Billionaire Jeff Bezos became owner of The Washington Post in October, 2013. In failing to traditionally endorse a presidential candidate, it only took the greed-mongering coward eleven years to destroy the legacy of Katherine Graham. Fuck Jeff Bezos. As someone said on social media, “I thought ‘democracy dies in darkness’ was a warning, not a plan.”

This is deeply personal. Maybe it’s my journalism and law degrees, but truly it has everything to do with growing up with the once revered Post while living near the Nation’s Capital during the Watergate era. It was Katherine Graham who presided over the newspaper as Woodward and Bernstein reported on the political scandal leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

I actually have the front page of The Washington Post with the unprecedented 60-point type supersized headline, “Nixon Resigns,” but that was a long time ago and I can’t find it. Hence, I’ve used another photo for this blog post from a Post front page saved since September 12, 2001. Indeed, it was that beloved and trusted news source that I relied on while living in Virginia and working for the Pentagon on September 11.

Again, fuck Jeff Bezos. That scumbag sycophant has ruined something sacred for my childhood. And for what?

How many billions does this piece of excrement need in order to not eviscerate a free press?

I realized all too soon in my hurt and rage that the real problem was the chill down my spine at seeing the First Amendment caving to fascism—without any fight whatsoever. As I also saw commented on social media, it appears a handful of billionaires got together and decided that destroying the US was beneficial to them.

Either that, or billionaires are terrified in their tiny boots at the prospect of a woman president who was once a prosecutor and who won’t put up with their shit. Because maybe if US billionaires were made to pay their fair share in taxes, their unchecked grasp for power wouldn’t be so disgustingly prevalent when it comes to the political process and our democracy.

Credibility in a newspaper, in a media organization, is critical. Without it, their word ceases to matter. The Washington Post died from a loss of all credibility yesterday because of a greedy punk as devoid of integrity as the wannabe dictator he’s cowering to.

Coward is the operative word here. Jeff Bezos being too afraid of Trump to allow The Washington Post to endorse Harris is actually a stellar endorsement for how dangerous the disgusting disgrace of a former president is. Better, perhaps, than anything The Post’s editorial page might have written.

There is also tremendous irony in Jeff Bezos appearing to be afraid of tyrant Trump. I posit that it’s a woman he truly fears. That woman is Vice President Kamala Harris. Like Katherine Graham herself, Harris is braver and therefore more powerful than Bezos, Trump, and all of their easily threatened, ridiculously privileged, wealthy white man ilk will ever be.

American newspaper publisher Katherine Graham led her family’s legacy from 1963 to 1991. In 1972, Graham was appointed chief executive officer of the Washington Post Company, thereby becoming the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

But Graham is most lauded for her courageous 1971 decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, a top secret government study of US military involvement in Vietnam. Graham’s lawyers opposed publication, but Post reporters and editors argued that failing to publish would be “gutless” and erode the newspaper’s credibility.

Despite threats and vitriolic misogynist pushback that included Attorney General John Mitchell saying, “Katie Graham’s gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer,” Graham ultimately said, “Let’s go. Let’s publish.” She even defied a federal judge to do so.

Contrast that with the self-serving cowardice of Jeff Bezos today. Because the pathetic billionaire clearly has his tiny balls caught in the grip of a big fat wannabe dictator with the temperament of a tantrum-throwing toddler.

Katherine Graham was one of my first powerful female role models at a very young and impressionable age. The kid in me deserves better than Jeff Bezos. The Washington Post deserved better than Jeff Bezos.

The American people deserve better than a craven conniver who would so heedlessly destroy an iconic news organization. Obscene wealth doesn’t buy courage, nor integrity. It kills it.

Democracy died in a billionaire’s bank vault yesterday. But in ten days we the people will vote for a better way forward, and for taxing bullying billionaires who put themselves and their unmitigated greed above our nation.

Please vote blue down ballot, beginning with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Our democracy depends on us all  pushing back the way Katharine Graham did in 1971 when I was just ten years old. As Graham said, let’s go!