Monday, October 28, 2024

Anticipatory Obedience and An Island of Garbage

On Friday, Washington Post publisher Will Lewis announced a new no-endorsements policy after billionaire owner Jeff Bezos nixed the publication of an already-written endorsement of Kamala Harris by the editorial staff, setting off a firestorm of complaints. Even as scathing rebukes and promises to cancel Post and Amazon Prime subscriptions quickly mounted into the tens of thousands in the paper's comments section, Bezos dispatched executives from his Blue Origin aerospace company to meet with candidate Trump. 

Enraged readers took issue with the action's inconsistency with the paper's 'Democracy Dies in Darkness' motto, commenting that it's now become a mission statement, or perhaps should be changed to be changed to 'Democracy DIED in Darkness.'

In its coverage on Sunday, The Guardian (a publication exiting Post readers often recommended as a subscription alternative) noted:

"Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of 'anticipatory obedience' as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover."

On Sunday, in an obvious parallel to a 1939 Nazi rally at the same venue, Trump held a campaign event at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. With millions of people living a train ride away, it wasn't hard to fill the place, and the crowd got a full dose of dystopian darkness and crude insults. In the wake of one early speaker describing Puerto Rico as an "island of garbage," Republicans have been backpedaling, while recording stars Bad Bunny, Ariana Grande, and others called out the hate and posted support for Harris.

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