Heads explode over decision of LA Times and WaPo not to give Harris a meaningless endorsement

Why?

One of the few good things about this election is that whichever way it goes, the heads of a fair number of people I dislike will explode. (There will, though, be some collateral damage to family members and friends.) This may not be the most important election of my lifetime, but so far it seems like the one in which people have the most emotional investment.

Actually, the head explosions have already commenced even though we’re more than a week away from the election. I’m referring to the freakout at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post over the fact that neither paper will endorse Kamala Harris for president. (Neither one, of course, will endorse Donald Trump.)

These decisions have no consequences for the election. Harris will carry California by a massive margin — perhaps enough for her to win the popular vote — without the endorsement of the Times. The paper’s standoffishness is unlikely to cost her more than a handful of votes.

The Post’s influence isn’t confined to the Washington, D.C. area. It’s a national paper. However, the Post effectively endorses Harris every day through its anti-Trump news stories.

Just today, the Post ran three pro-Harris reports on its front page. One warned readers of Trump’s militaristic tendencies. Another said that a former Florida sheriff is now in Moscow “pumping out misinformation that targets Harris’ campaign.” A third claimed that Elon Musk’s Starlink business stands to gain billions of dollars in federal contracts if Trump wins. Musk, of course, is a major Trump backer.

No one who might possibly be swayed by the Post needs an editorial endorsement to vote for Harris. Those votes are already in the bag.

Nonetheless, staffers at both newspapers are beside themselves with anger. At the Times, the head of editorials, Mariel Garza, has resigned. In her resignation letter, she wondered:

How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger — who we previously endorsed for the U.S. Senate?

Maybe the man in charge of the paper, Patrick Soon-Shiong, doesn’t believe Trump poses a danger to the country. Maybe he doesn’t consider Harris a “perfectly decent” potential president. (Soon-Siong did not own the Times when it endorsed Harris for the Senate.) A majority of Americans would agree with him on at least one of these two counts.

The Trump haters in the mainstream media can’t accept the notion that Soon-Shiong might see the political landscape differently than they do. They attribute his unwillingness to have the paper endorse Harris to cowardice — a desire to stay on the good side of Trump in case he wins.

Maybe. But critics should consider the possibility that the cowardly thing for Soon-Shiong to do might have been to endorse Harris just to keep his staff and his liberal readers happy. They should also consider the fact that in 2020, he blocked the endorsement of Harris’ fellow lefty Elizabeth Warren for the Democratic nomination. No financial incentive could have driven that decision.

What about the Post? Its stated reason for not endorsing Harris doesn’t pass the straight-face test.

Publisher William Lewis says the paper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” But the Post has been endorsing presidential candidates for decades. Why return to its “roots” now?

The closest Lewis comes to an explanation is that the Post is “an independent newspaper.” The claim is laughable, and would be even if the paper didn’t routinely endorse candidates for offices (almost invariably Democrats) up and down the ballot, and has done so this year.

Lewis’ explanation invites strong suspicion that Jeff Bezos wants to protect his empire from fallout if Trump wins. But Bezos bought the Post in 2013. If he is motivated by fear of retribution from Trump, it’s hard to understand why the paper endorsed Joe Biden in 2020.

The Post’s non-endorsement of Harris has already caused Robert Kagan, an editor at-large, to resign. Other resignations may follow, though I suspect there won’t be many.

Before the Post’s decision came down, the awful Jennifer Rubin praised the Times’ Garza for resigning. Where, she demanded to know, are the other resignations? I wonder whether Rubin will resign.

A more interesting question is why anyone would resign over decisions by their paper that, as noted above, have no real consequences. Even Garza admitted that endorsements don’t matter, especially in a state like California.

Her resignation is understandable because she runs the editorial department and believes the rug was pulled out from under her. But what about ordinary writers? Why are they up in arms?

I think it’s mainly due to being spoiled. So many reporters attended colleges dominated by the left — the kind of colleges that provided “safe spaces” to insulate fragile students from hearing opinions they might find offensive.

The newsrooms at papers like the LA Times and the Post are the ultimate safe spaces. Nearly everyone thinks alike and the few who don’t are reluctant to dissent from left-wing orthodoxy. For liberal staffers, seldom is heard a discouraging word.

Word that their paper won’t endorse Harris is more than discouraging. It’s a shock to the system. No wonder heads are exploding.

There’s also this. Most newspaper staffers didn’t take up journalism to report on the world. They took up journalism to change it.

Thus, they feel duty bound to take every possible action, no matter how futile, to help Harris and hurt Trump. Stated more accurately, they feel compelled to make every gesture that displays this desire.

I hope many of them will make the strong gesture of resigning. I’ll settle, though, for having their heads explode.