For my entire life, I have read and admired The Washington Post.  It has been a staple in my life since I was born.  For the first half of my life, it was delivered daily to our doorstep.  For the last fifteen years, it has been delivered daily to my inbox.  It has been the news source I have read the most, by a wide margin.  It was also, in my estimation, the American paper of record and the journalistic institution I respected above all others.  And today, because Jeff Bezos has neutered the editorial page and succumbed fully to the authoritarian Trump Administration, I have canceled my subscription.

I grew up with and love the Post.  I grew up reading Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.  They helped to define my sports fandom.  I came of age with Thomas Boswell and Sally Jenkins.  I always read the annual What’s In and What’s Out for the New Year column.  The Post is the paper of Ben Bradlee.  Of Woodward & Bernstein and Watergate & Deep Throat for fuck’s sake!  I came close to canceling my subscription when Bezos refused to let the Post’s editorial board endorse Kamala Harris for president.  But I held on, partly out of respect for the publication’s innumerable outstanding journalists (one of whom is a former student who does amazing work as a foreign correspondent) and, let’s be honest, partly out of nostalgia and a deep connection with my past.  I didn’t want to believe that the Post had been compromised by its cowardly owner.  But today, that has become ever more obvious and impossible to ignore.

Bezos, in a letter to The Washington Post staff today, claims that the editorial page will focus only on “personal liberties and free markets” and will not take stances that oppose these viewpoints.  Put simply, he has capitulated.  When I recently became increasingly disenchanted with The New York Times’ uneven news coverage and editorial page, I read more of the Post’s coverage.  I still did until today.  But I can no longer look the other way at Jeff Bezos’ craven, sycophantic reaction to Trump’s re-election.

The Washington Post is now a censured paper, and its opinion page, while it will undoubtedly retain some talented writers, is no longer worth my time and money if it will not commit to advocating for different viewpoints.  Apparently, Bezos believes that it is no longer important to advocate for causes like regulatory policy (environmental standards?), limits to personal freedoms (gun control anyone?), or the regulation of an unfettered market to promote greater societal and income equality (progressive and redistributive taxation or social spending?).

A country without a free press loses one of its vital organs to fight encroaching authoritarianism and democratic erosion.  I should know, since democratic backsliding is my area of academic study and expertise.  At least in Venezuela and Hungary, the free press put up a fight before being bought or legislated out of existence by Chavez and Orban.  Bezos has raised the white flag in obeisance to Trump.  Signaling that the Post will no longer offer opinions that are unpalatable to the Great Leader.  Now is the time for newspapers, news channels, and people with public platforms to double down on promoting democracy and the free press.  To use their voice to fight encroaching authoritarianism and stand up for liberty.  The Post once said it well, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”  If that is true, then Jeff Bezos just turned out the lights.