Over the last 48 hours, I’ve been receiving from readers and friends the sort of notes one gets upon losing a loved one, or perhaps receiving a terminal diagnosis.
“So very sorry.”
“Hang in there.”
“Sending you love and strength.”
“With appreciation and sorrow.”
The cause of death? The belief that Post owner Jeff Bezos has just ended the tradition of open debate that has guided this paper’s editorial page for generations. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote on Wednesday morning. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
In its plain language, this is unobjectionable. Personal liberties and free markets are part of the American creed. But many readers I’ve heard from suspect the words are cover for a plan to turn this into a MAGA-friendly outlet.
I don’t yet know for sure. But this much is clear: If we as a newspaper, and we as a country, are to defend his twin pillars, then we must redouble our fight against the single greatest threat to “personal liberties and free markets” in the United States today: President Donald Trump.
The rapidly spreading authoritarianism coming from this administration threatens all of our freedoms. Trump in recent days has declared himself to be a “king.” His Self-Proclaimed Majesty announced, Louis XIV-style, that “we are the federal law.” And he proposed that “we should take over Washington, D.C.” and deny its 700,000 citizens the right of self-governance.
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As for liberties, the day before the pillars announcement, the White House ended a century-old precedent and decreed that the government would handpick which news organizations would be allowed to cover and question Trump. “This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” protested the White House Correspondents’ Association, of which I am a member. “In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.” That previously happened in repressive countries such as Russia and Iran. Now, it is happening here.
Closed-circuit TV screens at the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
As for free markets, Trump on Thursday said he is raising tariffs on China an additional 10 percent and that his previously announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, our largest trading partners, will go into effect on March 4, “as scheduled.” Trump this week also floated a 25 percent tariff on European goods, on top of tariffs he has already placed on steel and aluminum. This is the very antithesis of “free markets” — and the uncertainty the president is injecting into markets is poison for the economy.
Trump hasn’t managed to deport any more illegal migrants than the Biden administration had, but he has dramatically cracked down on legal immigration, undermining a sacred personal liberty. And, as The Post reports, the administration has allegedly been violating the human rights of migrants it has shipped off to Guantánamo Bay, keeping them shackled in cages, deprived of daylight, subjected to strip searches and denied access to lawyers.
At the United Nations this week, the Trump administration sided with Russia and other repressive, authoritarian states in blocking a resolution supporting democratic Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Trump falsely accused Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky of being a “dictator” as Trump continues his betrayal of Ukraine and his appeasement of the actual dictator, Vladimir Putin. Trump appears set to force Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia despite his successful extortion of mineral rights from Ukraine.
Closer to home, Trump accelerated the weaponization of federal law enforcement against his opponents, installing as the FBI’s No. 2 official a partisan podcaster who pushed 2020 election and covid-19 conspiracy theories and whose stated goal is to “own the libs,” whom he also refers to as “the scumbag commie libs.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s former general counsel — no “commie” — warned that the Trump administration “is turning federal law enforcement over to unqualified, unprincipled, partisan henchmen.”
At the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News pundit who now serves as defense secretary, purged the top ranks of generals, ousting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs (who is Black) and the Navy’s chief of operations, a woman, whom Hegseth had branded a “DEI hire.” This restored the hegemony of White men atop the military and, it is feared, leaves the military more vulnerable to Trump’s wishes to use it against domestic protesters who are exercising their personal liberties.
Judges appointed by both parties have taken a score of actions to block Trump’s executive orders and actions. And Trump has tiptoed to the edge of defying some of these court orders — while those around him suggest a purge of the judiciary. “The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,” Trump’s ubiquitous sidekick, Elon Musk, posted this week. Trump has invited the world’s richest man to sabotage the federal government and to harass its workforce without any oversight by Congress and without regard to the law — an authority Musk claims is his under the “spoils of battle.”
Those spoils are apparently benefiting Musk’s own businesses. The head of Musk’s X platform allegedly threatened federal antitrust action against a company if it didn’t spend more on X, as the Wall Street Journal reports. Musk’s DOGE squad is probing payments by NASA that could impact Musk’s SpaceX business. The State Department took steps toward ordering $400 million of armored Teslas; and, as The Post reports, the Federal Aviation Administration is close to canceling a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon and instead awarding it to Musk’s Starlink.
Claiming monarchical powers, attacking the free press, starting trade wars, cutting off legal immigration, siding with despots over free countries, politicizing law enforcement and the military, assaulting the judicial system and injecting crony capitalism at the highest levels of government: These are all the very antithesis of “personal liberties and free markets.”
“So very sorry.”
“Hang in there.”
“Sending you love and strength.”
“With appreciation and sorrow.”
The cause of death? The belief that Post owner Jeff Bezos has just ended the tradition of open debate that has guided this paper’s editorial page for generations. “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” Bezos wrote on Wednesday morning. “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
In its plain language, this is unobjectionable. Personal liberties and free markets are part of the American creed. But many readers I’ve heard from suspect the words are cover for a plan to turn this into a MAGA-friendly outlet.
I don’t yet know for sure. But this much is clear: If we as a newspaper, and we as a country, are to defend his twin pillars, then we must redouble our fight against the single greatest threat to “personal liberties and free markets” in the United States today: President Donald Trump.
The rapidly spreading authoritarianism coming from this administration threatens all of our freedoms. Trump in recent days has declared himself to be a “king.” His Self-Proclaimed Majesty announced, Louis XIV-style, that “we are the federal law.” And he proposed that “we should take over Washington, D.C.” and deny its 700,000 citizens the right of self-governance.
Follow Dana Milbank
As for liberties, the day before the pillars announcement, the White House ended a century-old precedent and decreed that the government would handpick which news organizations would be allowed to cover and question Trump. “This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” protested the White House Correspondents’ Association, of which I am a member. “In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.” That previously happened in repressive countries such as Russia and Iran. Now, it is happening here.
Closed-circuit TV screens at the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
As for free markets, Trump on Thursday said he is raising tariffs on China an additional 10 percent and that his previously announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, our largest trading partners, will go into effect on March 4, “as scheduled.” Trump this week also floated a 25 percent tariff on European goods, on top of tariffs he has already placed on steel and aluminum. This is the very antithesis of “free markets” — and the uncertainty the president is injecting into markets is poison for the economy.
Trump hasn’t managed to deport any more illegal migrants than the Biden administration had, but he has dramatically cracked down on legal immigration, undermining a sacred personal liberty. And, as The Post reports, the administration has allegedly been violating the human rights of migrants it has shipped off to Guantánamo Bay, keeping them shackled in cages, deprived of daylight, subjected to strip searches and denied access to lawyers.
At the United Nations this week, the Trump administration sided with Russia and other repressive, authoritarian states in blocking a resolution supporting democratic Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Trump falsely accused Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky of being a “dictator” as Trump continues his betrayal of Ukraine and his appeasement of the actual dictator, Vladimir Putin. Trump appears set to force Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia despite his successful extortion of mineral rights from Ukraine.
Closer to home, Trump accelerated the weaponization of federal law enforcement against his opponents, installing as the FBI’s No. 2 official a partisan podcaster who pushed 2020 election and covid-19 conspiracy theories and whose stated goal is to “own the libs,” whom he also refers to as “the scumbag commie libs.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s former general counsel — no “commie” — warned that the Trump administration “is turning federal law enforcement over to unqualified, unprincipled, partisan henchmen.”
At the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News pundit who now serves as defense secretary, purged the top ranks of generals, ousting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs (who is Black) and the Navy’s chief of operations, a woman, whom Hegseth had branded a “DEI hire.” This restored the hegemony of White men atop the military and, it is feared, leaves the military more vulnerable to Trump’s wishes to use it against domestic protesters who are exercising their personal liberties.
Judges appointed by both parties have taken a score of actions to block Trump’s executive orders and actions. And Trump has tiptoed to the edge of defying some of these court orders — while those around him suggest a purge of the judiciary. “The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges,” Trump’s ubiquitous sidekick, Elon Musk, posted this week. Trump has invited the world’s richest man to sabotage the federal government and to harass its workforce without any oversight by Congress and without regard to the law — an authority Musk claims is his under the “spoils of battle.”
Those spoils are apparently benefiting Musk’s own businesses. The head of Musk’s X platform allegedly threatened federal antitrust action against a company if it didn’t spend more on X, as the Wall Street Journal reports. Musk’s DOGE squad is probing payments by NASA that could impact Musk’s SpaceX business. The State Department took steps toward ordering $400 million of armored Teslas; and, as The Post reports, the Federal Aviation Administration is close to canceling a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon and instead awarding it to Musk’s Starlink.
Claiming monarchical powers, attacking the free press, starting trade wars, cutting off legal immigration, siding with despots over free countries, politicizing law enforcement and the military, assaulting the judicial system and injecting crony capitalism at the highest levels of government: These are all the very antithesis of “personal liberties and free markets.”
