# The Washington Post: Democracy Dies With Us **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [October 25, 2024, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210 "2024-10-25T17:30:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/501 "2025-03-04T06:08:26Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Time to pivot to again protect Trump. We have always been at war with Eastasia. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2025, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/502 "2025-03-07T16:38:18Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > WELL WOULDN’T YOU KNOW WHO WON THE PONY? That one flight attendant Elon propositioned? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/503 "2025-03-11T00:00:22Z")
> **[Washington Post columnist quits after her opinion piece criticizing owner...](https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-resignation-marcus-bezos-8d6ce32b27f5c965fc972d73d0f95aac)** > > Columnist Ruth Marcus said publisher Will Lewis killed her column criticizing owner Jeff Bezos' new editorial policy. The _Post_ is losing people faster than a Trump operation. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/504 "2025-03-11T00:20:12Z")
Ruth Marcus is a major loss. Always a staunch liberal and one of their best writers. They are fools to be driving away such as her. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/505 "2025-03-11T00:36:49Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > They are fools to be driving away such as her. You misspelled “he”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/506 "2025-03-11T12:36:15Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > They are fools to be driving away such as her. No, they’re doing exactly what they intended, and it contributes to their goal. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/507 "2025-03-11T12:39:57Z")
From Lawrence Britt’s **[14 characteristics of fascism](https://secularhumanism.org/2003/03/fascism-anyone/)**, I give you … #6: > A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses. First one to get BINGO loses. Actually, we _all_ lose. Cool, right?? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/508 "2025-03-11T21:30:34Z")
The grift continues. > **[Trump's 'The Apprentice' re-runs hit Amazon](https://www.rawstory.com/trump-s-the-apprentice-re-runs-hit-amazon/)** > > Re-runs of "The Apprentice", the reality TV show that propelled Donald Trump into the US national consciousness, were riding high on Amazon Prime Video on Tuesday, the day after they hit the platform.The decision to air the program is the latest step... ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/509 "2025-03-11T22:49:18Z")
You know, I have never seen an episode of _The Apprentice_. Just never had any interest, even before Trump decided to destroy the nation in a temper tantrum. But now that I can binge it on Prime Video, I still won’t watch it. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/510 "2025-03-13T22:24:23Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > You know, I have never seen an episode of _The Apprentice_. Just never had any interest, even before Trump decided to destroy the nation in a temper tantrum. > > But now that I can binge it on Prime Video, I still won’t watch it. . I don’t have Prime, but if I did, I wouldn’t watch Donald’s moldy old show. I mean, surely only his fans would find it at all interesting—or bearable. So Bezos is courting Trump cultists to make up for all the people who cancelled their Prime memberships, eh? I wonder if he’ll re-brand it. Instead of “Prime,” how about “Prime Heritage”…? Gets right to that ‘master race’ point. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2025, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/511 "2025-03-15T02:45:49Z")
We ended Prime and our subscription to the Post. I grew up in DC area and this is literally the first time in my life I don’t have a subscription to the Post. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/512 "2025-03-16T21:28:04Z")
Author Michael Lewis on Jeff Bezos’s cowardly moves to push the _Post_’s opinion section rightward: > "I feel some sympathy towards Bezos. I really like him, personally. […] I think the real Bezos is not a bad guy. > > “But he’s done a bad thing. And it’s curious why. You would think, if you had $200bn, that you’d have some fuck-you money. I mean, how much do you have to have to be able to live by your principles? There’s some curve that bends, and at some point, when you have so much money, you’re back to being as vulnerable as someone who has almost nothing. He’s behaving like someone who has nothing, like he’s just scared of Trump. I think if you were with him and watching every step, you’d be watching an interesting psychological process where he’s persuaded himself that what he’s doing is good. He’s rationalised his behaviour, but his behaviour is really appalling.” > **[Michael Lewis and John Lanchester: ‘Trump is a trust-destroying machine’](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/16/michael-lewis-and-john-lanchester-trump-is-a-trust-destroying-machine)** > > Before the 2024 election, the two authors tried to stop Donald Trump’s plan to gut the US federal government with an investigation that transformed the image of civil servants from bureaucrats to superheroes. Now their worst fears have been realised ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/513 "2025-03-16T22:29:33Z")
Bezos is terrified that his rocket company (Blue Origin) won’t get contracts if he doesn’t suck up to Trump. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that Elon Musk is going to use his suction to ensure that SpaceX is the only provider of launch services (something he has already spoken about to investors, saying that he sees no reason for the government to purchase services from ULA, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab, Firefly, or any other currently operating space launch launch provider). If Bezos weren’t such a sniveling little coward terrified to use his enormous wealth for some good he would realize that the only thing that would have saved his Blue Origin ambitions would have been to oppose Trump but he read the tea leaves and saw that Harris was likely going to lose, and now has his lips to Trump’s anus in the desperate hope that this will somehow preserve government contracts. But he didn’t and now all he can hope is that Musk and Trump have such a falling out that the Department of Defense and NASA are ordered to use any other provider than SpaceX. So…I guess we’ll see what we see. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2025, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/514 "2025-03-17T03:14:13Z")
I wonder if Trump has threatened Bezos in some way. Something more explicit than “blue origin won’t get federal contracts”. He’s acting like he’s scared. Maybe he’s just so wrapped up in his money that he’s afraid he might have less. I dunno. But that abrupt about face when the Post didn’t endorse Harris? Ever since then I’ve wondered what Trump has over him. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2025, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/515 "2025-03-17T05:04:27Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I wonder if Trump has threatened Bezos in some way. Something more explicit than “blue origin won’t get federal contracts”. He’s acting like he’s scared. While [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) is his bankroll, Blue Origin is Bezos’ one true dream in life; threatening to destroy that by not letting it at least compete for national security and NASA missions is essentially putting his balls in a vice and squeezing. And while I have _plenty_ of criticisms of Bezos, he is a guy who legitimately made his fortune not through hype but anticipating an online marketplace where people would by cheap crap they don’t need as long as he be the middleman who can squeeze producers down to minimum (and sometimes negative) profit margins, purchased easier and delivered quicker than going down to the corner store for a pack of smokes. You’re right he’s scared because he knows better than anyone what will happen to business leaders who don’t comply in advance, and the only way to survive in a fascist, authoritarian regime is to curry favor with the the leader. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/516 "2025-03-17T21:13:38Z")
I think pretty much every one of the fatcats has had a talking to by trumply minions. A talk amounting to > The Boss will sic the IRS on every company you own a hunk of, and on you. SEC too. Laws mean nothing now; they will find whatever they’re told to find. You will be as good as broke when they get done with you. Maybe you’ll end up in jail. So be a nice boy and shut up about any complaining about my rule. In fact I’d like some cheerleading whenever I call you for it. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/517 "2025-03-17T22:39:44Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I think pretty much every one of the fatcats has had a talking to by trumply minions. A talk amounting to > > > The Boss will sic the IRS on every company you own a hunk of, and on you. SEC too. Laws mean nothing now; they will find whatever they’re told to find. You will be as good as broke when they get done with you. Maybe you’ll end up in jail. So be a nice boy and shut up about any complaining about my rule. … Apropos here: Bezos may remain supine, but many in the business world are getting fed up. From the JP Morgan Chase site: > [@](#): > > **The stock market is unique – it cannot be indicted, arrested or deported; it cannot be intimidated, threatened or bullied; it has no gender, ethnicity or religion; it cannot be fired, furloughed or defunded; it cannot be primaried before the next midterm elections and it cannot be seized, nationalized or invaded.** The author (Michael Cembalest) refrained from actually writing Fuck You Donald…but he might as well have done. > **[Fifty Days of Grey | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S.](https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/outlook/market-outlook/eye-on-the-market-fifty-days-of-grey)** > > Here’s the interesting thing about the stock market: it cannot be indicted, arrested or deported; it cannot be intimidated, threatened or bullied; it has no gender, ethnicity or religion; it cannot be fired, furloughed or defunded; it cannot be... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/518 "2025-03-17T23:06:34Z")
Great article. The facts are as we all know: random vandalism is not in fact a successful growth-enhancing policy. Not immediately, and not later on. A JP Morgan analyst may write that, presumably with the at least tacit approval of the higher-ups. But what are they going to do about it? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/519 "2025-03-18T00:51:52Z")
Take a lot of short positions? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210/520 "2025-03-18T01:13:00Z")
Perhaps. Although over in this thread some folks spoke of short positions which were promptly invalidated. > [@Investment general discussion thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/investment-general-discussion-thread/1015169): > > There have been some threads lately concerned about what people should do with their investments in light of recent… instability as well as some politics prediction threads revolving around performance of the economy in which people start discussing investment strategy. So I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread for any sort of investment discussion. Advice, strategy, predictions, news, questions, even bragging about your success or complaining about your losses, why not. So I’ll st… I for one think there is going to be a general trend of legit decline caused by legit real problems in the real economy. Most of which can be laid at the feet of musktrumply vandalism. But some of which were waiting to happen anyhow to an overvalued market. As always with calls to bail to cash to wait out the carnage, the hard part is picking your re-entry point. At the same time, imposed on top of that secular decline, there is already, and will continue to be, an increasing amount of deliberate market manipulation, where the insiders front-run Administration announcements calculated to trigger a gain (or loss) response in investment sector X. You can get hammered pretty thoroughly by being long or short when they announce some BS intended to be instantly bearish or bullish respectively in that sector. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-washington-post-democracy-dies-with-us/1009210.md?page=27)