Is the Washington Post turning Republican? They seem to have lost their minds, which is the first prerequisite. So, perhaps? But I read two recent editorials that were so unusually stilted against Democrats and written on grounds so transparent and so contrived, so off-kilter they sounded like bad-faith excuses. Doesn’t that resemble today’s Republican party?
The first editorial was published yesterday, “A bipartisan retreat on trade.” The Post writes that President Donald Trump’s trade disasters are becoming bipartisan because of something Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote.
As the Trump administration scraps trade agreements and picks tariff fights around the world, Ms. Warren offers ideas that differ, somewhat, in language from President Trump’s but resemble them closely in protectionist spirit. “We will engage in international trade — but on our terms and only when it benefits American families,” her plan says. All that’s missing are the actual words “America First.”
— Washington Post editorial, July 31, 2019
On one side, you have President Trump, abusing American law and muddling international trade with nonsensical sanctions, backed with the full support of his Republican party. He attacks our allies and uses the power of his office to benefit him and his family personally. Trump unilaterally breaks established American deals, threatening our ability to negotiate any new agreements. And Trump doesn’t do this out of any obvious principles; he damages America’s global standing as a distraction from his poor press.
The Post editorial board nonetheless insists that Warren has become the trade equivalent to Trump, along with the Democratic party she does not lead. Why? Warren said that future trade deals should be good for American families. It’s hardly an unusual for a progressive Democrat. And yet the Post over-interprets her words like a tin-foil Q-anon devotee. No, that doesn’t make Warren anti-trade, nor is her caution isn’t vaguely close – morally, ethically, or practically – to President Donald Trump’s trade mismanagement. But it was all the Post needed. Any harm from future destructive trade deals will, they say, be on the Democratic party’s heads. Interesting conclusions.
And just today, the editorial board published “Why go to the trouble of running for president to promote ideas that can’t work?” They quoted some of the presidential candidates saying the Democratic party shouldn’t be afraid of big ideas.
This got us thinking about some big ideas in U.S history. Like, say, amending the Constitution to outlaw liquor. Or sending half a million troops into Vietnam. Or passing a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy in a time of massive deficits.
— Washington Post editorial, August 1, 2019
Demagogue much? The Post immediately linked any Democratic ‘big ideas’ with disastrous wars, Prohibition, and… the hugely unpopular tax cuts that the Democratic party opposed almost violently?
The Post hand-waves at healthcare, but the editorial board concludes that it’s big ideas in general that are the problem, or at least any Democratic ideas. Voters, they suggest, should shun anything that seems too different, or scary, or that their readers feel is unlikely. I can’t help but notice that the Post hasn’t suggested that same standard for anyone who isn’t a Democrat.
So, is the Washington Post turning Republican? I’ve been watching their editorial board drift right for a while, but these two editorials made a big jump away from reality. That’s our modern Republican party: hugely partisan and half-blind with ideological purity.
