Bezos Makes the Right Move at The Washington Post
“We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”
Jeff Bezos, one of the nation’s premier billionaire socialists, bought The Washington Post in 2013. By 2017, the paper had become rabidly anti-Trump and even, for the first time, adopted a motto — the tendentious statement “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Initially, Trump Derangement Syndrome paid off, increasing subscriber numbers and web traffic. After Joe Biden took office in 2021, however, the Post lost half a million subscribers in a couple of years. It lost another 250,000 after Bezos blocked an endorsement in last year’s presidential election — complete with an op-ed explaining his decision. Think about that: People read The Washington Post because they can count on it to endorse Democrat policies and politicians, and they take their ball and go home when that doesn’t happen.
Last year alone, the paper lost $100 million.
Somewhere along the line, the business-savvy Bezos realized that such practices weren’t good for business or desirable for the country. In January, he replaced the paper’s publisher and laid off 4% of its staff, and now he’s making other changes.
On Wednesday morning, he sent a note to staff announcing a big shift for the paper’s opinion pages:
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. …
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
The changes also mean the exit of editorial page editor David Shipley, who Bezos intimated could not embrace the changes with a “hell yes.” He concluded that “free markets and personal liberties are right for America,” but he believes those values “are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.”
I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 26, 2025
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too…
The meltdown was immediate.
“What the actual f***,” opined Washington Post columnist Philip Bump, whose articles are frequently (well-written) diatribes against President Donald Trump and the entire MAGA movement. His elitist contempt for Americans who don’t think like him is palpable.
Jeff Stein, chief economics reporter, called it a “massive encroachment” for the newspaper owner to decide how his paper is run, which tells you a little bit about his economic approach. (“Progressives” are almost always extremely possessive of institutions they don’t own but feel entitled to control.) He threatened that if such moves are made on the news side, “I will be quitting immediately.”
Journalists elsewhere chimed in, too. “Bezos fires the opinion section and declares the paper utterly fascist,” groused fascist Keith Olbermann. The New Republic decried the “repulsive new rule,” which displays the “Sick MAGA Takeover” at the Post.
Leftists know their media monopoly was broken decades ago by Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and upstarts like your humble team at The Patriot Post. It still infuriates them, though not as much as the idea that they can’t be as far-left as they wish.
Bezos’s move is a bit curious. For years, he’s been a reliable left-winger, funding causes that undermine Liberty in many ways and places.
However, along with Mark Zuckerberg (who likewise announced similar shifts at Meta), Bezos attended Donald Trump’s inauguration — and stood in the front row. Something is changing for these and other influential people. I’m not convinced they’ve had a real “come to Jesus” moment and are suddenly stalwarts of Liberty on the Right. Yet the shift is notable and welcome, all the same.
