James O’Brien has excoriated the state of British politics, following Elon Musk’s inflammatory attacks on Labour ministers regarding historic child sexual abuse cases.
“What matters is that British politics has now been split apart in a way I can’t remember seeing, by this far right foreign conspiracy theorist who happens to be the richest man in the world,” O’Brien said.
“It has been split apart in a way I can’t quite conceive of.”
In a series of posts on Twitter in recent days, Musk has attacked Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Sir Keir Starmer over what he alleges — without evidence — they were “complicit” in failing to combat mass rapes of young women and girls.
Musk’s intervention has resurfaced the findings of a series of inquiries into child sexual abuse across England and Wales involving at least 1,400 victims.
Musk has also come under significant criticism for his attacks on Labour’s Jess Philipps, Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, claiming she was a “rape genocide apologist”.
While Musk’s comments have been roundly criticised in the UK and abroad, O’Brien told listeners that he expected more from the British opposition.
“I don’t understand what’s happened to the Conservative Party, when now is the time for national unity,” O’Brien said.
“British parliamentary sovereignty… demands that an attack by a foreign conspiracy theorist upon our politicians be condemned… And it hasn’t been.”
What are fallen tyrants owed? What makes debt illegitimate? And when is bankruptcy moral? Odious Debt shows
how Latin American nations have wrestled with the morality of
indebtedness and insolvency since their foundation, and outlines how
Latin America’s forgotten history of contestation can shed new light on
seemingly intractable contemporary dilemmas.
With a focus on the early modern Spanish Empire and modern Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, Odious Debt explores
how discussions about the morality of debt and default played a
structuring role in the construction and codification of national
constitutions, identities, and international legal norms in Latin
America. Ultimately, Corredera reveals how Latin American jurists
developed a powerful global critique of economics and international law
which, in rejecting the political violence promulgated in the name of
unjust debt, continues to generate pressing questions about debt,
bankruptcy, reparations, and the pursuit of a moral world economy.
Corredera is Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for
Comparative Public Law and International Law and Lecturer in History at
Spain’s National Distance Education University.
Scott: Edward Jones Corredera, welcome to Money on the Left.
Edward Jones Corredera: Thanks, Scott. Big fan of the show. Thanks for having me.
Scott: We invited you to talk to us today about your recent book titled Odious Debt, Bankruptcy, International Law, and the Making of Latin America. To
start us off, we usually like to ask our guests to tell our audience a
little bit about themselves, whether personally or professionally, about
their background. In this case, how did your life history lead you to
start thinking about the history and politics of debt in Latin America?
Edward Jones Corredera: I was born and raised in Madrid, Spain. I’m
half Spanish and half English, and when the 2008 financial crisis hit
and really started to bite in 2010, I found myself studying politics at
the London School of Economics in London. I had always grown up with
seeing cultural misunderstandings about Britain and in Spain and in
Spain and Britain.
2008 really showed me that cultural ideas around economics really did
matter—it wasn’t just sort of day-to-day anecdotal stuff where people
from different countries travel and they don’t fully understand each
other’s cultures. In this case, I just watched stereotypes about the
country I’d grown up in turn into the basis for economic forecasting. It
might be useful to remember the use of the term “PIGS” to describe
Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain during this period. That feels like a
long time ago, but it happened. I also remember seeing weekly
assessments of Spain’s debt-to-GDP ratio. In Spain, this turned into a
sort of ritualistic health check on the nation’s future – it was studied
religiously, and it was a strange way of assessing the economic health
of a nation. My sense was that the history of economic ideas in the
Spanish speaking world was not well understood, and it was particularly
misunderstood in the anglophone world. I did a couple of jobs—I worked
in Shanghai for a year—but I went back to academia to do a Ph.D. at
Cambridge. The morning after I landed, I was jetlagged and woke up
around 6am right as the Brexit referendum results were being announced. I
was worried that Spain—which is to this day one of the most Europhile
countries in Europe—would lose faith in in the EU. If it happened in
Britain, could it happen in Spain? What if this support that you saw in
Spain for the EU was just superficial? What if that right-wing sentiment
redolent of Franco’s Spain could recover lost ground? So, this
background certainly informed my doctoral thesis. I set out to write a
history of the pursuit of a European federation in Spanish political
thought. It was through that that I got into ideas of how credit was
originally seen as a way to deliver peace in the Enlightenment.
The re-coronation of the lumpen-capitalist Donald Trump as US president
is a no-doubt consequential moment. Yet Trump has increasingly been
second banana to one of his many Rasputins, the far-right techie Elon
Musk. In an objective sense, however, the richest man in the world
giving what is inarguably a Nazi salute at the inauguration of the
president of the United States is an event of historical and
international significance. This gesture from Musk was a crystallization
of all that Trump is doing, and in particular, a prime form of the new
far right’s aestheticization of politics. The politics of the gesture,
the image, that crystalizes what in many ways is a redefinition and
narrowing of what constitutes what the American state sees as human. So of course,
the international benefactor of the far right is going to give a Nazi
salute. This is the same guy who within days of the salute, gave a
Nazi-esque speech to the Post-Nazi AFD in Germany, calling on Germans to
reject globalism and embrace their historic warrior-like ways, as
pointed out by Julius Caesar!
The question here is how its significance
is being downplayed, deliberately or not, in an official and unofficial
sense, from the pillars of American society, after being given the go
ahead by some figures in the Jewish establishment. Musk did not give a
Nazi salute, he made an “awkward gesture”. Broadcast journalists like
Erin Burnett are exemplars of this pattern. This has been echoed even by
Jewish conservative pundits like Ben Shapiro, not to mention some
reasonable-doubt-mongers at The Forward. Their raised eyebrows
and seemingly verbal scare-quotes when using this phrase reveal them not
to be dissenting in an aestheticized sense but rather showing their
resignation to the moment and their opportunism, their desire to
reproduce themselves and their socially and materially beneficial
existence. This goes of course, most shamefully to the Anti-Defamation
League which did not condemn Musk, indeed explicitly denied that his
gesture was a Nazi salute. The ADL are increasingly echoed in media
reports that at first simply didn’t report on it or just referred to it
elliptically.
Religion has profoundly influenced human society, providing both solace and controversy
Bill Tammeus (wtammeus@gmail.com), an American friend of mine, lives
in Kansas City, Missouri. He visited India with his father, an
agricultural expert, around 1957 and was my classmate at Boys High
School, Allahabad. After returning to the U.S., Bill became a
journalist.
Now retired, he engages in social work and serves as a preacher in his Presbyterian Church.
Bill also writes a blog called Bill’s Faith Matters Blog, where he regularly shares his thoughts. His latest post, titled “A Foundational Question: What the Heck Is the Purpose of Religion?”, explores his understanding of religion’s role.
As a believer in God, Bill has a perspective on religion that differs
from mine. I am an atheist and regard all religions as superstitions,
holding that truth lies in science—an ever-evolving discipline. While we
differ in our beliefs, we both seek to understand the purpose of
religion in human life.
Why Do People Believe in Religion?
For
instance, a businessman launching a new venture cannot be entirely
confident of its success. Economic downturns or unforeseen events may
cause losses, despite meticulous planning. Faced with such
uncertainties, even the affluent may turn to religion, hoping for divine
intervention.
As Shakespeare observed in King Lear:
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”
However, I believe that as science advances, humanity will
increasingly gain control over its destiny. Also, exploitation of man by
man will by then end. A century from now, science may evolve to such an
extent that religion will become obsolete, fading into irrelevance.
Despite being unscientific, religion remains integral to the lives of the vast majority of people worldwide. Why is this so?
The majority of the world’s population lives in poverty. Their lives
are so harsh and uncertain that they turn to religion for psychological
support. Without this emotional crutch, many might fall into despair,
even to the point of madness or suicide. For the poor, religion serves
as a mechanism to endure suffering and find meaning amidst chaos.
But why do relatively well-off individuals also cling to religion?
That is because we are still at a low level of development of science
(compared to what it will be, say, after 100 years hence ). In other
words, the chance factor is still very powerful in our lives.
We plan something, but something else happens. In other words, we
cannot control our lives. So we believe there are some supernatural
powers like God which control our lives, and which must be propitiated
to keep them benevolent and not turn malevolent.
Pause to survey the composition of Trump 2.0 cabinet, and a striking
pattern emerges. Alongside the regular staple of anti-immigrant hawks,
Wall Street libertarians and Christian nationalists, we find what seems
like a surprising degree of ethnic diversity. Until one takes a second,
closer look, to find that it is in fact a specific type of brown person
highly represented. From Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy
to Usha Vance, Jay Bhattacharya and Sriram Krishnan, the new
“multiracial” MAGA appears significantly dominated by the presence of so
many Indian – and Hindu – Americans.
This detail is no mere statistical oddity. The presence of so many
Hindu Americans on the far-right is not a coincidence; neither is it a
familiar story of a few elite pro-business conservatives that all
non-white communities contain. Rather, they are a mirror – a mirror into
a broader attempt to reposition where Hindu Americans fit into US
society. To understand this phenomenon, we must understand the role
played by the Hindu supremacist, or Hindutva movement, whose influence
threads together the trajectories of many of these nominees, and whose
Americanization – and Trumpification – is a critical part of this
puzzle.
Hindutva, which is distinct from the Hindu faith, is a century-old political movement inspired
by Nazism and Italian fascism, that aims to reshape India’s secular
democracy into a Hindu ethno-state. Like white Christian nationalism,
Hindutva has a history of targeting religious minorities, including through lynching. Over fifty years ago, the movement established
its first U.S.-based organization: the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America
(VHP-A). Across these five decades, the movement erected a vast network
of organizations on the backs of the financial success of the Indian
American community, building large charitable, cultural, religious, and
advocacy fronts, as well as a network of PACs.
One of these PACs, in fact, helped launch Gabbard’s political career with extensive donations,
raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for her first Congressional
races. The movement’s other champions were also Democrats, and its path
initially steered clear from the older stream of Indian American
Republicanism, exemplified by figures like Dinesh D’Souza or Bobby
Jindal, who had to eschew a public identification with Hinduism to
advance their political careers.
It is in fact in contrasting the new figures in the cabinet with this
older strain of Indian American conservatism that revealing details
emerge. Consider the profile of Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s pick to co-lead
a government spending department with Elon Musk. Ramaswamy, who has
consistently consorted with Hindutva groups as well, headlining two separate VHP-A galas, where he credited
a VHP-A leader with teaching him Hinduism, has not hid his Hinduism;
rather, he has sought to ground his very support for “Judeo-Christian
values” in his Hinduism, grounding it in caste pride and positioning it
as proximate to whiteness. His colleague, Kash Patel, who is slated to
run the FBI under Trump, has similarly defended the Hindutva movement’s
leadership and agenda in India, speaking conspiratorially of their being targeted by the media and the “Washington establishment.”
While these figures are the most visible signs of a convergence
between Hindu supremacy and MAGA, they are but outcomes of broader
changes within the far-right, and within the Indian American community.
The story, as Gabbard’s own trajectory points to, begins with a note
of devastating Democratic misjudgement and complacency. After all, for
decades, Hindu supremacist organizations were primarily welcomed,
like other immigrant communities, by liberal institutions and a
Democratic Party that largely failed to recognize their racist
underpinnings and that uncritically accepted its claims to represent a
minority group. In this phase, organizations like Hindu American Foundation sought
to present themselves as interfaith champions and civil rights
advocates, the group even joining the Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights. It was in her earlier avatar as a progressive Democrat,
after all, that Gabbard became the movement’s first high-profile champion, for which she received at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations, what was a full quarter of her 2014 war-chest.
But the rise of Trump altered Hindutva strategy, helping the movement
shed its liberal mask. Hindutva’s alignment with white supremacy is
less paradoxical than it seems, given that its leaders have, across
their history, openly sought to emulate white supremacist movements,
from Jim Crow racism and Nazism’s treatment of Jews.
Hindutva’s view that Hindus are a majority oppressed in their own
country closely matches MAGA’s view that whites and Christians are
oppressed in the United States, and the two movements have a shared
hatred for Muslims, with VHP-A members having longstanding ties to prominent anti-Muslim figures in the MAGA movement, including Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and Laura Loomer.
But the large-scale reorientation of the movement still took years,
and its final direction was perhaps only set in place when Steve Bannon joined
the Republican Hindu Coalition as honorary chairman in 2019, a moment
that signaled MAGA’s openness to non-white far-right movements.
Parody of the gleichschaltung process by Walter Wesinger.
There is a shadow of something
colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the
land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest
I dare approximate it. What its nature may be I refuse to imagine. But
what I wanted to say was this: You are in a perilous position.
Not only a new administration, but a new ideology has now taken up
residence at the White House: neofascism. It resembles in certain ways
the classical fascism of Italy and Germany in the 1920s and ’30s, but
with historically distinct features specific to the political economy
and culture of the United States in the opening decades of the
twenty-first century. This neofascism characterizes, in my assessment,
the president and his closest advisers, and some of the key figures in
his cabinet.2 From
a broader sociological perspective, it reflects the electoral bases,
class constituencies and alignments, and racist, xenophobic nationalism
that brought Donald Trump into office. Neofascist discourse and
political practice are now evident every day in virulent attacks on the
racially oppressed, immigrants, women, LBGTQ people, environmentalists,
and workers. These have been accompanied by a sustained campaign to
bring the judiciary, governmental employees, the military and
intelligence agencies, and the press into line with this new ideology
and political reality.
Who forms the social base of the neofascist phenomenon? As a Gallup
analysis and CNN exit polls have demonstrated, Trump’s electoral support
came mainly from the intermediate strata of the population, i.e., from
the lower middle class and privileged sections of the working class,
primarily those with annual household incomes above the median level of
around $56,000. Trump received a plurality of votes among those with
incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 a year, especially in the $50,000
to $99,999 range, and among those without college degrees. Of those who
reported that their financial situation was worse than four years
earlier, Trump won fully 77 percent of the vote.3 An
analysis by Jonathan Rothwell and Pablo Diego-Rosell of Gallup, updated
just days before the election, indicated that in contrast to standard
Republican voters, much of Trump’s strongest support came from
relatively privileged white male workers within “skilled blue collar
industries”—including “production, construction, installation,
maintenance, and repair, and transportation”—earning more than the
median income, and over the age of forty.4 In
the so-called Rust Belt 5 states (Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and Wisconsin) that swung the election to Trump, the Republican vote
increased by over 300,000 among voters earning $50,000 or less, as
compared with 2012. Meanwhile, among the same demographic group,
Democrats lost more than three times as many voters as the number
Republicans gained.5 None
of this was enough to win Trump the national popular vote, which he
lost by almost 3 million, but it gave him the edge he needed in the
electoral college.
Nationally, Trump won the white vote and the male vote by decisive
margins, and had his strongest support among rural voters. Both
religious Protestants and Catholics favored the Republican presidential
candidate, but his greatest support of all (80 percent) came from white
evangelical Christians. Veterans also went disproportionately for Trump.
Among those who considered immigration the nation’s most pressing
issue, Trump, according to CNN exit polls, received 64 percent of the
vote; among those who ranked terrorism as the number-one issue, 57
percent.6 Much
of the election was dominated by both overt and indirect expressions of
racism, emanating not only from the Republican nominee but also from
his close associates and family (and hardly nonexistent among the
Democrats themselves). Donald Trump, Jr., in what was clearly a
political ploy, repeatedly tweeted Nazi-style white supremacist slogans
aimed at the far right. Trump’s only slightly more veiled statements
against Muslims and Mexicans, and his alliance with Breitbart, pointed
in the same direction.7
As the Gallup report pointedly observed:
In a study [Richard F. Hamilton, Who Voted for Hitler?]
of perhaps the most infamous [nationalist] party, the geography of
voting patterns reveal that the political supporters of Hitler’s
National Socialist party were disproportionately Protestants, if living
in a rural area, and those in lower-middle administrative occupations
and owners of small businesses, if living in an urban area. Thus,
neither the rich nor poor were especially inclined to support the Nazi
Party, and even among Christians, religious identity mattered greatly.8
The clear implication was that Trump’s supporters conformed to the
same general pattern. According to the Hamilton study, it is generally
believed that “the lower middle class (or petty bourgeoisie) provided
the decisive support for Hitler and his party.”9 Hitler
also drew on a minority of the working class, disproportionately
represented by more privileged blue-collar workers. But the great bulk
of his support came from the lower middle class or petty bourgeoisie,
representing a staunchly anti-working class, racist, and
anti-establishment outlook—which nevertheless aligned itself with
capital. Hitler also received backing from devout Protestants, rural
voters, disabled veterans, and older voters or pensioners.10
Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani stars in the 2024 Israeli-produced film adaptation of Azar Naifisi’s 2003 novel, Reading Lolita in Tehran IMAGE/Eran Riklis
At a time when the entire world is aghast at Israel’s savagery in Gaza, the Zionist regime has decided to adapt an Iranian novel once promoted by American neoconservatives into a film
These days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes time from his busy schedule slaughtering Palestinian women, their children, and the rest of their families to send messages of love and solidarity to Iranian women.
The beleaguered war criminal kindly assures them how much he and his
entire settler colony support their struggles for liberation.
The messages sound surreal. But they are real.
The international fugitive charged with the crime of genocide –
wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity – has even learnt a
few words in Persian.
He sports the slogan of “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (Woman, Life, Freedom) to assure Iranian women he wishes for nothing more than to see them liberated from the yokes of their mandatory hijabs, wearing their jeans and t-shirts and waving the Israeli flag in Azadi square.
But why, at a time when, according
to Oxfam, “more women and children are killed in Gaza by Israeli
military than any other recent conflict in a single year”, should Israel
suddenly care about the fate of Iranian women?
As I write these words, outgoing US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump are cockfighting over credit
for an alleged “ceasefire” they say they brokered between Israel and
Hamas, even as Israeli forces continue to slaughter more Palestinians
without pause.
Netanyahu, once again, appears to be collaborating with his American
allies to stage a false disagreement, using it as a cover for further
mass atrocities against innocent Palestinians. What “ceasefire” are they
talking about exactly?
And amid this ongoing carnage, Israelis are expressing concern about women’s rights in Iran?
The mere assumption is beyond absurd.
Why would a garrison state, a settler colony, a proxy military base advancing the American
and European imperial designs and war machine suddenly care about the
fate of Iranian women and whether or not they like to wear their
headscarves?
Bizarre – or is it?
‘Hasbara-modelled propaganda’
In his broadcast messages to Iranian women, the mass murdering
Israeli chieftain is now actively aided and abetted by the one and only
Azar Nafisi, the author of the fake and fictitious memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran.
In 2003, the book became a global sensation thanks to the concerted
efforts of her friend Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy secretary of defence
under President George W Bush and to whom the book was dedicated, and
other infamous neoconservative operatives.
Nafisi and her memoir became the Iranian version of the Nayirah testimony, which helped instigate the US invasion of Iraq
It was promoted as part of an active Iranophobic and Islamophobic propaganda campaign to demonise Iran and Iranians to justify all military operations against them.
This was the singular achievement of Nafisi: vilifying her own
country at a time that would have aided and abetted US and Israeli plots
against an entire nation.
She did against Iran what the Iraqi Kanan Makiya and the Lebanese Fouad Ajami did against Iraq and the entire Arab world put together.
Nafisi and her memoir became the Iranian version of the Nayirah testimony, the infamous case of Nayirah al-Sabah, the 15-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, who in October 1990 gave false testimony in US Congress to instigate the US war against Iraq.
The Argentinian nation has faced imperialist attack for centuries, and its current globalized form is intent upon destroying the Argentinian identity and its societal values, but “the Argentinian people, with our long history of struggle, resistance and rebellion, our common doctrine and common principles, will be able to fight back neocolonialism… the more we get organized,” commented Argentinian professor and analyst Raquel Pina while discussing the situation of Argentina under the administration of President Javier Milei.
Since the self-described “libertarian” and “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei took office as the president of Argentina in December last year, the country seems to have spiraled into a socio-economic abyss. Nevertheless, this may be nothing new under the sun, given that Argentina has lived through a vicious cycle of alternating capitalist destruction and progressive recovery at least over the last seven decades. In addition, Argentina is one of the countries that still experiences the reality of British colonialism, apart from the neocolonialism which is the order of the day for most of the world.
These issues were addressed by Dr. Raquel Pina, an expert in Latin American cultural and literary studies and history, in an interview with Orinoco Tribune on November 5. Born in Santa Fe, Argentina, in the 1970s, to a working-class family, she was a first-generation university student. She studied at the Ohio State University, USA, and currently teaches at the Columbus State Community College, Ohio. She has written numerous articles on contemporary issues in Argentina and Latin America, as well as authored two books, including El Sujeto en Escena, on the impact of globalization on contemporary Argentinian cinema. At present she is researching on the native Antarctician people, descendants from Argentinian and Chilean parents, and their cultural significance for Argentina and Chile, within the framework of the bicontinental nature of these countries of the Southern Cone.
In “Seven Deadly Sins,” neurologist Guy Leschziner explores the science behind Dante’s greatest transgressions.
James was in his late 30s and weighed more than 500 pounds when he fell in the bathroom and found himself wedged between the wall and shower enclosure. Unable to get up because of his size, and too embarrassed to call for help, he lay there for three days. Firefighters eventually had to wreck the bathroom to free him. By the time he made it to the hospital in London, fungal infections had spread through the creases in his body, his oxygen-starved skin was disintegrating in places, and his breath was labored. His doctor struggled to find a vein from which to draw blood.
“Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human,” by Guy Leschziner (St. Martin’s Press, 384 pages).
That doctor, Guy Leschziner, did something that he’s ashamed of now:
Along with the other junior doctors in the hospital, he mocked James for
his fatness, for his predicament. Many people in Leschziner’s shoes
might have laughed at James: Obesity in the popular imagination, is “the
most obvious marker of ‘gluttony’” and considered a “moral failure,
indicative of laziness, a lack of self-control,” Leschziner writes in “Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human.”
But what if we took a more nuanced view of “gluttony”? What if we
took a more nuanced view of all human failings? In “Seven Deadly Sins,”
Leschziner, a neurologist and sleep physician, interrogates the
evolutionary, neurological, and psychological underpinnings of the seven
greatest transgressions in Dante’s “Inferno”: wrath, lust, pride,
greed, envy, sloth, and gluttony. He concludes that these so-called sins
are inextricably interwoven with the experience of being a person, and
that to understand them is “to gain insights into why we do what we do:
the biology of being human.”
Leschziner had several personal reasons for wanting to understand
humanity’s darkest side. His family was defined by the trauma of his
grandfather’s narrow escape from the Holocaust, a “supreme expression of
human sin.” Leschziner’s curiosity about sin was also sparked by his 25
years as a doctor in London hospitals, where he’s seen the best and
worst of humankind on display. In writing this book, he sought to push
himself beyond merely observing and treating his patients’ issues and
instead “to see beneath the surface, to delve into the depths.”
Leschziner has written two other books
that explore the oddest cases he’s treated as a neurologist, and in
“Seven Deadly Sins,” some of the most fascinating passages involve
patients, like James, whose lives have been derailed by a medical issue
that presents as one of the “sins.”
Leschziner concludes that these so-called sins are inextricably interwoven with the experience of being a person, and that to understand them is “to gain insights into why we do what we do: the biology of being human.”
In the wrath chapter, we meet Sean, who rages “like a wild beast” in
the aftermath of his unpredictable seizures, smashing glass and
furniture. In the envy chapter, we meet Sarah, who regularly becomes
consumed with the paranoid fear that her husband’s having an affair and
flies into jealous fits, only to have little-to-no memory of these
episodes after they conclude. In the lust chapter, we meet Simon, who
received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease
in his early 30s and who lost his friends and family because of his
obsession with porn, sex workers, and happy ending massage parlors.
(Leschziner changed all names to preserve these patients’ privacy.)
As the Washington Post faces a staff rebellion and plummeting subscription rates, billionaire owner Jeff Bezos has introduced a new mission statement: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”
The Washington Post‘s new slogan, “Riveting Storytelling for All of America,” is “meant to be an internal rallying point for employees,” the New York Times (1/16/25) reported.
The
new path forward, as introduced in a slide deck to staff by Suzi
Watford, the paper’s chief strategy officer, demands that the paper
“understand and represent interests across the country,” and “provide a
forum for viewpoints, expert perspectives and conversation” (New York Times, 1/16/25).
It will do this as “an AI-fueled platform for news” that delivers
“vital news, ideas and insights for all Americans where, how and when
they want it.”
This appears to mean shifting resources toward opinion, specifically opinions from the right. According to the New York Times report:
Bezos has expressed hopes that the Post would be read by more blue-collar Americans who live outside coastal cities, mentioning people like firefighters in Cleveland. He has also said that he is interested in expanding the Post’s audience among conservatives.
The Post has already begun to consider ways to sharply increase the amount of opinion commentary published on its website, according to two people with knowledge of the talks. An adviser to the Post, Lippe Oosterhof, has conducted brainstorming sessions about a new initiative that would make it easier to receive and publish opinion writing from outside contributors.
How AI is meant to play into this is unclear.
The Post already has more columnists than you can shake a stick at. This new direction sounds like the Foxification of the Washington Post, a move away from any attempt to hold the powerful to account, toward inexpensive clickbait punditry.
‘Make money’
The red area represents the proportion of Jeff Bezos’s total wealth that would be required to cover the Washington Post‘s losses for a year.
Watford’s slide deck presented three pillars of the Post‘s new model: “great journalism,” “happy customers” and “make money.” The Postlost roughly $77 million in 2023. (It also lost some 250,000 subscribers after Bezos killed the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris—FAIR.org, 10/30/24.)
In order to make money, its new “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (yes, that’s what the Post
slide deck apparently called it) is to reach 200 million “paying
users.” The paper currently has about 3 million subscribers, making it
an “audacious” goal indeed. As the Times pointed out, even if the Post
could achieve the impossible task of monetizing every visit to its
website, no major corporate media outlet has been getting more than 100
million monthly unique visits—paying and non-paying—outside of the spike
in traffic around the election.
Back in 2019, the Post was claiming
80–90 million unique visitors per month. Those visits peaked in
November 2020 at 114 million, but quickly and steadily dropped after
Biden’s inauguration. The Post stopped posting its audience numbers online after January 2023, when they were down to 58 million.
Of course, most online corporate media have been struggling. The thing about the Post is that its absurdly wealthy owner, the second-richest person on Earth, can easily afford to lose $77 million a year. That’s 0.03% of Bezos’s current net worth.
‘We are deeply alarmed’
Guardian (1/15/25): “The plea from staff…comes a week after the Post laid off roughly 100 employees…roughly 4% of the publication’s staff.”
No doubt the Post
needs help. Just days before the new mission statement was revealed,
over 400 staff members signed a letter to Bezos asking for a meeting (Guardian, 1/15/25). The letter read:
