🖙The Washington Post Editorial Board's Drops the Mask
A new era of class warfare has emerged in New York, and no one is more excited to misrepresent the players involved than the Washington Post Editorial board. Witness the latest editorial about Zohran Mamdani's victory.
Billionaire owner Jeff Bezos indicated he wanted the opinion pages to focus on promoting "free markets." While charitable (or naive) readers might expect good-faith arguments in favor of less regulation and capitalism generally, they periodically have seen the signs of bad faith for ages. This editorial is a new low, and that interpretation is no longer possible.
Across 645 words laced with weird details, including giving Mamdani the epithet "Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani" and describing his victory speech as "seething with resentment," the paper abandoned any pretense to civil disagreement and instead battled a straw man of Mamdani they hastily stuffed.
The paper caricature Mamdani when they say "People’s lives, in Mamdani’s world, can be improved only by government." In fact, his support of loosening obstacles to building housing and criticism of Trump's use of the federal agencies like ICE make it clear he holds no such illusions.
Such crass flattery of their readers as part of the "thinking" people in contrast to Mamdani's supporters "the crowd" might get support from their remaining subscribers, who apparently agree with an increasingly partisan editorial board or overlook it in favor of other sections. But it is a faulty contrast, given the speech deftly evoked Mario Cuomo, Eugene Debs, and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Before and after his victory, Mamdani's opponents favorite term for him has been "socialist." While technically accurate, they use the term not to elucidate their policy differences but to smear him as extreme or authoritarian. In this case, the editorial, noting his limited power in setting taxes or affecting transportation. Again, this is technically accurate, but deliberately ignores that Mamdani's experience in state government means he is not only aware of how power is divided, but has worked within those constraints, including a free bus pilot.