‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters; The Guardian, October 28, 2024

Lorenzo Tondo , The Guardian; ‘Real threat of autocracy’: Washington Post editorial staffers resign in forceful letters

"More Washington Post staffers have stepped down and more than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions by Monday after the newspaper’s decision not to support Kamala Harris for president.

Editorial board members David Hoffman and Molly Roberts both resigned on Monday with forceful letters indicating their reasons.

“I believe we face a very real threat of autocracy in the candidacy of Donald Trump,” Hoffman, who took home the Pulitzer Prize just last week, wrote in his resignation letter. “I find it untenable and unconscionable that we have lost our voice at this perilous moment.”

Roberts said she was resigning “because the imperative to endorse Kamala Harris over Donald Trump is as morally clear as it gets”."

Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now; New York Times, February 18, 2018

Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times; Whatever Trump Is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now

"Putin used cyberwarfare to poison American politics, to spread fake news, to help elect a chaos candidate, all in order to weaken our democracy. We should be using our cyber-capabilities to spread the truth about Putin —just how much money he has stolen, just how many lies he has spread, just how many rivals he has jailed or made disappear — all to weaken his autocracy. That is what a real president would be doing right now.

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president.

But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.

That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office."