October 25, 2024
Non-Endorsements Making the News
Within the past few days, there’s been some news about endorsements — or rather, the lack of endorsements. First up, in the category of literally making the news, both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have announced that they’re not endorsing either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump for president.
For the Post, publisher William Lewis announced earlier today that they would not back either candidate in 2024 or “in any future presidential election”, although this is the first contest they’ve sat out in 36 years. It should also be noted that the Post is endorsing other candidates this cycle, including Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) for Senate; and in past years, they endorsed now-President Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Their decision was immediately criticized by former editor Marty Baron, calling it “disturbing spinelessness”, and adding, “This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.” The owner of the paper, billionaire Jeff Bezos, has yet to comment.
And while the story of the Times is nearly identical, there’s been a bit more fallout, as the head of the editorial board, Mariel Garza, resigned in protest of the paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocking their plans to endorse Harris. Garza wrote, “In these dangerous times, staying silent isn’t just indifference, it is complicity.”
And finally, a sort of backdoor endorsement from an unlikely source: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has a biography coming out soon, called The Price of Power. The book’s publisher released an excerpt from it yesterday, in which McConnell harshly criticizes the former president, calling him a “sleazeball” and a “narcissist”, and that he should have been removed from office after January 6th. He also states unequivocally that the “MAGA movement is completely wrong”, and laments that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t recognize the GOP as it exists today. Why does this count as a backdoor endorsement, particularly since McConnell has already given a (very lukewarm) endorsement of Trump? McConnell had to have agreed to the release of this material at this time, with less than two weeks to go until Election Day, which seems very telling.
Fake News Already Circulating
CBS News published a pair of stories within the past day which both show that the misinformation machine about the 2024 elections is already running at full speed. First up is a story about ballot machines in Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia reportedly “switching” votes. Election officials have refuted the claims, attributing any issues to human error that was corrected, and confirming that there was no evidence of the machines altering votes. David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, has investigated similar claims going back twenty years, and echoes the assertion that “every single” vote switching claim he’s encountered was due to human errors. That hasn’t stopped these false claims from going viral, unfortunately.
The other story hits a little closer to home for me and my fellow Pennsylvanians, as a video has been circulating on social media that allegedly shows someone in Bucks County destroying mail-in ballots. The district attorney’s office and local police department have investigated the video in question and found that it “was fabricated in an attempt to undermine confidence in the upcoming election.” They are also working with the FBI in attempting to track down the video’s source. The viral nature of the video even prompted the Bucks County Board of Elections to issue a bipartisan statement that the video is fake.

“Swatting” a New Threat for Election Officials
Finally, election officials across the country are bracing for the potential of being “swatted” — that is when someone calls in a fake 911 call that prompts a massive police response to a bogus threat (often involving Special Weapons And Tactics teams) and could result in the accidental shooting of an innocent target. Politico reports of election administrators contacting local police forces so they know where officials live and where election-related events are taking place.
Given the high-profile nature of this year’s election, and how focused the news is on a handful of battleground states, officials are concerned that they could be appealing targets. It brings to mind a line from the movie The Dark Knight, where Alfred tells Batman, “Some [people] just want to watch the world burn.”
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