Winners & Losers | Superbowl vs. Super Bozo
How to kill one of America's great institutions ... and how to drive Trump nuts.
Our world is brimming with Losers, from the streets of Minneapolis to the White House to the Pentagon to, well, RFK Jr.’s house. Last week felt like a slight reprieve from the typical chaos of Trump II.
Of course, it wasn’t a reprieve at all. Videos still emerged of ICE and federal agents terrorizing citizens; little Liam Ramos made it back home to Minneapolis, only to be told they wanted to deport him officially; a massive Epstein Files dump exposed the depravity of dozens of elites; Tulsi Gabbard Tulsi Gabbarded, and so on.
I know we say this all the time — too much, probably — but in a normal world, the news that happened last week would’ve sent millions of people into the streets with torches and pitchforks, demanding justice.
But in Trumpland, it was a quiet week.
But at least one thing happened last week that will reverberate through the generations. Let’s talk about it.
Jeff Bezos, Loser
Jeff Bezos wins a lot, but that doesn’t make him a winner. Last week, The Washington Post cut about a third of its total workforce, including over 300 newsroom jobs out of around 800.
This came after the organization had reportedly shrunk by roughly 400 people over the last three years. We all know the media industry, especially print media, is facing incredible headwinds. But this is death by attrition. Bezos is slowly bleeding out one of the most respected legacy newspapers in American history.
The Bezos era began in 2013 when he was able to purchase the Post for $250 million. Even at the time, it seemed like a vanity purchase, perhaps meant to service his reputation. Not everyone loved the idea of one of the world’s richest men buying up legacy media outlets — do billionaires actually need more control over the media? — but at least at first, Bezos invested heavily in the paper.
Under his ownership, the Post expanded its national political coverage and exploded its newsroom to more than a thousand journalists. When Trump was elected in 2016, they were ready and the Post became profitable.