What Turned Jonathan Greenblatt?

The widely-reported loud resignation of an ADL regional board member, specifically criticizing Jonathan Greenblatt's disastrous leadership decisions, gives me occasion to explore a question I suspect many have wondered about: what the hell happened to Jonathan Greenblatt? 

It's not as if Greenblatt was ever the best civil rights leader. But he certainly wasn't always like this. So what happened? What zombie bit him?

I have two stories to explain this, which are not competitive but rather I think are complementary. Moreover, these accounts are explanatory, not exculpatory. In fact, I would hope that someone with the self-awareness to recognize they're falling into these patterns -- however understandable they might seem -- would recognize that they probably aren't currently suited to lead the world's preeminent Jewish civil rights organization.

Story #1 is that Greenblatt is simply following in the footsteps of other tech magnates (remember, that's his pre-ADL background). A lot of these tech bros -- Jeff Bezos is a really obvious template what with his Washington Post trajectory, but it's a pattern one can see in folks like Mark Zuckerberg or even, in extremis, Elon Musk -- went through an arc where they adopted (at least to some extent) various liberal causes and shibboleths yet did not receive the adulation and hero-worship they thought was their due, and so bitterly rebelled.

The ADL (and Greenblatt) certainly went through this -- in many ways, a more intense version of it than did Bezos or any of his ilk. From 2016 when it took a leading role in resisting MAGA predations (particularly against the Muslim ban), the ADL really did try to adopt itself to the changing progressive patterns on civil rights issues. It took a ton of heat on this from the right, which accused it of being Marxist and America-hating and not even a Jewish organization at all. That experience did not see the ADL become beloved on the left; it continued to endure the usual flack it's always faced of the "Drop the ADL" variety. I'm not here debating whether the latter is or was justified, but I think it's pretty clear that the conjunction of the two engendered a lot of bitterness, and some of that motivated Greenblatt's rightward pivot that began in earnest during the Biden admin.

Story #2, though, relates more specifically to what I imagine it's like to be the head of the ADL and the trauma that must come with the job. We talk a lot about how individuals whose job it is to see awful things -- e.g., social media content moderators -- really can get messed up from the experience (this is one reason why people in the know recommend not mainlining graphic images of whatever violent atrocity is currently in the news; it's not "bearing witness", it's just soul-destroying). Well, I have to think that being the head of the ADL means that one is constantly being exposed to the worst moments in Jewish life, over and over again, without respite or break. Every traumatized Jewish student harassed on the way to class, every fearful Jewish parent wondering if their child's school is a safe place to attend, every terrified business owner with a brick through their window -- it is your job for all of that trauma to flow through you. And it really doesn't matter if not every one of the cases is "technically" antisemitic under whatever definition you prefer. The point is the head of the ADL is just a magnet for Jewish trauma, and I have to think that going through that will eventually mess you up.

So yes, my suspicion is that over the past few years, Jonathan Greenblatt has had to absorb way, way too much in the way of Jewish trauma, and going through that has put him in a very bad headspace. This, too, is a trajectory I've seen from many other people in the civil rights/non-profit space; they're asked to endure too much and eventually it frankly breaks their brains and leads them to one extreme or another.

But again, this isn't an exoneration project for Greenblatt. However "normal" his response is in terms of being a not-unpredictable reaction to the stimuli he's faced, it doesn't change the fact that he's not the right man to lead the ADL in this moment. But I do think these stories can help explain what went on, and hopefully provide some guidance on how to guard against it in the future (even if the guidance is simply "don't let one guy hold the reins of your Jewish organization for longer than most eastern European dictators").

WaPo Goes X

In the latest Bezos bulldozer to the Washington Post's credibility, the Amazon.com owner has announced a new party line for the editorial page. Henceforth, he wrote, the editorial page would be dedicated to two views: "personal liberties and free markets." "[V]iewpoints opposing those pillars" will not be published. Bezos argued that while once upon a time it might have been "a service" for a newspaper "to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views[, t]oday, the internet does that job." The decision led to the resignation of the Post's opinion editor and another wave of discontent amongst the paper's rank-and-file.


My initial thought was to wonder exactly which viewpoints opposed to "personal liberties" and "free markets" Bezos thought the WaPo had been publishing. My second thought was to ponder which views contrary to "personal liberty" would actually no longer be published. Vaccine mandates, I assume. I certainly doubt opposition to trans healthcare, or impinging on a woman's right to choose an abortion, will take on verboten status. As for "free markets" -- kleptocratic suckling to government strongmen for fear of legal retaliation: free market, or no? We'll find out soon enough!

Bezos' move is obviously about effectuating another rightwing shift in the paper (the New York Times noted that Bezos' duo echoed the informal motto of the notoriously extreme Wall Street Journal editorial page: "Free Markets, Free People"). The newsroom remains unaffected for now (the Post's own article on Bezos' decision is a good read), but we'll see how long that lasts.

It gives Bezos far too much credit to compare this decision with his other attacks on the Post's independence, but let's go through the motions, because it does demonstrate that there are no actual principles -- journalistic or otherwise -- in play here. Bezos' indefensible defense of his presidential non-endorsement decree was predicated on the idea that the narrowing force of a presidential endorsement would necessarily suggest journalistic bias and damage the paper's credibility -- a demand for wider viewpoints, not narrower ones. The Post's Scholastic Kids Choice-esque new motto, "riveting storytelling for all of America" tries to sound a similar theme: the Post needs to speak to a wider audience by presenting a wider range of views; it cannot remain cloistered as the mouthpiece of a particular bubble. Juxtapose that against his newfound contempt for a "broad-based opinion section", and the contradiction is obvious -- but "contradiction" again assumes there was a principle in play in the first place. There wasn't -- that was obvious before, and it's more obvious now.

As a business move, there's zero chance that any part of Bezos' demolition derby will redound to the Post's benefit. But I don't think he cares, because he's realized that the Post offers him something far more valuable than a business. It offers him a mouthpiece.

The footsteps Bezos is following here are those of Elon Musk and X. As a business, Musk has of course run X into the ground. But if you're a rich as Musk or Bezos is, that loss is a rounding error. What Musk has gained, of course, has been a megaphone to promote and amplify whatever views and ideologies that appeal to his fancies -- in his case, a cavalcade of conspiracy theories and white supremacist MAGA garbage. Even for our most rapacious capitalists, not every investment has to be monetary -- spending money to bend the arc of the entire world's political discourse surely can be viewed as money well spent (and of course, under the right conditions even an objectively cratering business can still gain value if it is seen as a gateway to the autocrats).

So too, it seems, for Bezos and the Washington Post. Are these moves going to gain back the subscribers he lost? Doubtful. It probably will accelerate departures. But the Post's name still has value, and now it gets to be Bezos' own personal Pravda. Whatever that costs, Bezos is clearly willing to pay it.

New Frontiers of Darkness

The Washington Post has unveiled its new slogan to supplement (in practice, supplant) the old "Democracy Dies in Darkness": "Riveting Storytelling for All of America."

I can't tell you how much I hate this.

First of all, even out of context, it sounds both comically corporate and unbearably patronizing. "Riveting storytelling for all of America" sounds like how to market the Scholastic Book Fairs for emerging readers, not one of America's papers of record.

But of course, we must take this slogan in context. And the context is the Post spending the last few months humiliating itself and dynamiting its journalistic credibility by repeated acts of groveling towards the MAGA movement.

And I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but this slogan really encapsulates the media's self-delusion that it is part of the liberal family. Again, recall my thesis here: the media thinks its main audience is liberals, and so it sees its job as to challenge liberals with "alternative perspectives" or "competing views" (as opposed to just telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may). One implication of this is that conservatives are a growth audience (because of course the Post in its prior manifestation couldn't be speaking to them) -- this is what "for all of America" means. We're no longer speaking just to the latte-sipping coastal elites, but to all of America. And lest you think I'm projecting, they're being quite explicit that this is what they mean:

Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has made comments in line with the new mission statement in conversations with Post journalists in recent years, according to two people familiar with those discussions. Mr. 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 people said.

Now nominally, recognizing that conservatives are part of the audience could mean that the Post starts committing to telling them things they don't want to hear. For example, they could be informed, in no uncertain terms, how Trump's tariffs will crush working families with spiraling grocery bills. Or they could be told, in clear-eyed fashion, of how Trump's inner circle is proposing increasingly fascistic and lawless abuses of government power. Or they could be shown, without varnish or spin, how the Republican Party has begun to view sexual assault and rape as virtues in its political leaders -- not even a secret to be ashamed of, but as an affirmative basis for support and promotion.

But of course, we all know that is not what Bezos and his cronies have in mind. "Riveting storytelling" suggests that what they want is sensation and soothing -- to reaffirm their (new) readers' priors, never to challenge them with something as dirty and discomforting as the truth. Conservatives can't tolerate hearing that Donald Trump was a grotesquely unsuitable choice for the presidency, and so the Post (even in its editorial endorsements) won't aggravate them. The Post knows that many if not most of Trump's cabinet picks fail the most basic (by the Post's own lights!) criteria of qualification for office in a democratic society -- respecting the outcomes of a democratic process -- and so the Post will just pretend it doesn't matter.

The Scholastic Book Fair analogy is more than snark, for this is of a piece with the broader trend of infantilizing the American right. Conservatives, once again, are being treated as children, and spoiled children as that -- whatever junk keeps their attention, that's what will be provided. 

A once great newspaper, reduced to an entertaining diversion for spoiled, coddled brats. Maybe the slogan isn't so bad after all.

Tech Bros Are Weak Men

When I look at men like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, I see men who are fundamentally weak.

That sounds judgmental. And it is, to an extent. But maybe not quite to the extent one thinks.

All of these men were at one point self-identified Democrats. Zuckerberg flirted with a run for President before he realized that nobody, you know, liked him. Bezos positioned the Washington Post as a guardian of democracy before taking it dark.

As these men, and others in their cadre, have pivoted to the right, one narrative one often hears is that they were effectively bullied into changing their views by mean anti-big tech sentiments amongst progressives. This is far too pat (not the least because Republicans certainly held their own in highly publicized attacks on the big tech companies), but what is fair to say is that these men see themselves as having promoted liberal causes and they did not get the adulation and adoration from Democrats that they felt they deserved. They were not feted as heroes. They were not recognized as titans of industry. They were not handed the reins of leadership. They weren't even generally recognized as progressive allies. They continued to face pressure and mockery and criticism -- much fair, some not -- and they were deeply, deeply resentful for it. 

It's most obvious in the case of Musk, whose desperation to be liked is transparently obvious and who has transformed an entire social media platform into a Potemkin village of praise for the new tsar. But one sees it across the cohort -- this frustration at not being loved, and the beckoning temptation that if they just sold out then at least somebody would cheer them and make them feel like part of the team.

In theory, this shouldn't matter. For those with requisite moral fiber, one does the right thing because it's the right thing, not because one gets plaudits and cookies from it. But in practice, it is a very ordinary vice to thirst for validation and gravitate towards whatever community seems most liable to hand it out. In the face of that temptation, it takes a strong man to align with a given set of values when others holding those same values can't or won't provide that respect.

And our big tech bro leaders? They are not strong in this way. They are weak -- weak in a way that is very familiar and very human, but weak nonetheless. And we all must unfortunately live with the consequences of their weakness.

Going Darker

Jeff Bezos has published a defense of his last-minute decision to override the Washington Post's editorial board and decline to issue a presidential endorsement.

It is not persuasive.

Bezos' core theme is that the media has a trust problem. This problem is not about actual impropriety or bias -- Bezos firmly rejects the notion that the Post is and has been anything but professional in its coverage. Rather, the problem is the appearance of bias. Editorial endorsements, even if they do not actually evince bias on behalf of the paper's news coverage, make people believe that there is. And that's why presidential endorsements need to be axed.

There's much that can be said here, including the fact that this in no way explains why presidential endorsements, alone, have this problematic effect. But I want to focus on a different problem about the concentration on an "appearance" of bias, because this is an area where in many cases the cure will be worse than disease. Where the "appearance" is based on falsehoods or absurdities, as it is here, attempts to "correct" the appearance (a) will never work and (b) will simply make other stakeholders (rightly!) second-guess whether bias is present.

The "voter fraud" panic is a great example of this, because it is also an arena where courts have justified severe limits on voting rights to combat the "appearance" of fraud even in circumstances where there is concededly no evidence of actual fraud. The logic is that the state still has a valid interest in its elections being perceived as legitimate. The problem is that if people are inclined to believe "fraud" is a problem notwithstanding evidence that it essentially doesn't exist, there's no reason to believe that any interventions will disabuse them of their delusions. Why would it -- the whole premise is that the people in question believe things in contradiction to the objective evidence! Meanwhile, the "appearance" justification conveniently overlooks other stakeholders whose faith in free and fair elections starts to decay precisely because they're witnessing a slew of voter suppression measures justified on (admitted!) fantasies. Why doesn't their assessment of "appearances" matter? At least it's based on something that's really happening.

The same is true in the Post's situation. The notion that an opinion page publishing an opinion is reflective of impermissible bias is beyond parody. Nobody actually believes this (including Bezos, as evidenced by the fact that the paper will continue to endorse in every other election). So there's no reason to think that abandoning endorsements will have any effect on those who make irrational and frivolous accusations of bias. Even if you buy Bezos' "logic", the entire problem is by stipulation illogical. And even as this move tries-and-fails to appease the unappeasable, it generates a far more serious "appearance of bias" in its own right. It will appear to many that Bezos is trying to coddle up to Donald Trump. It will appear that the Post's editorial independence is being compromised by the arbitrary whims of its billionaire owner. It will appear that the Post no longer is capable of fearlessly speaking truth even where powerful interests find it awkward or inconvenient.

These appearances are why I and 200,000(!) other subscribers have hit the cancellation button. But of course, what Bezos' choices "appear" to represent to us doesn't matter, just as what spurious "anti-fraud" measures "appear" to represent to minority and marginalized voters doesn't matter. When it comes to avoid the "appearance" of impropriety, invented concoctions by the dominant caste will always trump objective failings endured by the less powerful.

Going Dark

The Washington Post has announced it will not be issuing an endorsement in the 2024 presidential race, overruling a decision by the editorial board planning to endorse Vice President Harris. This follows a similar decision by the LA Times, both justified under the auspices of maintaining "neutrality", both actually made at the behest of billionaire owners who have significant financial stakes in staying in the good graces of the once- and potential-future president.

For the Post, it is a stunning abdication of duty and role by an outlet that operated under the mantra "democracy dies in darkness."

(The LA Times case has a slight wrinkle, in that the billionaire owner's daughter suggested in her own tweets that the non-endorsement was actually a commentary on the "genocide" in Gaza. While I suspect the owner's more pecuniary motives were driving the show, I'll just say that it should surprise no one that these "different" politics lead to the exact same place, and are profound exercises in cowardice in the exact same ways).

I remember the week Trump was elected, I was in a pedagogy class where new collegiate instructors were discussing how we should respond to the shocking news in our classroom. On this point, our professor was quite decisive: we had a job to do, and we should respond by doing our jobs. Since we were in a political scientist department, this didn't mean we necessarily ignored the events in the outside world -- politics were part of our ambit, after all. But we were not to pout, or cancel class, or anything of the sort. We had jobs to do, and we should do them.

The Post's choice today is the climax of a broader failure in our mainline news media to simply do its job in the face of shocking news. When Trump initially rose to power, the media's job was to report on him accurately. It instead viewed him as a fun little joke that could spike some ratings and inject some entertainment into the staid and boring world of politics. They saw their job as goosing readership, not informing the public. As the 2016 election approached, they chose to develop a truly unhealthy obsession with the absolute non-scandal of EMAILZ, to the exclusion of virtually every other issue. They saw their job as getting out in front of the candidate who "of course" was going to win, or of carrying out their own personal vendettas against Hillary Clinton.

This time around, we're going through the same thing. It is the media's job to accurately report on the frightening descent of Trump into a mix of babbling incoherence and unapologetic fascism. Instead, we get sanewashing -- express efforts to misreport what Trump actually says and does because rendering the copy accurately would make him look, well, look exactly as he is.

And that brings us to the non-endorsement developments. The media -- or the business "leaders" who own the relevant papers -- no longer sees Trump as a joke. They are scared of him. They know full well that his next term in office will be replete with recrimination against all he deems his enemies, and they do not want to fall on the wrong side of the naughty/nice list. I agree with those who say that the Post's decision is anticipatory compliance, but more than that I agree that it is a terrifying sign of the Putinization of American politics -- a billionaire class that knows the security of its position is entirely at the whim of dictator, and makes sure to cozy up to him lest their portfolios (or other things) start plummeting from great height.

All of this is no more complicated than a simple refusal by the media to do its job, in the most basic form imaginable. Some institutions are, as a matter of role, forbidden from wading into political controversies, but newspaper editorial pages are not one of them. The contention that a newspaper violates some precept of neutrality by having its editorial board issue an endorsement is beneath contempt; editorials are opinions by definition, they necessarily take a point of a view. When the media, in its professional judgment as observers of the political scene, decide that candidate A is a better pick for the position than candidate B, communicating that choice is doing one's job. Where the evidence shows that candidate B would be a disaster for democracy, rule of law, and the very continuation of the American project, all the more so.

Not every newspaper is failing in its job. But some are. The Washington Post was my hometown paper, it is the one I grew up with. It is bitterly disappointing to see it stoop to such a pathetic low.

Pictured: The entirety of the presidential endorsement by the Willamette Week