Maybe it’s not democracy that dies in darkness. Maybe it’s a lousy, biased newspaper that dies in darkness because it can’t afford to pay its electric bill anymore.
Not even when the owner is Jeff Bezos.
If you’re reading this article, then the Washington Post has been an ultra far-left publication all your life. The paper has never endorsed a Republican for president. It has gone to war with GOP leaders (most famously Richard Nixon in the 1970s), and Post reporters like Woodward and Bernstein have gone on to become liberal icons. Then, in 2016, the paper opted to double down on the Trump hatred, transforming the Washington Post from a leftwing paper that reported on politics to a one-dimensional, over-the-top PR platform for rabid anti-Trumpers.
Before that, the paper would cheerlead for the left and undermine the right, but in its heart of hearts, it was still a news outlet. It was in the news business; it reported on the news.
But after the ascent of MAGA, the mission changed. No longer was it sufficient to report on current events: Trump was such a dangerous monster that he needed to be destroyed! He’s a liar, a con man, and a wannabe dictator! In fact, he’s such an existential threat to the planet, that if all the good liberals fail to stand up to him, then you know what’ll happen: (Say it with me!) “Democracy dies in darkness!”
For a while, the strategy paid dividends. The Trump years were like manna from heaven for liberal outlets. MSNBC soared in the ratings. And the Washington Post was hitting a whopping 22.5 million daily users by the end of the first Trump term.
And now?
Well, now we don’t know. As SEMAFOR reported:
Last year, Washington City Paper noted that the Post had stopped publicly disclosing its traffic numbers in press releases, after a 60% decline in monthly traffic.
So its current numbers are a mystery.
But we know that by the middle of 2024, the Washington Post’s daily traffic plummeted to just 2.5 to 3 million users. That’s nearly a 90% loss from their peak of 22.5 million.
That's why it’s no surprise that the Washington Post’s year-to-year revenue dropped by $16 million in 2024. It’s simple cause and effect: Advertisers pay a premium to reach an audience. When an outlet’s audience shrinks, so does its ad revenue.
Keep in mind, that the Post lost $16 million in revenue, despite the sky-high inflation rate. Remarkably, the inflationary failures of “Bidenomics” are actually underselling the extent of the Post’s problems.
Liberal apologists will try to argue that the Post’s audience loss was driven by the foolhardy decision not to endorse Kamala Harris in 2024. (The paper declined to endorse anyone; obviously, it’d NEVER endorse Trump.) But cratering from 22.5 million to just 2.5 million didn’t happen overnight: This mass exodus of readers was four long years in the making.
This wasn’t the byproduct of any one decision. Instead, it was the culmination of ALL the decisions.
Including the decision to brand itself as knee-jerk, 100% anti-Trump, cloaking itself in asinine, self-aggrandizing platitudes like “Democracy dies in darkness!”
Because democracy didn’t die in darkness. The premise was absurd.
After Joe Biden sputtered and stalled on national TV during his 2024 presidential debate, the American people realized that something else was happening in the darkness: A braindead president was being propped, coddled, and promoted by an utterly gullible media. And the Washington Post was especially guilty, since their specialty is, supposedly, the people and places in Washington, D.C.
It lied to us about Biden’s condition. A lie of omission is still a lie.
And now, the same paper that couldn’t tell whether or not the president was senile wants to be our go-to source for truth, information, and accurate storytelling? Yeah, hard pass on that one.
Interestingly, the Washington Post isn’t the only leftwing media outlet that’s fallen on hard times. MSNBC’s ratings have also collapsed, losing 55% of its viewers between November and December.
This means that when Trump takes office in a week, the key outlets dedicated to destroying him have all been weakened. He’s ascending while they’re declining. The two trendlines are moving in opposite directions, passing each other like ships in the night.
Nighttime, of course, is usually dark. But that doesn’t mean democracy is gonna die!
Because this time, it was darkest before the dawn.
And now it’s morning again in America.
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