ICYMI: Kamala Harris For President

And The Doom of Jeff Bezos

“Never Comply in Advance”

This principle, drawn from historian Timothy Snyder, is essential in resisting tyranny.

Last night, we witnessed the latest example of preemptive capitulation. Jeff Bezos, one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet, a man who purchased The Washington Post ostensibly to defend journalism, caved to political expediency. He appointed a Rupert Murdoch acolyte as editor and publisher — which should have been a warning — only for the paper to kill its endorsement of Kamala Harris suddenly. The timing is damning: this happened on the same day Blue Origin executives, under Bezos’s ownership, met with Donald Trump.

The backlash against the Post was immediate and justified. It wasn’t merely a breach of journalistic ethics; it was an abandonment of the fundamental duty of the press—at a time when the very essence of free speech is on the line. Trump, even as I write this, continues his vitriolic tirades against the media, referring to journalists as the “enemies of the people” during a rally in Michigan. His promises to revoke press licenses and shut down dissenting outlets are neither rhetorical excess nor idle threats.

What Bezos fails to understand is that his gesture of submission will earn him no favor from Trump. Autocrats do not reward compliance—they punish weakness. Imagine a moment when Bezos needs a favor in Trump’s second term. The answer won’t be a gracious acknowledgment of past obeisance.

It will be swift and merciless:

"Hi, Jeff. This is deputy assistant to President Chad Smith. No, he can’t take your call. Sorry, Jeff. We had to cancel Blue Origin’s contract. Elon gets it instead. You didn’t support the President, you didn’t donate, and your newspaper was hostile to him."

And Bezos will sit in stunned silence, realizing too late that one act of submission only invites further demands. Tyrants revel in humiliating those who bow before them. Their cruelty knows no limit, and any reward for capitulation is fleeting at best. History teaches us this lesson with grim clarity: autocrats, from Putin to Xi Jinping, demand not mere loyalty but absolute submission.

In autocracies, wealth offers no protection without servility. Just ask Jack Ma, once China’s richest man, who resisted the bureaucratic stasis of the Communist Party—only to see his empire dismantled by the state.

Jeff Bezos has now taken his first step down that same perilous road. Today, it’s a newspaper endorsement. Tomorrow, perhaps it’s his yacht. Maybe Don Jr. demands a cut of his profits. Or Lara Trump insists on a seat on the Post's editorial board. One moment, you're on your private jet; the next, you're the latest cautionary tale in the wreckage of autocratic excess—a modern-day Dmitri Prigozhin, reduced to aircraft wreckage after crossing the wrong man.

With that as a prelude, here’s my endorsement:

Kamala Harris for President

Last November, I endorsed Joe Biden, which may have surprised no one familiar with my opposition to Donald Trump. Yet those months—258 days between Biden’s announcement and his withdrawal—were among the hardest in my time as a Never Trumper.

Democrats, activists, and donors alike were demoralized. Hope for a narrow path to Biden’s victory flickered and was finally extinguished after a disastrous debate that marked the end of his political journey. Biden will be remembered as a President of honor and consequence, but his departure was a moment of fear for the forces opposing Donald Trump.

Then, Kamala Harris entered the race—and something shifted.

It was hope.

Not the shallow kind that merely longs for better days, but a fierce, determined hope. Harris brought energy, clarity, and courage, qualities we sorely need in confronting the existential threat of Trump’s return. Her campaign embodies the American story in all its complexity—raised by immigrant parents from India and Jamaica; she represents a life built on hard work, education, and the pursuit of a better future.

But this race isn’t about racial identity; she understood that from the beginning. Harris isn’t running to break glass ceilings or to be the first Black or South Asian woman president, though those aspects of her story are significant. Instead, she runs as a leader—someone prepared to tackle the immense challenges of a complex world. She has the strength and clarity to expose Trumpism as the shallow grift it has always been.

Harris understands the gravity of what she faces: a felon, a rapist, a traitor, an insurrectionist. She’s prosecuted men like Trump before and knows precisely how to dismantle his corrupt, chaotic brand of authoritarianism. Too many in the media still treat Trump’s criminality as peripheral or trivial. Harris sees it for what it is—an affront to democracy—and refuses to indulge the polite fiction that Trump is anything but a fascist.

His agenda, hidden behind programs like Project 2025 or Agenda 47, is a roadmap to authoritarian control. Where others flinch, Harris stands firm, unafraid to call out Trump’s dangerous ambitions. She has withstood the venom and racial animus hurled her way, knowing full well that the attacks would be personal, malicious, and relentless.

She is an antidote to Trump’s cruelty. His malice is not an accident or a byproduct of power—it is the point. It is intrinsic to his leadership style, a performance designed to degrade and demoralize. His political career is littered with examples of his relentless need to humiliate the weak and reward the unscrupulous. From separating children from their parents at the border to insulting our veterans and war dead, his actions reveal a profound indifference to human suffering. He thrives on domination, extracting pleasure from public shame and turning cruelty into a rallying cry. No tragedy, no matter how intimate or devastating, is exempt from becoming fodder for his political spectacle.

Indecency is not merely a tactic for Trump—it is the foundation of his crapulous brand. His followers celebrate his vulgarity, mistaking it for authenticity, while he uses insult and invective as tools of control. Trump’s rhetoric corrupts the national discourse, normalizing behavior that once would have been unthinkable for a public figure. He revels in indecency, knowing that every norm shattered brings him closer to unchecked power.

His language—calling immigrants “animals,” slurring every opponent as a Marxist, a communist, or a pedophile — is that of the tyrant, the autocrat, the dictator. He degrades and assaults women verbally and physically. He promises retribution and to deploy the military against his political opponents.

This culture of cruelty is already spreading from the podium to the streets. It is a generational risk for our children and grandchildren. His contempt for empathy, decency, and truth is boundless; a generation raised on it will be warped by it.

On foreign policy, Harris is sharper and more strategic than Trump’s reckless, self-serving flirtations with dictators. On border policy, she is more pragmatic than his hollow theatrics and racism.

Where Trump clings to ludicrously damaging and outdated economic theories like tariffs, Harris offers a vision for sustainable, inclusive growth. She understands the importance of addressing inequality and reforming a tax code skewed toward the ultra-wealthy, not by attacking free markets but by fostering competition and innovation.

As a conservative, I believe in free enterprise and personal liberty. Yet today’s economy is distorted by cronyism, where wealth flows to the well-connected rather than the innovative. Trump promises to institutionalize this corruption. On the other hand, Harris offers a path forward that preserves liberty and opportunity while dismantling favoritism.

On abortion, she strikes a clear position—recognizing it as a profoundly personal and morally complex issue. Unlike the overreach of Trump’s Red Court and his entire party — who propose monitoring women’s reproductive choices and prosecuting doctors — Harris respects the limits of state power. She understands that the state has no place in private medical decisions. This stance resonates deeply in the post-Dobbs era, where the denial of emergency care is endangering American women’s lives. Hers is, perhaps ironically, the conservative position.

Trump, by contrast, has repeatedly proven himself a liability to America’s security and values. His admiration for dictators and betrayal of democratic principles are not aberrations but the core of his political ethos. His allies fear Harris precisely because she represents the antithesis of everything they stand for. She will defend the nation while he calculates personal gain from every betrayal.

January 6, 2021, wasn’t just a bad day—it was a deliberate assault on the core of American democracy, all orchestrated by a man who would rather burn the republic to the ground than accept losing.

Donald Trump wasn’t some passive spectator to the chaos; he was the arsonist, striking the match and cheering on the flames. He lied, riled up his base, and sent them marching to the Capitol, knowing full well what would follow. The riot wasn’t about election integrity but power and revenge, a mob boss tantrum disguised as patriotism.

Any man who, when given the sacred responsibility of defending the Constitution, instead weaponizes a lie to undermine it cannot—must not—be allowed back into power. To put him in office again is like handing a loaded gun to a man who’s already tried to shoot you once.

I know I’ll disagree with Harris on specific issues in the future—that’s the nature of democracy. But I also know those disagreements will be rooted in good faith, not authoritarianism. Constructive friction is inevitable in a coalition that spans from Bernie Sanders to Liz Cheney. And that’s how it should be.

Harris will meet the challenges ahead as a leader committed to American ideals, not an autocrat bent on personal gain.

That, my friends, is more than enough reason to cast your vote for her. I already have.

And I urge you to do the same.