LA Times Will Not Endorse  Harris

In pretty much every 2024 election of local and state import, the Los Angeles Times has endorsed a particular candidate.

But it will not be endorsing anyone in the presidential race.

Yup – George Gascon deserves another term, says the Times, but Kamala Harris for president?  Umm, well, er, we’d rather get involved in that.

Of course, they could have been considering Donald Trump for the endorsement, but since I have seen very few pigs soaring by my window of late I doubt that is the issue.

According to Semafor – one of those newish newsish establishment with a quirk websites that is most likely losing money hand over fist – paper owner Dr. Partick Soon-Shiong put the kibosh on any endorsement.

No matter what you may decide to read into the decision, one person has to be furious: his daughter Nika.  A professional do-gooder and/or graduate student and/or trust fund baby and/or progressive activist and/or philanthropist and/or newsroom meddler and/or Hamas apologist, Nika has made her impact felt in the Times’ coverage of everything.  And she does not like Trump.

As to why the pullback from the political edge, there are a few possible explanations.

First, the doctor knows the jig is up and endorsing Kamala is simply a waste.

Second, the doctor knows that Donald Trump can be, um, rather obsessive about his news coverage and irking the once and future president is not terribly wise.

Third, by not endorsing, the doctor thinks that maybe the Times can claw back some of its self-vanquished level of community trust – see, we at least we didn’t do that!!

Fourth (relatedly), the doctor (and reportedly the missus) are getting tired of writing multi-million dollar checks to make payroll every couple of weeks and that maybe people will start paying for a paper they trust.

Fifth, the doctor has decided his investment has been such a bad idea he is trying to better position the Times for re-sale by trying to pretend it’s fair minded and locally respected.

All of those concepts, however, bump into the wall of the reality of the Times over the past few years.

The paper has consistently refused to properly cover the city, it has shoved things like accurate crime numbers under the rug, and it obsesses over woke/progressive ideological/theological issues that mean nothing to the public.

It must also be said that while the paper itself will not be endorsing a presidential candidate, it is not a mere observer/reporter in the race.  Each and every Times columnist/opinion writer suffers from astonishingly virulent Trump Derangement Syndrome – he could put the Buddha, Muhammed, Jesus Christ, Shiva, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, Michael Jordan, Clint Eastwood, and the physical embodiment of pure personal and societal happiness in his cabinet and still the writers at the Times would sniff disappointedly and accuse him of, well, pandering or incompetence or whatever (true, Gandhi as Secretary of Defense might be a problem).

There are too many examples of Times writers and contributors detaching themselves from reality to bother to link any specific story – suffice to say, feel free to look it up. Okay, well one.

The funniest thing is that the decision is pointless.  Everyone already knows where the Times stands on every other election, so it is doubtful the paper would take a flyer on Trump anyway.

Endorsing Cornel Wilde would be more likely, though they would love to re-re-re-endorse Barack Obama…oh, Michelle, where are you?  That would be close enough to their fevered remembrance of that wonderful utopia…

For the past year, the Times has told its readers that Trump is the devil incarnate and that this is the most important election ever.

And now it says “meh.”

Actually, that’s all you need to know.