With American democracy on the line in just a few days, of course people opposed to Donald Trump are wasting time fighting with each other on social media this weekend. This time it’s about whether folks should cancel their subscriptions to the Washington Post in the wake of that paper’s decision to spike an editorial endorsing Kamala Harris for president.

So ok I’m still arguing.

I cancelled my subscription on Friday. I have since heard some earnest criticism that all that I and others are doing is hurting the good reporters and other Post staff, and hurting journalism. But I stand by my decision.

Media accounts indicate that the Post‘s owner, Jeff Bezos, made the decision, overriding the staff, which had prepared an editorial backing Harris. But the Post‘s publisher and CEO, Will Lewis, took responsibility.

Thus the Post, formally as an institution, did something antithetical to democracy and integrity. By not issuing an editorial that its editorial team wanted, and that it would have published in past cycles, the Post signaled that the powerful are ready to cave to Trump because Trump might win, and Trump is a fascist bent on retribution (while Harris is not). Democracy dies in cowardice.

If Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, does this, presumably to protect his business interests — Amazon, the space company Blue Origin, etc. — or his personal safety, then democracy is indeed in serious peril.

Witnessing the Post cancel that editorial was watching fascism take hold in real time.

Bezos’s brazen misuse of the storied media outlet he owns is especially troubling in context.  Trump has been open this election cycle that he is for sale to almost anyone, especially corporate CEOs, who will help restore him to the White House, rescuing him from criminal punishment and allowing him to undertake a campaign of revenge against those who have stood in his way.

Trump has encouraged a roster of potential American oligarchs, who would have the same kind of corrupt deal with him that the Russian oligarchs have had with Trump’s idol, Vladimir Putin. Elon Musk buying X, prancing onstage at Trump rallies, and flooding Pennsylvania with campaign spending; Peter Thiel raising big money and placing his protege JD Vance a diseased heartbeat away from the presidency; Kelcy Warren and other oil barons giving millions for the promise that Trump will end efforts to curb their deadly operations; crypto bros who want to halt government efforts to protect investors; Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News spewing lies and propaganda; the billionaire Kochs and Barre Seid backing the legal crusades and luxurious lifestyle of Leonard Leo.

Bezos, who was repeatedly attacked by Trump while he was president over the Post‘s reporting, and who can see a series of regulatory challenges, and possible government contracting opportunities, in the event of another Trump presidency, apparently wants to move closer to the side of the oligarchs, and away from the side of Trump’s “enemy from within” — Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and the like.

Cancelling Amazon Prime, while it would be just, is a drop in the bucket for Bezos. If enough people, from a much smaller pool, cancel the Post, maybe Bezos will get the message. (Amazon Prime has 230 million subscribers; the Post has less than 3 million.) More likely, Bezos might sell the paper, which he has been revealed to fundamentally disrespect. I feel for the Post reporters and staff whose jobs are at risk, but there are still for-profit and non-profit journalism outlets that are thriving.

A Bezos-owned paper can no longer be trusted to do the right thing when it matters most. It totally failed this week. Our stance should not be, we are so grateful to Bezos for funding the Post and sustaining the jobs there that we need to live with fundamental erosions of the paper’s integrity. When would that stop? (The dismaying corruptions under the prior Post owner, predatory college operator Don Graham, pale in comparison.)

Action, not just a petition, is needed to wake the institution up. I’d be glad to return as a subscriber as soon as the Post rights itself.