I’ve been hearing this a lot lately, most recently from Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, to wit: The current dead heat for president could easily turn into a decisive electoral victory for either Harris or Trump, based on just a small shift in votes in seven swing states. …

So the Washington Post won’t be making a presidential endorsement this year, saying the paper is returning to its long-ago tradition of not endorsing candidates. No one is buying it. Dan Kennedy says, correctly, that it’s pretty obvious billionaire owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to antagonize Donald Trump, a move aptly described as “anticipatory obedience” should Trump win in November. Even one of the Post’s own columnists, Ruth Marcus, is complaining about the Post’s non-endorsement.

Besides the political weenie-ness of the non-endorsement, I see the move as part of a post-Marty Baron strategy to transform the Post into an Anywhere USA paper, producing more milquetoast feature stories and treating them as “products that could serve users,” i.e. it’s slowly becoming more of an Amazon Prime Post, as I described it back in June. … After hearing of the Post’s non-endorsement policy, a friend and former journalism colleague wrote in an email to me: “Bezos is killing the paper. …he’s doing his best to water down the paper and make it a glorified USA Today.”

Updates – 10.26.24 — More reactions on the non-endorsements:

From the Globe: “Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.”

From Brian McGrory at the Globe: “Washington Post’s pathetic lack of endorsement shows Bezos willing to bow to Trump.”

From Jill Abramson at the Globe: “Democracy dies in broad daylight, thanks to Jeff Bezos.”

And from Harvard’s Nancy Gibbs at the NYT: “Two Billionaires, Two Newspapers, Two Acts of Self-Sabotage.”

The Globe’s Jon Chesto reports State Street Corp., the giant Boston money manager, is in the crosshairs of GOP critics who think the company’s ESG investing has gone too far. … As far as I can tell, this isn’t about actual poor investment decisions and returns by State Street, for the cries of protest would be far, far louder if someone was losing actual money. … Instead, it’s more about politics and protecting the interests of certain industries, i.e. oil and gas companies.

Via John Ellis’s outstanding News Items newsletter, the Economist declares that glp-1 drugs, such as the weight-loss wonder Ozempic, have “all the makings of one of the most successful classes of drugs in history,” capable of treating not only diabetes but also cardiovascular and kidney diseases and possibly even Alzheimer’s, addictions and, believe it or not, aging itself. … Forget it being one of the most successful drugs in history. It could be one of the most significant developments in human history, period.

Another multifamily housing development has been proposed for Everett’s Commercial Triangle district, described as a rare housing-construction ‘hot spot’ in eastern Mass. The BBJ has the details.

Here’s a near perfect example, in the context of the current presidential election, of how progressives maintain a powerful grip on the Democratic party, via threatening to withhold support and votes if party leaders don’t hew to the progressive line. At a time when the party is desperately trying to prevent the election of an authoritarian/fascist figure to the White House, some progressives are prioritizing political purity over political pragmaticism . That’s the can’t-live-with-them side of the modern progressive left. They can be complete political imbeciles. 

And, yet, the can’t-live-without-them side of the modern progressive left is that some progressives are oftentimes right on both the issues and political pragmatism, such as Bernie Sanders urging Kamala Harris to focus more on the plight of the working-class and less on the further demonization of Donald Trump..

Moving forward, the bold and mighty Hub Blog is going to try to start differentiating, when possible, on a case by case basis, between “pragmatic progressive” positions, such as Bernie’s stance above, and “purist progressive” positions, such as pro-Palestinian fanaticism or trans-rights activists who see no room for any compromise. It’s the purist progressives who are harming Democrats, insisting on fealty to radical positions that end up hobbling Dem candidates in general elections.

Fyi: The NYT has more on pouting purist progressives who just don’t get that what Harris is trying to do is win an election.

George Packer has an excellent piece at the Atlantic on what’s on the minds of voters in hardscrabble western Pennsylvania. … Read it. It’s one of the best election-year stories out there.

With an emphasis on “theoretically.” Banker & Tradesman has the details (sub. req.). … Even if only a few hundred of the housing units are built, Needham will have done its part in helping to address the housing shortage in Massachusetts.

Of course I’m shocked and outraged. I didn’t think he could sink lower. But he did. … Yet we’ve been down this same shocked-and-outraged road before — and it hasn’t made much of a difference. It’s another anti-Trump bubble story, something that merely deepens the already deep loathing of those who long ago voiced their vehement opposition to Trump. … Kamala Harris has less than two weeks to convince the last remaining undecided voters and non-revved up voters why they should vote for her. It can’t all be about anti-Trumpism. Haven’t Dems figured this out yet?

Update — He may be a fascist, but is saying so smart politics? What are some of his non-fascist supporters thinking? Is this a “deplorables” moment? …

I really liked David French’s column from last week, explaining why DEI and various other solutions to complex social problems are often doomed to failure, to wit: political monocultures. … It basically comes down to like-minded people not listening to others’ ideas, thus reducing the odds of success.