Among historians and journalists, our national story often is referred to, with guarded optimism, as “the American experiment.”
Wednesday morning was the first time it occurred to me that it very well might fail. Or perhaps already has.
Not a happy thought.
(And not, please note, an ideological response. I’m not an ideologue, and our newspaper does not make presidential endorsements. But any self-respecting journalist who would support a candidate calling him an “enemy of the people” while constantly assailing the First Amendment is a soon-to-be-unemployed fool.)
For the record: Yes, this creates an intentional “bias” toward free speech, a free press and representative democracy — the same bias that has fueled the U.S. press since colonial days.
Democracy finishes last
It is especially relevant today. This was an election like no other: the authoritarian-inclined Donald Trump, a cartoon-character manifestation of the greed, avarice and nepotism that (unfortunately) have made America what it is today, won it, fair and square — via an election magically cleansed of prior corruption!
Trump and Harris were the faces and the names. But representative democracy was in fact on the ballot. And it lost. Bigly.
No more excuses here, America. Trump brought to the table the full Double Donald: a mixed cocktail of racism, sexism, xenophobia and narcissism, stirred by an abject lack of decency.
A majority of Americans lapped it up and seemed to thirst for even more.
God bless America. No one else is likely to.
I’ll leave the vitriol there and bring the focus back home. Specifically, to late Tuesday night, sitting in a Bellingham newsroom with a team of extremely bright, dedicated journalists looking spent, flabbergasted and wondering what the day had portended.
I suspect their concern, like mine and other journalists, is less focused on the votes of any given day than on the broader info-wars that now fuel such decisions.
At my desk, the doomiest gloom of the present U.S. situation is not so much the election of Trump, a dim bulb but skilled demagogue. It’s the now-undeniable rejection of truth as a necessary platform for civility and civic progress.
Sorry, not sorry, but truth, or “best obtainable version” thereof, to borrow a quote from Bob Woodard, is an altar at which some of us still worship.
Same mission, new focus
Cascadia Daily News was created more than three years ago, in the shadow of the last Trump presidency, with a clear mission: reverse the slow decay, caused by failures of corporate media, of engaged civic life in the place we call home via old-fashioned, independent truth-telling.
We agreed that a local, reality-based set of facts are a prerequisite for an informed electorate, allowing smart decisions by voters. And that serving as a journalistic watchdog to hold them all in account is a necessary check on public and private power — one established by our forebears for a reason.
We’ve made an initial impact, I will argue, here in our upper left corner of the country. Along with our vital coverage of everyday life, we’ve produced impactful, investigative accountability journalism that has changed lives. This year, we doubled down on our civic commitment with comprehensive election coverage offered free to the public.
But the national problem — an electorate operating with alternate sets of facts — is more daunting than anyone could have imagined. It’s truth denied by mass media, increasingly controlled by oligarchs, on a daily basis.
We still have a republic — if we can keep it, as Ben Franklin famously said. Will we? We shall see.
A clear view through the bubble
I embrace the challenge. At CDN, we think the truth still matters. Our readers tell us they do, too.
Here’s what I told our staffers Tuesday and will pledge to our audience: Our role here in this time of national upheaval will be the same: clear-eyed reporting about local matters.
The ground has shifted; we will shift with it. It’s unclear whether the Trump ascendancy will prove a historical blip or a lasting slide into kleptocracy. And for pure journalistic purposes, it doesn’t really matter.
We live in something of a political bubble, nearly qualifying as a national outlier; Trump to date has pulled less than 37% of the vote in our home, Whatcom County. Washington state elected a progressive, consumer-focused governor, Bob Ferguson, by a broad margin. The state is one of the few in the nation where MAGA support did not increase relative to the prior election.
But make no mistake: Our region’s relationship with its federal government is about to be fundamentally altered, maybe forever. Changes will come to things that most of us hold dear.
Our job will be not to argue, lament or place blame for changes, but to engage in reporting that will help explain and contextualize them. We’ll focus especially on the impacts on ordinary citizens who might otherwise be left voiceless.
Fortunately, that’s a task for which this local newspaper is well-suited.
An inward focus
There exists a tendency in times of global strife for humans to focus inward, toward the comforts of home. It’s a natural reaction, and it’s probably healthy. It should not prompt complacency in a global era of creeping authoritarianism. But it does help serve our own community interests as well as journalistic purposes, both here and broadly.
In a pre-election essay in The Bulwark, “Journalism in an Autocratic Age,” editor Johnathan V. Last made two points that hit close to my own head and heart:
As corporate journalism shows its true colors, the only way to build media robust enough to stand firm against authoritarian pressures “is for it to be a profitable business supported primarily by its readers. That’s it. That’s the ball game.”
Secondly, “Scale matters,” Last writes. “The larger the scale of a media organization, the harder it is to maintain an anti-authoritarian ethos.”
His conclusion: “Community is the only way to resist fascism … In an autocratic age, it is not enough to be a consumer of media. You must be a stakeholder in it.”
The Bulwark, born in the shadow of the first Trump presidency, was “built for that,” Last notes. CDN in its own way was built for this, too.
The work continues
Our progress in three short years, enabled by a supportive local audience, gives me confidence in that build. We’ll need more of that support, through subscriptions and partnerships, to make it truly fulfill its promise.
We’re working hard to establish the trust that will make that happen. We’re also planning some tweaks to our products, initiated long before the election, that effectively double down on our emphasis on news and opinion that is local, local, local. In hindsight, that timing was good. You’ll hear more about this soon.
Meantime, here in the newsroom, we’re descaling the coffee maker and digging in for the long haul. It’s a new world and our work begins with renewed focus and additional resolve.
Today, we’ll all gather together with a clean whiteboard and map out a solid plan for a series of stories about local impacts of the changing U.S. governmental structure. The rest will flow from there.
At CDN, we are grateful for your support for this journey, and whatever the next one proves to be.
As Kamala Harris said upon leaving the stage Wednesday: “The fight for our country is always worth it.”
Ron Judd's column appears weekly; ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com; @roncjudd.
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