Pity the Regional Newspaper

The Durango Herald, the most prominent newspaper in southwestern Colorado, is trying to maintain profitability despite having a readership that’s split between Trumpist types and those who prefer to live in a pluralistic liberal democracy. It’s hard to know what the owners believe, and apparently that’s the way they want to keep it. The paper made tepid endorsements for Democratic candidates, but tried to balance that by endorsing a Republican candidate for secretary of state who, if elected, would have a great deal of power in determining how elections are run in the state and it’s a good debt would use it to tilt the next election toward candidates running on the authoritarian (Republican) ticket. There’s no hint in any of the Herald’s editorials that I’ve seen that the Republican Party is dominated by election deniers and that the fate of American democracy may be determined by the outcome of the upcoming elections. As mail-in voting began last week, an editorial ran proclaiming that the best candidate would be a hypothetical centrist who combined the best qualities of both parties, an exemplary individual who, for lack of existing, isn’t on the ballot.