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1. The Bezos/National Enquirer business is a reminder that there has been a longstanding affinity between authoritarian politics and gossip mongering tabloids, going back at least a century to William Randolph Hearst.
2. Hearst of course was accused of "yellow journalism" from the start, but the political salience of that journalism changed. His early sensationalism was in the service of left populism (he was one of few newspaper owners to support Bryan).
3. The early "yellow journalism" of Hearst was really socially conscience muckraking -- i.e. accounts of exploitation. That changed when Hearst started to move to the right in the 1920s and 1930s & his tabloids then fanned moral panics about sex & drugs.
4. The Hearst papers and other right-wing outlets (notable Joseph Patterson's New York Daily News) found that reactionary politics & gossip could go hand in hand, with writers like Walter Winchell, Louisa Parsons, and Hedda Hopper regularly smearing the left.
5. If you think about it, gossip is a naturally conservative social force: you tell tales about people who break conventions. In the midcentury tabloid press, that meant gossip about movie stars that were communists, leftwing, gay or otherwise unconventional.
6. This is a good point.
7. Beyond Hearst, we see this fusion of tabloids with the right again and again: think of Page 6 & the New York Post or the broader journalistic practices of our latest William Randolph Hearst: Rupert Murdoch.
8. Conversely: has there ever been a left-wing tabloid or gossip columnist? I suppose Winchell had a New Deal period but he turned hard right. Maybe Drew Pearson? Maybe Gawker? Some examples, but not a lot.
9. Trump himself was a pure product of this fusion of right-wing politics with tabloid culture. Much of his early fame came from his ability to dominate the headlines of the New York papers & the mentorship of Roy Cohn taught him the value of chits & compromising info.
10. I have a longer think piece here about the connections between weaponized gossip, Trumpism, and right-wing politics: newrepublic.com/article/143688…
