Please note: We went to press on Tuesday, before voting closed in New York and around the country. To follow the latest results and analysis of the elections, visit our website, www.JewishPress.com.
It is hardly novel when the New York Times uses its news pages to shill for today’s liberal “woke” agenda. They do it so often that it may now even seem to be an exception to the rule when they don’t. Still, we must admit we were struck by Sunday’s front page piece, ”Ronald Lauder: New York’s Billionaire Disrupter.”
Lauder is one of the major – and apparently very effective – financial supporters of Republican candidates for New York office. With that title, right off the bat the “paper of record” suggests that he and his money are subversive of the natural – read, Democratic – order of things.
The article begins innocently enough, describing Lauder as among New York’s richest individuals and someone who is strongly backing Republican Lee Zeldin for governor. But then it quickly down to business:
Mr. Lauder has long been a gale-force disruptor, throwing millions of dollars behind conservative causes and candidates, including creating term limits in New York City and even his own failed mayoral campaign. Now at the twilight of his public life, he is marshalling his multi-billion dollar fortune behind an extraordinary intervention [italics ours] into this week’s midterm elections….
As a lead donor to two super PACs, he has spent more than $11 million to date trying to put Representative Lee Zeldin, a Trump-aligned Republican, in the governor’s mansion. Millions of dollars more … have gone to successful legal and public relations campaigns to stop Democrats from gerrymandering the state’s congressional districts.
The Republican surge in contests across left-leaning New York can be traced to myriad factors, from rising crime to lackluster Democratic enthusiasm and the usual midterm backlash.
But there is little doubt that Mr. Lauder has single-handledly tilted [italics ours] the playing field for his party. Since he began spending on a barrage of attack ads, Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, has watched polling and fund-raising advantages that once looked insurmountable dwindle. And Democrats fighting to hold the House of Representatives have seen their blue firewall crumble.
“Disrupting?” “Tilting?” Sounds to us more like he is leveling the playing field. Indeed, Lauder’s role in beating back the Democrats blatant efforts to hijack the 2022 elections is instructive. As The Times itself reported, last year he bankrolled the New York State Conservative Party’s efforts to defeat three Democrat-proposed constitutional amendments “that would have lowered barriers to vote, but would have also made it easier for Democrats to gerrymander congressional maps this year.”
When that ploy failed, The Times reported, “Democrats in Albany pushed through maps favoring their party [and] Mr. Lauder quietly put up money to sue helping convince other donors to join him… The plaintiffs won and new, more neutral maps were drawn up in court, paving the way for Republicans to make House gains this fall.”
Beating back partisan efforts to stack the deck is “disruptive”? We think not.
It should be clear by now that while the cancel culturists deem their agenda to be holy writ, The New York Times is plainly their newsletter. Those who rely on it for news and analysis should be careful.
