Is The Washington Post Becoming a Platform for Right-Wing Ideology?

What Adam O’Neal’s Hiring at The Washington Post Tells Us About Media and Fascism in 2025

Of all the things America needed this week—a living wage, functioning public transit, maybe breathable air—what we got instead was a new opinion editor at The Washington Post who thinks the real problem is too much ideology. Enter Adam O’Neal, the newest guy handed the keys to a legacy institution by a billionaire looking to reshape public discourse in his own Ayn Rand–adjacent image.

According to O’Neal, WaPo’s new opinion section will be “optimistic,” “not ideological,” and a proud cheerleader for “free markets and personal liberties.” Which sounds less like editorial direction and more like something written on a bar napkin at a Federalist Society happy hour. It’s a lot like saying you’re not selling a religion while handing out free Bibles and a coupon for baptism.

Let’s be honest about what this is: it’s not just a new editor. It’s a shift in who gets to shape public conversation—and whose politics get smuggled in under the label of “balance.” This isn’t even subtle. Four months ago, Jeff Bezos—the richest man in the galaxy and WaPo’s owner—announced the paper would pivot its opinion section toward a “revitalized” center-right tone, one more reflective of “American optimism.” Billionaire optimism, of course, being that special breed of hope that only thrives when unions are crushed, taxes are low, and nobody asks why your workers are peeing in bottles.

And now, Adam O’Neal is here to carry that message with a bipartisan smile.

But this isn’t a culture war sideshow. This is how fascism gets platformed through the front door—by giving it a LinkedIn profile and a subscription to The Atlantic. The right doesn’t need to storm media institutions when billionaires can just buy them and gently pivot their editorial line until you look up one day and realize the “debate” is between deregulation and, well, even more deregulation.

We’ve seen this movie before. Elon turned Twitter into a playground for far-right clout-chasers and tech bros with persecution complexes. Zuckerberg has spent years platforming anti-democratic content while pretending to be hands-off. Now Bezos is making sure The Washington Post doesn’t just report on power—it protects it.

The fascism creeping through American politics doesn’t always wear jackboots and wave flags. Sometimes it wears khakis and quotes Hayek. It believes in “freedom,” as long as that freedom doesn’t involve bodily autonomy, organizing your workplace, or being visibly queer. It pushes austerity while calling it “discipline.” It fears diversity but brands itself as “ideologically inclusive.”

And WaPo? It’s letting that worldview set the table.

So the question becomes: how will The Washington Post be held accountable when the ideas it normalizes help accelerate societal collapse? What happens when the “optimistic” center-right tone contributes to rolling back civil rights, dismantling public infrastructure, or justifying corporate surveillance in the name of “liberty”? Who checks the billionaire when he buys the paper and turns it into a newsletter for his class interests?

It won’t be his editorial board.

This moment isn’t about O’Neal personally—he’s just the newest face of a broader media shift. It’s about how the institutions that claim to be our watchdogs are increasingly being repurposed into security systems for the ruling class. And how “moderation” is often just a polite way of saying “we’ve made peace with the worst people in the room.”

We’re watching a live rebranding of late-stage capitalism as “common sense,” while anyone advocating for wealth redistribution, climate justice, or basic human rights is painted as extreme. And yes, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you’re reading the op-ed page or a venture capitalist’s Medium post.

The worst part? We’re supposed to be grateful for it. We’re told this is the return to “serious journalism.” That it’s mature, measured, professional. But all I see is another elite institution letting the Overton Window drift right while pretending the left is being hysterical for noticing.

This isn’t journalism. It’s ideological laundering with SEO.

And if we don’t call it what it is—if we let these “optimistic” fascist-adjacent narratives embed themselves into mainstream media without resistance—then we’re not just losing the press. We’re losing the ability to name power at all.