A Socialist in WaPo’s Suburbs
The country’s third-most powerful democratic socialist may be a former elementary school teacher you never heard of.
by PETE TUCKER
While Marc Elrich isn’t yet on the nation’s radar, he’s very much on the Washington Post’s. The paper tried desperately to stop him from becoming chief executive of Montgomery County, Maryland, an influential jurisdiction located just outside DC, smack dab in the heart of the Post’s coverage area. (Montgomery is “the state’s economic dynamo—a place where leadership and governance are consequential,” the Post notes.)
Despite the Post’s efforts, Elrich narrowly won the county executive seat in 2018. And now he’s standing for reelection, with a good shot at winning.
That’s an outcome the Post is determined to prevent, lest Elrich set a dangerous example: that a lefty can not only win, but govern so effectively that voters return him to office.
For the Post—a paper owned by the third-richest human alive, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—scaremongering about lefties is job one. On a national level, that’s led to the Post’s hysterical coverage of Bernie Sanders. On a local level, it’s led to the paper’s attacks on Elrich.
‘Counterculture cred’
It wasn’t always like this. There was a time, prior to the 2018 campaign, when a humanizing story about Elrich could appear in the Post. For example, an upbeat 2010 profile (10/11/10) began like this:
“There’s no doubting Marc Elrich’s counterculture cred. He was 12 when he went to his first peace rally in 1961. A few years later, when he got to the University of Maryland, he promptly helped take over the philosophy building.
He’s been arrested at an anti-apartheid protest. He’s run a natural food co-op. He pushed Takoma Park to declare itself a nuclear-free zone and served ten terms on that activist enclave’s City Council.”
The Post’s 2010 story went on to note how, after protesting the Vietnam War and marching for civil rights as a young man, Elrich became an elementary school teacher. “By the time he left [teaching] almost two decades later, he was legendary for bringing reluctant fourth- and fifth-graders to a love of numbers,” the Post wrote. “To this day, he’s the best math teacher my daughter ever had,” the parent of a former student told the Post.
‘Ideological extreme left’
The Post wrote this upbeat profile over a decade ago, at a time when Elrich was on the County Council. Back then, the Post was open to endorsing Elrich, as it did in both his 2010 and 2014 council reelection bids.
But once Elrich sought the county’s top post in 2018, things quickly turned sour. Suddenly, in the pages of the Post, Elrich became a Venezuela-hugging, Che Guevara–loving union shill, who’s “skeptical of capitalism” and “proudly…on the ideological extreme left.”
He “possesses an agile mind and a silver tongue,” which he uses to justify his extremism, the Post wrote of Elrich, who’s Jewish.
Leaving nothing to chance, in addition to its blistering personal attacks, the Post repeatedly warned Montgomery County voters they’d be inviting financial doom by voting for Elrich. “He would imperil the county’s economic and fiscal prospects,” the Post (9/29/18) claimed.
Still, Elrich eked by (in the Democratic primary, the key race in the deep blue county). His 2018 win so unnerved the Post that the paper swiftly sought to undermine not only Elrich, but the election itself.
Four days after the election, the Post (6/30/18) claimed, “The winner’s authority [will] be undercut.” The reason? The county’s elections were badly in need of reform, the Post suddenly determined, citing Elrich’s win as evidence.
‘Spending spree’
In the intervening years the Post’s coverage of Elrich has proved remarkably consistent, and remarkably untethered from reality.
A year into his tenure, the Post (3/25/19) claimed Elrich’s “profligacy” was on full display as he “cannibalized tens of millions of dollars” to provide a “bouquet of roses for his union backers.” He’s playing a “shell game with Montgomery finances,” the Post continued, and “it will be difficult to pay for his fat labor contracts in coming years.”
This is how the Post, a newspaper with a history steeped in anti-unionism, talks about working people receiving previously negotiated pay increases.