As Washington Post faces staff revolt and reader outrage after refusing to back Kamala Harris... LEO MCKINSTRY asks why does the Left-wing media howl 'heresy' at anyone who dares challenge its ideological groupthink?

In 2003, during President George W Bush's archetypal term, a psychiatrist who doubled arsenic a governmental columnist identified a information helium dubbed 'Bush Derangement Syndrome', thing helium defined arsenic 'the acute onset of paranoia successful different mean radical successful absorption to the policies, the presidency – nay – the precise beingness of George W Bush'.

As the US approaches polling day, and the Republican campaigner Donald Trump looks progressively apt to prevail implicit his stumbling Democratic rival Kamala Harris, a akin operation of hysteria and intolerance is taking basal successful the country's Left-wing media.

And determination was nary amended illustration of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' than the irrational fury that greeted this week's determination by the Washington Post, 1 of America's starring wide newspapers, not to endorse Harris.

The Post is much than a specified organ of the Press. It is simply a bulwark of the self-regarding, progressive establishment, inactive – 52 years connected – fiercely arrogant of its relation successful exposing the Watergate ungraded that brought down Richard Nixon.

For much than 3 decades, it has endorsed each azygous Democratic candidate, from the priapic Bill Clinton to the senile Joe Biden. This clip circular it won't backmost anyone.

And the Post is not unsocial successful provoking Left-wing indignation by failing to enactment Kamala Harris. 

There were besides unit resignations and protests from readers astatine the Los Angeles Times, which had backed Biden successful 2020, erstwhile its proprietor refused to endorse the Democratic contender.

A likewise neutral stance was taken by America's largest paper chain, USA Today, contempt backing Biden 4 years ago. 

Other erstwhile Democrat supporters refusing to cheerlead for Harris see Florida's Sun Sentinel, the Minnesota Star Tribune and the Tampa Bay Times.

'Disgraceful journalism' was 1 wide effect to this question of impartiality. 'This is however ideology dies,' moaned a hand-wringing academic.

Such comments uncover not lone the partisanship of the Left-wingers but besides their content that newspapers person a work to enactment arsenic propaganda tools for their cause.

Like a Puritan witch-hunt of the past, the Left present imposes its ain ideological purity tests and hurls the accusation of heresy astatine those who neglect to amusement compliance.

What makes the Washington Post's determination each the much bonzer is that the insubstantial has agelong been ferocious successful its condemnation of Trump and arsenic lavish successful its praise of Harris.

One absurd caller nonfiction maintained that her 'ebullient laughter has the aforesaid tempo arsenic immoderate genuinely fantabulous creation songs'.

The Post's British steadfast Will Lewis – formerly an exertion of the Daily Telegraph – justified the determination connected the grounds of wanting to instrumentality to the paper's earlier contented of governmental independence.

Sceptics, however, detected the manus of the paper's billionaire proprietor Jeff Bezos, who made his luck with Amazon and is present said to beryllium acrophobic astir retaining his lucrative national contracts if Trump wins the White House.

Whatever the motivation, the absorption from the Left to this non-endorsement has been explosive. 

The Post's erstwhile enforcement exertion Marty Baron called the measurement 'a infinitesimal of acheronian that volition permission ideology a casualty', portion the Pulitzer Prize-winning subordinate exertion David Maraniss said it was 'a contemptible enactment of cowardice'.

There person been astatine slightest 3 resignations, portion 18 columnists signed a corporate connection which claimed the argumentation 'represents an abandonment of the cardinal editorial convictions of the newspaper'.

Some elements of progressive sentiment are truthful infused with motivation superiority that they adjacent cull the conception of escaped expression, which is meant to beryllium the keystone of the US constitution.

When the cablegram quality transmission CNN held a live, televised 'town hall' gathering with Trump successful May 2023, the Left went into meltdown. 'CNN should beryllium ashamed of themselves,' said the far-Left congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The Left's attachment to groupthink was summed up successful a video from Rick Wilson, laminitis of the fanatically anti-Trump Lincoln Project. 'This insanity should beryllium pulled disconnected the f***ing air,' helium said.

This benignant of hostility to diverseness of sentiment was besides highlighted by the demented wail that greeted billionaire maverick Elon Musk's acquisition of the societal media elephantine Twitter (now X) successful 2022.

Musk's professed purpose was to marque the level a bastion of escaped code aft years of creeping Left-wing censorship – a inclination epitomised by a prohibition connected Trump himself – but that was precisely what terrified parts of the Left.

'It's similar the gates of hellhole opened tonight,' shrieked Washington Post newsman Taylor Lorenz.

Similar attitudes tin beryllium recovered successful Britain, wherever Left-wing ideologues question to crush immoderate deviation from the fashionable orthodoxy. That is particularly existent of the Guardian, the strident Left-wing paper.

Writers who neglect to conform to the ruling creed are forced out, arsenic happened to columnists Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman, some distinguished by their willingness to question the Left's dogma erstwhile it came to sex self-ID.

One file by Moore, successful March 2020, provoked specified absorption that 338 Guardian employees signed a missive demanding that the insubstantial 'do much to go a harmless and welcoming workplace for trans and non-binary people'.

Moore aboriginal wrote that her enemies wanted her replaced by writers who 'simply deliberation the close things'.

The Left's request for uniformity tin beryllium seen successful truthful galore different aspects of British life: the cancel civilization astatine universities, the firm grooming courses that beforehand indoctrination, the branding of alternate views arsenic 'disinformation', and successful the chilling unit for censorship.

During the summer, Adam Boulton, a erstwhile Sky News presenter, openly called for enactment against the Right-leaning GB News.

'I deliberation determination is simply a delicate and important broadcast ecology successful this country. I deliberation GB News is trying to bust that ecology and frankly what Ofcom (the media regulator) should bash is unopen it down,' helium told BBC Newsnight.

America, the onshore of the free, is infected by the aforesaid sinister contagion. During the Black Lives Matter protests successful 2020, the New York Times published an nonfiction by the subject seasoned and legislator Tom Cotton, which called for troops to beryllium deployed to reconstruct bid and forestall looting.

Yet again, the Left went berserk, with journalists astatine the insubstantial claiming that the portion was 'a wide menace to wellness and safety'.

The astir elder exertion astatine the Times, Dean Baquet, was stunned astatine the whirlwind of grievance and assertive victimhood. 'Are we genuinely truthful precious?' helium asked. But helium could not forestall the caput of the paper's editorial pages, James Bennet, from being forced out.

Within a period of Bennet's exit, different subordinate of his department, Bari Weiss, quit. She went not with a whimper but a bang, successful the signifier of a devastating resignation letter.

She said: 'The insubstantial of grounds is, much and more, the grounds of those surviving successful a distant galaxy, 1 whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of astir people.

'This is simply a postulation successful which, to take conscionable a fewer caller examples, the Soviet abstraction programme is lauded for its 'diversity'; the doxxing [posting of idiosyncratic accusation connected the internet] of teenagers successful the sanction of justness is condoned; and the worst caste systems successful quality past includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.'

As the imaginable of a Trump presidency looms ever closer, if helium does reclaim the White House, of 1 happening we tin beryllium sure: the Left volition scope caller heights of derangement.