Sadly, Oprah blundered badly in declining first to condemn Dr. Mehmet Oz’s dangerous candidacy, and then to endorse his Democratic opponent, John Fetterman, in the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Instead, Oprah stayed calculatingly neutral about the former surgeon she made into a daytime TV star, a move that had earned them both tens of millions of dollars.

Oprah may still believe that her silence speaks volumes, still speaking up is what’s necessary when democracy is under assault.