At the close of the constitutional convention on September 18, 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel stopped Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic” he replied, “if you can keep it.”

• Two years ago, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, called Trump’s actions after the 2020 election “treason.” “Get involved,” he exhorted his fellow business leaders, “speak out on issues like the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, the murder of George Floyd, and the widening income gap. . . .If we don’t get this right, the Western world is at risk.”

This month, the most influential banker in America (and a Democrat) is telling people close to him that, while he supports Kamala Harris (and would consider a position in her cabinet), he is not saying so publicly because of his fear that, as president, Trump will retaliate against his bank and his industry.

“First they came for the immigrants,” to borrow from Martin Niemoller’s 1946 requiem to silence, “and I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant. . . .”

• In 2016, the Los Angeles Times endorsed Hillary Clinton for president: “American voters have a clear choice on Nov. 8. We can elect an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant or a thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president. . . . Electing Trump could be catastrophic for the nation.”

• Four years later the newspaper endorsed Joe Biden: “Nothing less than the health of our constitutional democracy is at stake. . . .[T]he reelection of this president would be a calamity. . . . . He has pursued policies at home and abroad that have harmed working Americans, exacerbated inequality, weakened the United States and strained America’s alliances.’

• On Oct. 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the newspaper, told his editorial board, that the Times would not be endorsing any candidate for president. The board had already written its endorsement Kamala Harris.

"Freedom of the press,” A. J. Liebling wrote 64 years ago, “is guaranteed only to those who own one."

• In 2016 The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton: “No, we are not making this endorsement simply because Ms. Clinton’s opponent is dreadful. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is dreadful, that is true — uniquely unqualified as a presidential candidate.”

• In 2020 the paper endorsed Joe Biden because “Democracy is at risk, at home and around the world. The nation desperately needs a president who will respect its public servants; stand up for the rule of law; acknowledge Congress’s constitutional role; and work for the public good, not his private benefit.”

• Last Friday, William Lewis, CEO and publisher, wrote: “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election.”

What happened?

When Trump says “I am your retribution” to his cheering crowds, his words reverberate ominously in the country’s most powerful boardrooms and the editorial rooms of its once-independent newspapers.

I don’t believe that Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, and Patrick Soon-Shiong are any more cowardly than you or I. They have their interests to protect. Their actions affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people both here and abroad, and Donald Trump is offering them – in the most baldly transactional terms – carrots as well as the stick: deregulation and tax breaks and other incentives that will make their businesses more profitable, even as they make our lives more vulnerable.

But beware the stick. The man who many couldn’t take seriously eight years ago is now intimidating this country into silence. The fear of physical retaliation in the streets, of viral bullying on the Internet, and of using the power of the government to ruin your business and even throw you in jail has done all too quickly what we didn’t think could happen: shut down the voices of dissent.

The most insidious form of censorship is self-censorship.