New York Times Editor Savaged for ‘We Are All Fascists’ Column: ‘Bari Weiss Should Be Fired’
New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss dropped another incendiary column on social media Wednesday afternoon, using the paper to denounce liberal intolerance on college campuses and beyond.
“We live in a world in which politically fascistic behavior, if not the actual philosophy, is unquestionably on the rise,” Weiss writes in “We’re All Fascists Now,” rattling off a list of examples including Xi Jinping’s China, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria and Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela.
“Yet these are generally not the extremists that leftists focus on. Instead, they seem to believe that the real cause for concern are the secret authoritarians passing as liberals and conservatives in our midst.”
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To prove her point, Weiss cited mainstream thinkers like Ayaan Hirsi Al, Mary Beard and Christina Hoff Sommers who have all been targeted by liberal activists.
Weiss has become an increasingly polarizing figure online and in the Times newsroom. Her public positions have triggered the paper’s employees to such an extent that some have taken to “Mean Girls”-styled sniping at her in company Slack messages. A sample of that was leaked and published by HuffPost in February.
The critics immediately pounced on her latest piece Wednesday, seizing on an internal link in Weiss’ story to a fake Antifa Twitter account to launch a broader attack.
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bari weiss's latest column features stellar reporting on the "intolerant left," like these two hyperlinks, which go to tweets from a fake antifa account that buzzfeed debunked in may 2017
source: https://t.co/0ZtXFnVr1J pic.twitter.com/L3s8lowOMY
— Jack Crosbie (@jscros) March 7, 2018
Oh no, someone was rude to Christina Hoff Sommers, the anti-feminist who made fun of me for being "off his meds again" the other day. That's basically the same thing as the Spanish Inquisition, if you're the smartest person working at the New York Times. pic.twitter.com/Sgk7asoYm5
— David Klion (@DavidKlion) March 6, 2018
Bari Weiss should be fired and replaced with literally any random person this is not satire I am actually serious it would be an improvement
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) March 8, 2018
what if centrist dudes rushed to the defense of literally any marginalized community the way they rush to the defense of Bari Weiss on twitter
— JuanPa (@jpbrammer) March 8, 2018
here's the pinned tweet of the hoax account that @bariweiss used twice as evidence for antifa views. see if you can spot the tell pic.twitter.com/SPnPLuqQlN
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) March 7, 2018
honestly bari weiss is the real winner here: imagine getting paid $$$ to write a variation of the same piece over and over again for the New York Times. brilliant.
— collier meyerson (@collier) March 8, 2018
Hi @bariweiss just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your brave willingness to stand against disruptive behaviors by student protestors. Are you aware of this incident? Thanks in advance for addressing it. https://t.co/FLnfo836WZ pic.twitter.com/rPOK8bEkht
— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) March 6, 2018
Remember: Bari Weiss calls herself a “classic liberal”, the favorite term of alt-righters who mistakenly think they’re cleverly fooling you.
— Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) March 8, 2018
I gave in and read that Bari Weiss column and man, is it embarrassing. And that's even after they removed the links to those fake tweets.
— Gary Legum (@GaryLegum) March 8, 2018
NYT EDITOR: what's everyone working on this week?
BARI WEISS: college kids are fascists
BRET STEPHENS: college students are out of control
DAVID BROOKS: teens should respect gun nuts more—
NYT EDITOR: great, got it— Zach Schonfeld (@zzzzaaaacccchhh) March 8, 2018
For its part, the New York Times corrected the record a few hours later.
“An earlier version of this essay cited criticism of the commentator Dave Rubin as an example of left-leaning attacks on liberals in the public sphere, and linked to tweets that described him as a fascist,” reads an editors note at the bottom of the article.
“Those tweets came from an account that has been reported to be fake. Therefore the example and the links have been removed.”
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