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.”
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.
https://twitter.com/jscros/status/971514335062306819
https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/970903574342438912
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 Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) March 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/jpbrammer/status/971536892025073664
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
https://twitter.com/collier/status/971536248857923584
https://twitter.com/shujaxhaider/status/971046386170040321
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/971598444266770432
https://twitter.com/GaryLegum/status/971583420475244544
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.”