The New York Times Caves to Wokeness

The war to own the American mind is ongoing. And the American mind is losing. Yesterday, the New York Times abjectly surrender to the woke mob. It apologized for publishing an op-ed piece by United States Senator Tom Cotton. At first, the paper had defended the decision to publish the Cotton article, calling for using the military to tamp down violent protests. But, upon reflection and suffering extreme pressure, it changed its mind. Times writers declared, mindlessly, that the column might lead to actions that might hurt them. 

This at a time when all good woke activists want to shut down police forces around the country.

Twas not always thus. Politico reminds us that at its onset some five decades ago the op-ed page dedicated itself to publishing outrageous opinions:

As the Times op-ed page took shape, its editors assembled a list of prospective authors and subjects they could address. One list, preserved in the Harrison Salisbury Papers at Columbia University, proposes soliciting pieces from Communist Party USA head Gus Hall, John Bircher Society leader Robert Welch, oil man and right-winger H.L. Hunt, labor radical Harry Bridges and revolutionary Angela Davis. The page’s concept was to express ideas and opinions the reader couldn’t find on the editorial page or elsewhere in the newspaper.

At various times, the paper has published op-eds by Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Abbas, Nicolas Maduro, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Taliban. 

In the past no one has been too radical or too deranged to be allowed a voice on the Times op-ed page. Until yesterday:

“We’ve examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication,” Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement. “This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards. As a result, we’re planning to examine both short-term and long-term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reducing the number of Op-Eds we publish.”

How about that: the Times op-ed page will now have an ideological litmus test. And it will publish fewer op-eds, lest its readers have to learn how to think. Keep in mind, the Times refused to report on the persecution of European Jews and the Holocaust. It refused to cover the horrors that Stalin was inflicting on the Soviet Union. But, now its woke young people just mounted a coup and ensured that the op-ed page would now become their echo chamber.

Among those who defended running the Cotton piece was Times editor and columnist, Bari Weiss. For her efforts she was threatened in the Daily Beast by one Goldie Taylor, who asked why Weiss still had any teeth. That is the level to which public debate, conducted by woke leftists, has descended.

What did Weiss say? I offer extracts from her Twitter account:

The Old Guard lives by a set of principles we can broadly call civil libertarianism. They assumed they shared that worldview with the young people they hired who called themselves liberals and progressives. But it was an incorrect assumption.

The New Guard has a different worldview, one articulated best by @JonHaidt and @glukianoff. They call it "safetyism," in which the right of people to feel emotionally and psychologically safe trumps what were previously considered core liberal values, like free speech.

The woke left is also looking for a uniformity of opinion, a onemindedness that is inherently at odds with civil debate and discussion. Perhaps they are simply incapable of dealing with ideas.

Weiss continued:

Perhaps the cleanest example of this dynamic was in 2018, when David Remnick, under tremendous public pressure from his staffers, disinvited Steve Bannon from appearing on stage at the New Yorker Ideas Festival. But there are dozens and dozens of examples.

I've been mocked by many people over the past few years for writing about the campus culture wars. They told me it was a sideshow. But this was always why it mattered: The people who graduated from those campuses would rise to power inside key institutions and transform them.

Young staffers and their enablers at the Times were educated in America’s great universities. They were indoctrinated, even brainwashed in the dogmas of the radical left. They have no ability to think, to reason or even to entertain differences of opinion.

She continued:

I'm in no way surprised by what has now exploded into public view. In a way, it's oddly comforting: I feel less alone and less crazy trying to explain the dynamic to people. What I am shocked by is the speed. I thought it would take a few years, not a few weeks.

Here's one way to think about what's at stake: The New York Times motto is "all the news that's fit to print." One group emphasizes the word "all." The other, the word "fit."

Tom Cotton's oped and the choice to run it: I agree with our critics that it's a dodge to say "we want a totally open marketplace of ideas!" There are limits. Obviously. The question is: does his view fall outside those limits? Maybe the answer is yes.

For those who hate free markets, the free marketplace of ideas cannot be allowed to exist.