Thomas Zimmer: Let’s look at what some of the most prominent writers at The Atlantic have been up to lately - speaking of “hysterics”: Here’s George Packer propagating the exact same story about ubiquitous “woke” indoctrination that James Lindsay and Christopher Rufo have been pushing. 4/

The responses to this from self-regarding centrists and liberals: An impulsive lashing out against what they call the “hysterical MAGA Left,” accusing me of helping Trump win - in reaction to a criticism of *the executive editor of the NYT* and elite columnists like George Packer. Huh. 1/

What really stands out about this interview with New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn is this pervasive sense among centrist elites that by the summer of 2020, “woke” radicalism had been allowed to advance too far - and people like Kahn see it as their mission to stem the tide. 1/

Joe Kahn: 'The newsroom is not a safe space'www.semafor.com The New York Times' executive editor said the paper is a “pillar” of democracy but not a tool of power.

You might notice that I’ve never made, and disagree with, the argument that people should abstain from voting for Biden in November. But these people don’t care. They are reflexively using electoral concerns anyway - to discipline anything coded as “left.” 2/

And it’s quite something to get scolded as “hysterical” by the exact same circles - and by opinionists for the exact same magazine - in which it has been accepted dogma for about a decade now to compare leftwing students to the Cultural Revolution in China. 3/

Let’s look at what some of the most prominent writers at The Atlantic have been up to lately - speaking of “hysterics”: Here’s George Packer propagating the exact same story about ubiquitous “woke” indoctrination that James Lindsay and Christopher Rufo have been pushing. 4/

Here is Thomas Chatterton Williams telling us the Columbia students are basically like the “Jan 6 rioters” - because if you operate at an extremely misleading level of abstraction and ignore all context, then students and insurrectionists were both engaging in “laying siege to property.” 5/

Here is Caitlin Flanagan calling the occupation of a university building “Kristallnacht on the Hudson,” an utterly ridiculous instrumentalization and mendacious trivialization of the Holocaust. 6/

And here is David Frum bringing up the specter of Weimar because… the student protesters are the equivalent of militant communists in early 1930s Germany who were the equivalent of the Nazis and you really have to enforce order or these students will get us Hitler? 7/

Seems like someone really concerned about the political discourse turning hysterical might want to push back against such brutally ahistorical nonsense - unless it’s really all just about policing and delegitimizing any critique that is coded as “leftwing”? /end

Frum is an idiot who over and over shows he understands nothing about this country. After the axis of evil crap he should have been run out of polite society

Meanwhile, I got friends excusing this because his feelings got hurt, like guy’s job is not to be literally be the smart objective voice bsky.app/profile/jody...

I feel like he very much missed substance here and that is letting down my people (jewish, honest journalists, etc.) But I’m bad on liar vs idiot questions

The same people who just CANNOT with anyone using “genocide” to describe an obvious genocide.

Who does Frum think the Browns are in this analogy? Would love to hear him articulate it

society has moved past the need for David Frum, a noted genocide cheerleader

I don’t wish it on her but I have to assume his mother is rolling in her grave

You know, by inviting thugs to get violent, not interfering when they do, and sending in the police to "stop the violent protests". They think we're idiots, and for the most part, they're right.

The icing on the cake is Ritchie Torres' neverending defamation of these protestors. Since Elmo is so hot on Community Notes, he should consider labeling the accounts of politicians with their biggest donors and how much money they donated. That way, we know how much money their words are worth.

I mean TCW has always been pretty far to the right, but he disguised his views in his cosplay as a genteel intellectual.

Yes, reframing these to events as “property violations” mean they can ignore that only one of them was enacted to intentionally commit violence upon police officers, members of Congress & staff, in order to overthrow a Democracy.

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