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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

I agree with some of this, but I just personally can't bring myself to care about the firings of the editors responsible for "Send in the troops" and "Buildings matter, too".

A lot of my friends unsubscribed from the NY Times for publishing Tom Cotton's pro-fascism op-ed. The NY Times had to respond to this. They are a business and their income matters. It's not so much an issue of freedom of thought in the newsroom, it's that they literally can't afford to continue publishing such pieces as it's causing them to massively bleed revenue. In other words, blame their customers. And frankly I'm perfectly happy if the NY Times never publishes a pro-fascism op-ed ever again. I'm glad the pressure worked.

As for "Buildings matter, too", what a colossal fuck-up that was. If you're that tone-deaf, you legitimately are a liability, and shouldn't be in charge. The same issues were seen here too with revolts from the customer base, not just the newsroom.

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So I don’t really disagree with the content of your comment, but I still take some sort of issue with the use of fascism lately. I see where the connection is made, but I still think that is a long way off from what was advocated. Even by definition of fascism and what it actually stands for. Having had family members “forcibly disappeared” during Franco’s dictatorship I feel this word is being used ... I’m not even sure, incorrectly? Wrong? Sure the US does something similar but I think that’s where the similarities end. I’m curious more than anything else, honestly, what to you makes that fascist? Maybe I’m wrong and I will gladly admit if I am but the parallels between complete national mobilization and removal of person for the whole doesn’t seem like what he advocated.

I am not certain why NYT published those articles but I am glad they did. I see it as exposing the dirt and muck-raking. I think it's up to NYT readers to separate what is a real ideological call to arms and what is giving bastards like Tom Cotton a chance to discredit themselves infront of the whole country.

Not my favorite new institution mostly because their reporting has become too linear and predictable. The articles added a nice twist that increased my trust in NYT.

Not sure a media outlet succumbing to popular opinion to suppress the publication of unpopular viewpoints is something to celebrate...

The New York Times likely declines to publish viewpoints on a daily basis, including from all sorts of prominent people like senators. That's not suppression.

> It's not so much an issue of freedom of thought in the newsroom, it's that they literally can't afford to continue publishing such pieces as it's causing them to massively bleed revenue.

Do you have a million friends to support this data point?

I agree with everything you said. The point that my friends unsubscribed, and they took an action because they were losing business due to people leaving them for that article comes across a little naive to me, in an otherwise well thought out response.

The problem is that Tom Cotton represents a huge chunk of the American population. Those people don't just go away because NYT, FB, Twitter, etc. all collectively deny them a voice. Instead, they quietly vote in Donald Trump. To the extent that these people might be a problem, sweeping them under the rug doesn't help the problem.

If your goal is to reinforce the idea that you're right, and allow yourself to pretend that other people don't exist, then this is probably a good strategy. If you want to actually make a real change in the lives of people, you're going to need the help of the deplorables. Telling them to go fuck themselves is probably not a great strategy.

Are you concerned about the increasing cultural divisions in the U.S.? Seems like the NYT giving up the pretense of being a general purpose news organization is a loss for those hoping for cultural reconciliation at some point.

I think it's fairly clear that there will not be a cultural reconciliation, at least not in the sense of an acceptance of mutual differences. What even is the "cultural right" anymore? It has devolved into a movement defined by opposition to the left's social initiatives.

You can swap "left" and "right" in your comment and it would lose no substance and it's meaning would not change.

I don’t agree. The defining difference between the left and right to me is the propensity to advocate for change.

The cultural left is a hodgepodge if smaller issues under one larger umbrella. You’ve got people who care about racism, climate change, money in politics, access to abortion, etc. All of whom are trying to change society in some way to deal with big problems we have. As a result, it’s incredibly messy. The groups don’t always overlap well nor fall in line.

On the other hand, the cultural right is more or less defined by an unwillingness to change society. They like it as it is, and are generally afraid of change. They’re scared even more by the sight of the lefts constant infighting and imagine that it would be chaos if they got their way. Plus abortion and gun control alone keep many of them in check.

They’re generally not defined by a vision for a better America, just a whiter one that doesn’t really change from what we’ve got.

The right is the ones advocating for changes with respect to immigration, access to abortion, affirmative action, the tax code, the power of public service unions, and a whole host of other issues. The left is defending the status quo more than many seem to appreciate. More, the left seems to be more picky about morality issues, even, though the set of morals aren't sexual or religious (for instance), they are environmental and multicultural (for instance).

The GP is a response to a comment about social/cultural issues. For the two cultural issues you mention, immigration and access to abortion, the stance of the right wing is specifically to roll back what the left wing regards as progress. The right wing's stance on other social/cultural issues tends to follow this trend, such as with LGBT and healthcare topics. The stance holds that recently decided social questions were decided wrongly and should be reversed, and that recent legislation is defective and should be repealed. The modern cultural right can't even manage to be tech-optimistic, because technology companies are regarded as being on the wrong side of the culture war and must therefore be opposed and degraded.

What are the right's social initiatives? Can you name three?

Restricting access to abortion, promotion of alternatives to public schooling, and elaborating on religious freedoms especially where they run against social initiatives of the left.

What you're doing here is meme-tier, bottom text: THE RIGHT HAS NO CULTURE. I'm a lefist and I find it insulting.

I'm simply refuting GP. The left's social agenda isn't defined by opposition to the right - apart from abortion. For the most part, the right wants things to stay the way they are.

Do you really want to "culturally reconcile" with people who want to send the army to quell peaceful protests?

That is not a view that you can build a democracy on. To have democracy, you have to exclude certain ideologies and ideas. This has always been the case and will always remain the case. Some ideologies are antithetical to democracy, and that article espoused one of them.

I’m interested that this is getting downvoted. It seems perfectly fair comment to me. Newspapers can not afford to massively alienate their readership, and both of these cases clearly did just that. That calls into question the editors’ fitness for their jobs.

I haven't downvoted anybody, but reading the comment possibly because of the typical "I disagree therefore he's a fascist, and I'm withdrawing my support from the publication because counter narratives should be banned".

Very typical of the attitude that the article in the OP is describing.

I downvoted because of the absurd allegation of a democratically-elected US politician as "pro-fascism". He was merely advocating for enforcing law.

I didn't downvote, but similar pushes for message purity are happening in center-right media, just focused on complete political support for Trump. I think it is ill advised to silence critics. My instincts are to apply the same principles to political movements that we apply to political leadership. There always needs to be a place to voice dissent not because dissent is always beneficial, but because the lack of civilly expressed dissent results in much worse outcomes.

Both the right and the left are recoiling from dialog. I struggle to see a beneficial future emerging from an utter lack of consensus seeking and civility. If the editorial boards are not responsible for their contributions to these trends, then their readerships certainly are.

That is, we are.

The right isn't attempting to control thought and speech though, not remotely to the extent that the left is.

It is. People cancel subscriptions for op-eds critical of Trump, etc. George Will is suddenly a controversial writer on the right.

Trump is threatening to regulate social media to be allegedly more fair.

It just doesn't really address the substance of the issue. It may well be true that the NYT has no financial choice but pander to the readers who consider non-controversial majority views to be fascist. That doesn't change the problematic effects of such viewpoint narrowing.

Tom Cotton’s views were in no way non-controversial or of the majority.

The op-ed cites the statistic:

> According to a recent poll, 58 percent of registered voters, including nearly half of Democrats and 37 percent of African-Americans, would support cities' calling in the military to "address protests and demonstrations" that are in "response to the death of George Floyd."

As evidence that the view espoused in Cotton's op-ed are the majority's view. Do you have a source saying that that is false?

They hardly indicate he's a fascist.

CydeWeys says*>"As for "Buildings matter, too", what a colossal fuck-up that was. If you're that tone-deaf, you legitimately are a liability, and shouldn't be in charge."<

Not if "Buildings" is also metonymic and stands for "civilization".

Civilization is not at risk here.

Ever seen a civilization w/o buildings? I don't think it would be an improvement.

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