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Comment by hcayless | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

They hardly indicate he's a fascist.

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?

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