Here are the most savage tweets about the “New York Times” piece that sympathized with a white supremacist
By now, you’ve probably heard about the New York Times profile about white nationalist Tony Hovater. The profile, published on November 25th, has received backlash for its portrayal of a Nazi sympathizer — which many argue normalized his hateful, dangerous world view.
In the piece, writer Richard Fausset describes Hovater’s day-to-day life, including his wedding plans, his cats, and his fondness for Seinfeld. Fausset refers to Hovater as “polite and low-key” and writes that Hovater “prefers to spread the gospel of white nationalism with satire.” The profile also mentions a website where swastika armbands are sold for $20.
Fausset defended his choices in the article in a separate piece, while also acknowledging the profile’s shortcomings. He wrote that he failed to find out why Hovater became a white nationalist, but decided to publish the piece anyway, despite the “hole.”
"I beat myself up about this for a while, until I decided that the unfilled hole would have to serve as both feature and defect," he wrote.
But Fausset’s explanation (understandably) did nothing to stop the backlash against his story. Other media outlets like the Washington Post and The Atlantic mocked Fausset’s angle. Readers also took to Twitter with criticism of the article, complaining that the piece normalizes a white nationalist agenda. Some even said that the profile was plain bad journalism.
This is irresponsible of the @nytimes to normalize hate like this. Nazis are not normal and should not be normalized or profiled. https://t.co/vsQKYxeLBd
— Josh Seefried (@JoshSeefried) November 27, 2017
The @NYTimes article was an egregious piece of normalization of #Nazis in America, covering an ideology that killed tens of millions as if it was just some type of quirky, retro-trend for white millennials https://t.co/UglV9BTp43
— Michael Page (@MichaelARPage) November 27, 2017
What the hell is this, @nytimes? This article does more to normalize neo-Nazism than anything I've read in a long time. https://t.co/btyFyujkh6
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 25, 2017
Hey @nytimes if you could not normalize Nazis that'd be really great. This👏is 👏not👏journalism👏this👏is👏fake👏news👏https://t.co/CR9GKoOkos
— Matt Fernandez (@matt_fern) November 27, 2017
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Dear @nytimes: You still don't get it. Not news that Nazis can saute garlic. We already know Nazis are not space aliens with huge heads. What is news is your normalization of people who subscribe to an ideology that has slaughtered millions of human beings & would slaughter more. https://t.co/8EwrXZDZDS
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 26, 2017
One user tweeted a photo of Nazis at Auschwitz to remind us that normalizing Nazis is fundamentally dangerous.
Hey @nytimes, look! Nazis can seem like regular folks! From the @AuschwitzMuseum: a photo of Nazi staffers having fun between killing Jews: pic.twitter.com/M0a38bA6SU
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) November 26, 2017
Another noted that, "The danger in this article lies not in its portrayal of Nazis as "normal" but in its failure to convey how many atrocities have taken place behind that same veil of normalcy."
The danger in this article lies not in its portrayal of Nazis as "normal," but in its failure to convey how many atrocities have taken place behind the same veil of normality.https://t.co/tF85V5cbR7
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) November 26, 2017
Others even took their criticism a step further and accused the Times staff of sympathizing with Nazis themselves.
Whoa @nytimes insanely soft ‘day in the life of’ reads to me like you are polite low-key sympathizing with a Nazi https://t.co/Uc02eKvsOd
— tanyasprowl (@tanyasprowl) November 27, 2017
Nazi lives matter more than #BlackLivesMatter, apparently. Remember how The Times covered murder victim #MikeBrown? "No Angel". But a Nazi get full on white privilege… https://t.co/9OFDTRNS66
— PuppyKhan (@PuppyKhan) November 27, 2017
the @nytimes should be ashamed of themselves with this article. maybe they should go visit a concentration camp where people died before they try writing about “the nazi sympathizer next door” https://t.co/Gh4Cy3Q9Zp
— brianna zoffka (@bzoffka) November 27, 2017
The editorial board issued a response to reader feedback on November 26th stating that the paper did not intend to paint white nationalists in a sympathetic light.
"The point of the story was not to normalize anything but to describe the degree to which hate and extremism have become far more normal in American life than many of us want to think," the statement reads.
While we understand the paper’s intent in theory, in practice, the piece misses the mark, and the paper’s failure to take true responsibility for the misstep incited even more anger.
How does the @nytimes get the Nazi normalizing piece wrong, AND the apology wrong? “We regret the degree to which the piece offended so many readers” takes no responsibility for the obvious: THE TIMES DID THE OFFENDING https://t.co/aqIW56zIY9
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 26, 2017
We hope the Times owns up to its mistake and apologizes in earnest soon. Until then, we can always count on the people of Twitter to keep the world accountable.