RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS
NY Times Blasted for ‘Normalizing’ Far Right Extremists Again After Publishing Stephen Miller’s Wedding Announcement
It’s not the first time, just the latest that the once-venerable New York Times is getting blasted for appearing to normalize the far right. In recent years the Times has published articles that critics say do just that, from Hitler’s rise a century ago to modern day neo-Nazis. Its latest isn’t an article, but a wedding announcement for a top Trump official, Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller. Miller is a white nationalist who quietly advances and controls the worst of the president’s anti-immigrant polices.
The wedding announcement does “credit” Miller with “serving as Mr. Trump’s top immigration adviser, directly shaping policies that aim to restrict the number of immigrants coming to the country.” It’s unclear if the couple or the paper wrote that.
It’s not the first time Miller has been, as one journalist put it, “romanticized” on the pages of the Times. Just last summer the Old Gray Lady decided to call Miller a “young firebrand,” despite the fact that his policies have harmed countless thousands, if not more.
Way to go, @nytimes. Because normalizing Nazis and white supremacists is always a great look. https://t.co/80w7fPFGTO
— Kelly Sedinger (@Jaquandor) August 18, 2019
In late 2017 the Times came under fire for a fanciful profile, “In America’s Heartland, the Nazi sympathizer next door.”
Everything wrong with America’s media in one screenshot. The @nytimes started this week off by normalizing tyranny, terror and genocide with @tomfriedman’s dreadful, nauseating piece of Saudi propaganda garbage and is ending it by normalizing Nazis. pic.twitter.com/XwG8iamgz4
— Amir (@AmirAminiMD) November 25, 2017
The condemnation of the paper and its piece went on for weeks and forced the Times to publish a rare “response,” simply titling a selection of letters to the editor, “Was Our Profile of a Nazi Sympathizer Too … Sympathetic?”
About a month later, Times’ conservative columnist Ross Douthat argued Miller was a “necessity.”
It’s bad enough @nytimes is normalizing the Trump Regime but this is extremely sickening..
How could they normalize white Supremacists? Stephen Miller is a White Supremacist w extreme views..
None of this is NORMAL!#HolocaustRememberanceDay https://t.co/8gZ9YnTsHt
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 28, 2018
And less than one year later there was this:
More @nytimes yeoman work normalizing neo Nazis – this, 2 months ago. pic.twitter.com/dQDSAvedwv
— Amy Siskind 🏳️🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) December 24, 2018
The Times has a long and unfortunate history of normalizing right wing extremism, including Nazism. As Hitler came on the scene in Europe the Times published articles suggesting he would not be as bad as his own words promised. In 2016 Vox took a look at the Times’ first article on Hitler, noting “its assertion that ‘Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so violent or genuine as it sounded.'”
Vox also pointed to this portion of the Times’ 1922 article, which says: “several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers.”
Fast forward to 1937. “WHERE HITLER DREAMS AND PLANS,” the title of a NY Times piece that added: “At the Berghof on a Bavarian Peak He Lives Simply, Yet His Retreat Is Closely Guarded Hitler Has Transformed His Simple Chalet Into a Mansion and Impenetrable Fortress.”
There is a sad history of @nytimes normalizing and humanizing Nazis. pic.twitter.com/5GPlvbtPet
— Eric Schmeltzer 🇺🇸 (@JustSchmeltzer) November 26, 2017
Now, the Old Gray Lady is being accused of, as one journalist wrote, “normalizing Nazis again,” with the Miller marriage announcement:
ny times, normalizing nazis again pic.twitter.com/ZFSNDuzYvc
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) February 17, 2020
A CBS News White House Producer does note the announcement wasn’t all roses:
The hyperlinks in the NYT wedding announcement for Stephen Miller and Katie Waldman are brutal…https://t.co/4uOeIVUxcg pic.twitter.com/HFDjTChqFS
— Sara Cook (@saraecook) February 17, 2020
Here’s what some are saying today about the Miller marriage announcement:
Very @nytimes to not mention the white nationalist part… https://t.co/dG1hQctV52
— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) February 17, 2020
the @nytimes did a whole article about Stephen Miller’s wedding without mentioning that he’s a white nationalist, which is journalistic malpractice and a gentle massage for a genocidal ideology, but also misses the opportunity for a “NICE DAY FOR A WHITES-ONLY WEDDING” headline
— AntiFash Gordon (@AntiFashGordon) February 17, 2020
The @nyt normalizes the guy who put kids in cages. Did they have a three tier cake? Was the chocolate sauce on the side?
The people who normalized the Nazis only did slightly better than the Nazis in the eyes of history. https://t.co/S0Ab3TZnyN
— Michele Dauber (@mldauber) February 17, 2020
There’s something a little disconcerting that someone like Stephen Miller can still get a NYT wedding announcement. https://t.co/1qPVmUueYs
— Michael Li 李之樸 (@mcpli) February 17, 2020
Unbelievable, the New York Times is just going to keep on normalizing white nationalists, aren’t they? https://t.co/e23tAlFUyK
— Antifascist Phanatic (@AntifaPhanatic) February 17, 2020
Writing this in this way is a disgrace. https://t.co/FV9auSNiK8
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) February 17, 2020
Top American neo-Nazi marries in Washington DC. https://t.co/AYeB52FxKP
— Andrew Downie (@adowniebrazil) February 17, 2020
Stephen Miller, who has played key roles in banning Muslim immigrants, separating families, and laundering white nationalism through right-wing media, gets a pretty standard NYT wedding announcement that directly mentions none of those things. https://t.co/05OG0tPq6J
— Noah Lanard (@nlanard) February 17, 2020
Miller is a white nationalist with ties to extremists and is responsible for unconstitutional/inhumane policies. But go on normalizing this schmuck @nytimes. https://t.co/Gb7RBryt6d
— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) February 17, 2020
Why is the @nytimes running a piece on white nationalist Stephen Miller getting married?
Is it because they want to become @Tatlermagazine? Or @hellomag? Or the National frickin’ Enquirer?
— Dr. Jami Rogers (@publicradionerd) February 17, 2020
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