More than ever, we need our own institutions.
After Donald Trump won in 2016, I thought one of the many, many benefits would be more options in editorial and journalistic opinion. I now know I was naïve, but I figured every major news and opinion outlet would feel compelled, for the sake of fairness, to bring on a few columnists who supported the President. A year and a half later, it is safe to say the opposite has happened. The range of acceptable opinion in major newspapers and magazines has narrowed—and the recent firing of Kevin Williamson at The Atlantic confirms it.
For those who missed the story: On March 22nd, The Atlantic announced it was hiring Kevin Williamson—a longstanding conservative pundit and National Review mainstay—to write for them full time. The Left was outraged that a mainstream publication would implicitly endorse Mr. Williamson’s views by giving him a job. Like most conservatives, Mr. Williamson has criticized feminism and Black Lives Matter—both of which are sacrosanct to the Left. But what got him in the most trouble was toying with the idea that abortion should not only be illegal, but that women who get abortions should be punished—perhaps even get the death penalty. Leftists wrote dozens of outraged articles and created something of a Twitter firestorm. On April 2, Mr. Williamson wrote his first column for The Atlantic (about libertarianism in the age of Trump—not a touchy subject). On April 5, the magazine buckled under the Left’s pressure and fired him. It’s no clear whether he has a job now, but his account of what happened can be read in the Wall Street Journal.
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This happens most on matters of race. Anyone who says something sensible about race will be fired ...
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