Not for the first time over the past year, the New York Times faced backlash from liberal readers after a Saturday op-ed argued White House senior adviser Stephen Miller should be involved in negotiations to strike an immigration deal.
In "The Necessity of Stephen Miller," Ross Douthat argued that although he did not agree with Miller's immigration stances, the White House adviser represented the roughly one-third of Americans who were restrictionists, as well as many of the Republican lawmakers whose support would be needed to pass immigration law.
"A bargain that actually reflects the shape of public opinion, not just the elite consensus, can only happen with someone like Stephen Miller at the table," Douthat wrote.
Miller, known for his hardline views on immigration, has been criticized in the past for associations with some white nationalists, including Richard Spencer. Miller was an undergraduate student at Duke University at the same time Spencer was a graduate student. The White House adviser, who was raised in a Jewish family, has since said he has "absolutely no relationship" with Spencer and that he "completely repudiate[s] his views."
Nevertheless, many of the critics charged that the Time's decision to publish the piece defending the so-called "white nationalist" Miller on Holocaust Memorial Day was offensive, and they called for readers to cancel their subscriptions.
NYT is now a white supremacist paper. The multiple Nazi puff pieces, constant pro-Trump PR, and praise for Miller on today of all days is not exceptional -- it's the guiding ideology of the paper. I don't think every writer there shares it, but it dominates coverage #Unsubscribe
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) January 28, 2018
Cancel your subscription until we find out WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON at the @nytimes! https://t.co/fUGrScJiXI
— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) January 28, 2018
You posted this on #HolocaustMemorialDay. Assholes. https://t.co/YwjqBF6FG3
— Tom Maxwell (@universalshow) January 29, 2018
Just so we're clear. You published a piece on the necessity of an avowed white nationalist...
... on Holocaust Remembrance Day. https://t.co/YS3JXP6QOV
— Doug Farrar (@BR_DougFarrar) January 28, 2018
STOP THIS https://t.co/pDof0nx6yw
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) January 28, 2018
Do the editors of the NYT op-ed page drink all day? Do they even exist? How do I know they exist? Not from the available evidence. https://t.co/xmzAmkOIKd
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) January 28, 2018
The Times faced similar backlash from liberal readers last May when right-leaning columnist Bret Stephens wrote a piece on climate change. At the time, one reader said the paper was "slammed with people canceling subscriptions" because of the new columnist expressing a varying viewpoint.
Times reporters seemed somewhat unfazed over the weekend by the charge that "white supremacism" was the guiding principle of the paper.
Gotta be the first white supremacist paper owned by Jews and run by a black man. https://t.co/psiJO07znq
— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) January 29, 2018
Glad to know we’re pleasing people on both sides of the political spectrum https://t.co/IoGeFvAnEF
— Matthew Rosenberg (@AllMattNYT) January 28, 2018