News From Barbaria: "A Letter To My Conservative Friends," Nicholas Kristof (Paranoia Strikes Deep)

Emily Elconin/Reuters

Opinion Columnist, Opinion

I’m in Oregon on our family farm and was astonished to be asked by some old pro-Trump friends if they were in danger now from liberals seeking vengeance. I told them that of course they weren’t — and I was pained by how relieved they felt.

But the right-wing echo chamber is warning that Democrats will send Trump voters to “re-education camps,” even a Wall Street Journal columnist chimed in: “If you were an enthusiastic Donald Trump supporter, are you ready to enter a re-education program?” Some of my pro-Trump friends here have stopped posting on politics and have joined secret messaging apps.

So for my column today, I wrote an open letter to my pro-Trump friends and neighbors, telling them that we’re not going to round them up, and they should stick to their convictions. We progressives need conservatives to keep us honest. America needs a loyal opposition! But while they hold us accountable, they should do the same to the charlatans on Fox News and elsewhere who have deceived them, used them, cheated them.

I’m also increasingly of the view that we should hold news organizations like Fox accountable. Yes, it’s a slippery slope. But we all agree that there should be red lines, even if we disagree about where they lie. A KKK grand wizard has a right to free speech, but shouldn’t have a Facebook page or cable channel to peddle hate. Likewise, I think advertisers should be wary of bolstering extremists on Fox News, and cable providers shouldn’t make extremist channels part of a basic package in ways that force all of us to subsidize charlatans like Sean Hannity. I explore all this in my open letter, so check it out!