New York Times Columnist Promotes Political Murder

A study in dangerous cluelessness

Take a look at these photos.

This is result of unconstrained political hatred. They show a fragment of what murdering political opponents looks like. There is nothing pretty about it.

This murder of political enemies is what many unhinged Trump opponents seek. It is not a secret — they tell us this is what they want. Remember this from one of CNN’s stars? She is supposed to be a comedienne Does she look like she’s joking?

A New York Times columnist’s desire to see President Trump murdered

A more recent example of this homicidal fixation was on display in an interview of a New York Times columnist, John McWhorter. He appeared on June 28, on The Glenn Show which is a podcast by Brown University economics professor

Glenn Loury

. McWhorter, who is a regular Loury guest, had appeared on an earlier episode when he said that someone should kill President Trump. Although McWhorter sprinkled his June 28 comments with half-hearted regrets, he essentially doubled down on his earlier comments, saying only that he should not have made his statements publicly and promised that “I’m gonna say it again.”

McWhorter is an associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University and a regular New York Times columnist. Most of his Times columns discuss the use of language and words. Think about that as you listen to and read his words about his desire to see President Trump murdered.

The transcript with some comments

Here is how it went (the ellipses are where Loury occasionally interjected a comment or other elisions that do not alter the substance of the quotations included). But, by all means, watch the relevant parts of the video which begin at 17:49 and lasts for only 5 1/2 minutes.

McWhorter began by referencing his prior comments on Loury’s show, saying,

I have taken a great deal of heat for saying or implying that I wish somebody would kill Donald Trump. And that was exactly what I was implying…. I said it. And it was irresponsible of me to say that in a public space. I really shouldn’t have said it here…. And somebody has asked, you know, do you say that in private. And yes, I have said it often and I have only halfway been kidding and I’m gonna say it again. And it is a smaller side of me. I should not wish for another person to suffer, even if it’s a hideous pig of a man like him…. It is the smaller side of me…. I should not have said that in a public space.

Let’s stop right there. This professor of linguistics, this New York Times wordsmith, presumably chooses his words carefully. Let’s take him at his word. This man, who has a platform on the most well-known newspaper in the world, admits that he said both publicly and privately that he wanted someone to kill Donald Trump. And he has said it “often.”

And he emphasizes three times in this short segment (and again later in the interview) that what he regrets is calling for Trump’s murder “here,” i.e., on the prior episode of The Glenn Show, and “in a public space.” He has no regret for saying it in other conversations with other people, and we know that because he promises to say it again.

Was this just idle talk, perhaps fueled by alcohol and ersatz bravado? Who knows? This man of words says he was only “halfway” kidding, which obviously suggests that he was “halfway” serious. If I were a Secret Service agent and saw that he promised to say it again, I might think that this sounds like a man on a mission who bears further investigation. Whom did he say this to? What is their background, social media profile, and conduct? How did they respond? Are they professorial blow-hards or serious people?

Let’s continue. McWhorter next tried to compare himself to Julianne Malveaux, a radical academician whom he says expressed her wish that Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife would serve him a lot of fat and fried chicken to clog his arteries and give him a stroke or heart attack. He suggested that his motives in proselyting for President Trump’s murder are more noble — or in his words, “larger” — than hers.

Why? Because according to McWhorter, Malveaux merely thinks that Justice Thomas is “not black properly,” whatever that means. Sadly, McWhorter does not explain what is required to be black “properly.” But I think it is fair to assume that it involves being a Democrat. But I digress. By way of contrast, according to McWhorter, whereas Malveaux’s motives for wishing death upon Justice Thomas were perhaps a bit trite, his motives are both serious and pure:

I think my reasons for wishing that somebody else would wind up running as the Republican candidate for president are maybe larger than that. I fear for my country — not that we’re going to Mars — but I don’t think that he should be running things. But I should not have said that on this show, and I apologize. One of my lower moments.

Let’s stop again to analyze this word salad worthy of Kamala Harris. “Not going to Mars.” Whaaat? And he fears for the country? The guy who is promoting the murder of a former President and current Presidential nominee fears for the country? What a study in lack of self-awareness. And note that he again limits his regret: He should not have said it “on this show.”

But one thing is clear: McWhorter has just explained his motive for his comments — he wants Trump to be killed because he doesn’t think that Trump “should be running things” and he wants someone else to be the Republican candidate for president. So, to prevent an outcome that Professor McWhorter doesn’t want, someone has to kill President Trump. That is McWhorter’s motivation derived from his own words. In short, he’s saying, “I want someone to kill Trump because I don’t want him to be President.” Secret Service, are you listening? Nah, it’s just a joke. Halfway, that is.

Loury pushed back, forcefully rejecting McWhorter’s attempted comparison with Malveaux:

What you have said I think is much worse…. Do you realize what hell will have been unleashed on the country if people start and continue to talk like that? This is not something that you can just casually throw around. No, killing politicians whom you don’t like, that is not a way that you want to run the railroad here, man. I mean that’s disaster. You think it ends there? Do you think that if somebody were to do something along the lines of what you’re suggesting that that would be the end of it? You unleash the whirlwind you would let the hell out into the midst of our political deliberations   A lot of people can play at that game. 

Then McWhorter: “Somebody else would run. Anyone but him would be better.”

Note that this is offered as justification for calling for a political murder. Assassinate the other party’s presidential candidate? No big deal. There’s more where he came from. And this guy is a professor at Columbia. Wait, never mind. Figures.

Loury is having none of it:

I understand you don’t like him. I’m talking about the country, John. Are you prepared to flush everything down the toilet?

And McWhorter’s response? “You think there would be some grand insurrection because he had been killed?”

So what if we kill a presidential candidate? Nobody will stage a “grand insurrection.” People will learn to live with it.

Loury next noted that

“If Trump said something like that, we would never hear the end of it. That would be on the front page of every newspaper forever.

McWhorter tried to fire back with what he obviously thought was his big gun. Referring to the events of January 6, he spouted:

Look at the kind of talk that he [Trump] did that basically encouraged the insurrection. That’s the sort of thing that he does.

McWhorter’s point here is unclear. What does this have to do with his implied threats against President Trump? Is McWhorter saying that he is justified in calling for Trump to be murdered because of comments he made on January 6? We can’t tell. But Loury’s response was a tour de force. He utterly destroyed McWhorter’s “insurrection” claim and left the good professor speechless by quoting what Trump actually said. A full recitation of his comments is beyond the scope of this article but listen to the entire thing, beginning at 21:30 in the video. Here is a sample to whet your appetite:

We know what insurrections look like. They involve military forces in conflict. They involve seizing the radio and the television stations. They involve the declaration of martial law. They involve killing scores, nay hundreds, nay thousands of people and rounding up tens of thousands of people. This was not that. Not even close. 

That prompted this from the Linguistics Professor:

They wanted to interfere with the passing on of power in our government. I don’t care what word we apply to it. 

So, there again we see the total obliviousness of Professor McWhorter. Having advocated the assassination of a presidential candidate precisely to prevent him from taking power, he complains that the January 6 RPGs (rioters, protesters and gawkers) “wanted to interfere with the passing of power.” As they say, you just can’t make this up.

Some additional observations and questions

Will the New York Times tolerate this? The Times editor who approved an op-ed by a sitting U.S. senator lost his job because Senator Cotton’s opinions made the Times staff afraid. Will they tolerate this kind of hateful rhetoric from a weekly columnist? Or will the DEI regime protect McWhorter?

A July 10 search on the Times’ website for John McWhorter did not reveal any stories about this. As of July 4, the Times was still publishing his column.

What about Columbia University? Aside from his threats to the President (and, yes, I think that his comments, especially his promise to repeat them to persons unknown, can fairly be construed as threats), his lack of logic or analytical reasoning and plain common sense surely disqualify him from teaching at one of our supposedly “elite” universities. Is he the kind of professor who makes parents want to fork over $85,000 per year or more, so that their offspring can have the privilege of learning from him? Will Columbia keep him? Who am I kidding? Of course they will.

A final note about a real insurrection and political murder

These above photos were taken during the 1980 coup in Liberia led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe. His rebel forces killed President William Tolbert in his bed early in the morning. They then rounded up cabinet ministers, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and other political enemies in the government and murdered them on the beach shown in the photos.

But the end result in Liberia was as predicted by Professor Loury when he said that just talking about killing politicians will “unleash the whirlwind [and] let the hell out into the midst of our political deliberations” and that “a lot of people can play at that game.”  After Doe’s 1980 coup, the country was wracked with more murders and outrages and civil war, culminating in the murder of Doe himself ten years later.

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