While Weiss is still one of the best jour- nalists in the country, her very public departure from The New York Times in 2020 revealed that no one but the most strident leftists are now welcome in America’s legacy newsrooms. After serving as the op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Jour- nal from 2013–2017, Weiss was brought on board at the Times to be an op-ed editor and staff writer on culture and politics. But it quickly became clear that Weiss’s genuine journalistic curiosity and intel- lectual integrity were not welcome at the Gray Lady. She drew backlash at the paper almost immediately for criticizing the 2017 Women’s March protesting the inauguration of Donald Trump, citing their “chilling ideas and associations.” Weiss also ruffled liberal feathers a year later when she defended actor Aziz Ansari from allegations of sexual assault, arguing that the #MeToo movement had gone too far. Her March 2018 opinion piece entitled “We are All Fascists Now” criticizing the left’s grow- ing intolerance of dissenting views was similarly lambasted. In 2019, Weiss released How to Fight Antisemitism , in which she warned about a rising culture of antisemitism on university campuses — another trans- gression against left-wing orthodoxy. By 2020, things had reached a break- ing point, and Weiss resigned from the Times . In her public resignation letter, she cited instances of bullying and discrimination for daring to challenge left-wing orthodoxy, further accusing
they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.” Sure enough, that’s exactly what has happened, as Democrats in unison turned on Musk and the Biden admin- istration began targeting his companies through harassment and intimidation campaigns. Musk is now one of the most promi- nent critics of leftist narratives, from so-called “diversity, equity, and inclu- sion” schemes to Critical Race Theory in education and COVID-19 mandates. Musk’s purchase of Twitter has been one of the greatest victories for free speech in decades and a serious blow to the left’s censorship of conservatives on social media. He routinely re-shares posts from conservative accounts to his 166 million followers, including coverage of the border crisis, Biden’s corruption, and other narratives that the mainstream media won’t touch.
the paper of catering to “the whims of Twitter critics.” Following her departure, Weiss started a Substack newsletter where she crit- icizes the woke excesses of modern liberalism and gives a platform to voices the left has tried to censor and cancel. She also started a new media company called The Free Press that is, according to its website, “built on the ideals that once were the bedrock of great journalism: honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence.” Additionally, Weiss has been involved in the launching of Austin University, a new four-year institution that bills itself as the opposite of woke universities. Weiss has, on the whole, become one of the woke left’s staunchest critics and one of the best journalistic defenders of free speech. She was notably involved with the public release of the “Twit- ter Files,” which exposed collusion between government bureaucrats and Big Tech companies regarding censor- ship operations.
Elon Musk Elon Musk was once a darling of the liberal establishment for his cham- pioning of electric vehicles. While not outwardly political, Musk largely supported Democrats. But on May 18, 2022, Musk tweeted, “In the past I voted Democrat, because
Michael Schellenberger In 1996, Michael Shellenberger was fresh out of a master’s program in anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and looking to make his mark as a left-wing activist. He became heavily involved in the environmental movement in San Fran- continued on page 24
22 • AMAC Magazine
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