First, to be clear, most liberals did not defend the antifa action against Carlson, and many denounced it. Those included several media analysts at CNN, and the network itself, which was recently the recipient of one of the pipe bombs delivered to liberal leaders around the country, allegedly by a white-supremacist zealot. The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg, who countenanced the public shaming of Trump administration officials at restaurants, drew a line in this case. Even a senior analyst at Media Matters for America, a nonprofit dedicated to tracking and criticizing conservative media outlets such as Fox News, called the protesters’ behavior “way over the line” and “unacceptable.”
This seemed like a moment—rare these days—when liberals and conservatives could come together to agree on a common boundary. It was almost that—but not quite. For every denunciation, there was a slew of replies or quote-tweets that suggested Carlson had it coming. Some came from anonymous Twitter users and assorted randos, but not all of them.
Vox’s Matthew Yglesias is a sharp and provocative pundit, one who doesn’t mind breaking taboos (including some that are liberal doctrine), so his views shouldn’t be taken as representative of anyone else’s. Still, to see 1,600 likes on a tweet excusing “terrorizing” a media figure’s “family” was jarring. (He appears to have deleted the tweets.) It’s the kind of dehumanizing sentiment that liberals have come to expect from Trump and his supporters. It now seems to be infecting the other side.
