The Times reported yesterday, under the headline "Editor Resigns After Calling Some Trump Supporters 'Fascists'":
On election night, Laura Helmuth, who served as editor in chief of the publication for more than four years, posted a series of expletive-laden comments on Bluesky, a social platform.
In one comment, she apologized to younger voters for Generation X being full of "fascists." In another, she wrote, "Solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted high-school classmates are celebrating early results," according to screenshots of the posts.
The posts, which have since been deleted, drew outrage from Trump supporters across social media. Many, including Elon Musk, accused her of failing to act as an impartial journalist and instead engaging in political activism. Some demanded her resignation….
Ms. Helmuth had previously apologized for her posts, which she said were "offensive and inappropriate." She attributed her comments to "shock and confusion about the election results" and said that they did not reflect the position of Scientific American or her colleagues.
Kimberly Lau, the president of Scientific American, said in a statement that Ms. Helmuth had "decided to move on from her position" and thanked her for her time at the magazine….
Now of course different people can have different views about whether editors or others should resign for offensive public statements (or be fired, though there's no evidence whether that happened here). More broadly, people can have different views about what this incident tells us about modern American culture.
