Shouldn’t Be Done—But

Last week, a group of anti-“fascist” or antifa thugs posted online the home address of Fox News host and former Weekly Standard writer Tucker Carlson. They then gathered outside his Washington residence and terrorized his wife, who was home alone at the time. Maybe these menacing shenanigans were condemned by most people on the respectable left, but mainly what we saw was the spiteful equivocation of the eminently respectable left-wing opinion-machine known as Matt Yglesias.

Yglesias, readers may be aware, is a top editor at Vox.com, a website with lots of corporate advertising. The left-liberal publication even employs a full-time reporter, Jane Coaston, whose job is, by our admittedly fallible reckoning, to complain about incivility on the right. And yet here’s what Yglesias thought it appropriate to say about antifa’s assault on Carlson’s home: “I think the idea behind terrorizing his family, like it or not as a strategy, is to make them feel some of the fear that the victims of MAGA-inspired violence feel thanks to the non-stop racial incitement coming from Tucker, Trump, etc.” Also, this: “I agree that this is probably not tactically sound but if your instinct is to empathize with the fear of the Carlson family rather than with the fear of his victims then you should take a moment to reflect on why that is.” And then, as if he suspected some of his readers hadn’t yet decided if he is the spiteful, self-serving boob he appears to be, Yglesias went on to assure them: “I honestly cannot empathize with Tucker Carlson’s wife at all—I agree that protesting at her house was tactically unwise and shouldn’t be done—but I am utterly unable to identify with her plight on any level.”