The New Yorker is a magazine as American as apple pie. Its first edition hit newsstands on Feb. 21, 1925, when Calvin Coolidge was president, Europe was still recovering from World War I, and radio was just beginning to catch fire as the preferred medium of communication. The magazine is a constellation of art, fiction, in-depth journalism, and witty cartoons that very few publications have been able to master consistently over the decades. The New Yorker has been doing it for more than 90 years.
The New Yorker also represents a cultural and political phenomenon, a symposium of sorts where people with strong convictions from the uber-left and the far-right can have a heated but civilized discussion. That’s what the audience at this year’s New Yorker Festival would have had the privilege of watching when populist provocateur Steve Bannon took his seat on stage and fielded questions from David Remnick, the magazine’s editor and a chief anti-Trumpist.
Remnick got a lot of heat on social media for inviting Bannon to the event. In general, the politics of the New Yorker readership swings to the Left. Many are disgusted with the way President Trump has behaved both on the campaign trail and in office, from his involuntary narcissism to his inability to say even a few nice words about a dying senator. Trump’s assault on journalists, the rule of law, immigrants, Democrats, the NFL, and everyone and everything in between is the subject of daily commentary on the magazine’s website. To provide Bannon, the same man who managed Trump’s campaign to a successful conclusion, a spot at the event would have been to expose the audience to Trump-style, “America First” populist ideology.
Remnick knew this going in, but it didn’t dissuade him from reaching out to Bannon. “I have every intention of asking him difficult questions and engaging in a serious and even combative conversation,” Remnick told the New York Times on Sept. 3. In other words: he planned on being a journalist and living up to the New Yorker name.
But the editor quickly had a problem. Hearing that Bannon would be involved in this year’s festival, other guests started dropping out. Actor Jim Carrey, director Judd Apatow, and comedians Patton Oswald and John Mulaney all decided they wouldn’t be sitting on the same stage as somebody like Bannon, the former chairman of a news outlet in Breitbart that treats ethno-nationalism as currency.
If Steve Bannon is at the New Yorker festival I am out. I will not take part in an event that normalizes hate. I hope the @NewYorker will do the right thing and cancel the Steve Bannon event. Maybe they should read their own reporting about his ideology.
— Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) September 3, 2018
I’m out. I genuinely support public intellectual debate, and have paid to see people speak with whom I strongly disagree. But this isn’t James Baldwin vs William F Buckley. This is PT Barnum level horseshit. And it was announced on a weekend just before tix went on sale. https://t.co/oYk1llNgvV
— John Mulaney (@mulaney) September 3, 2018
The temperature got too hot for Remnick. Less than a day after he invited Bannon to attend, he wrote a letter to the staff explaining why he changed his mind. “I don’t want well-meaning readers and staff members to think that I’ve ignored their concerns,” Remnick wrote. Because Bannon inspired so much controversy, the chair for the anti-globalization crusader would be taken away.
Remnick couldn’t take the heat, so he got out of the kitchen. Apparently the New Yorker Festival isn’t a place for differences of opinion or political philosophy. Why rock the boat when you could have an easy, smooth, care-free (and intellectually boring) public event.
As a reader of the New Yorker, I’m disappointed to say the least. Remnick is a top-notch editor who leads a near-impeccable journalistic organization. The New Yorker is not some throwaway rag you can get at the airport; it’s an institution.
But the magazine has risen to the status of literary behemoth in large part because of the forum it provides honest, frank debate. At a time when political tribalism is the new normal, this country desperately needs intellectual curiosity again. The annual festival was a place where people who would otherwise be laughed off as clowns or demagogues on cable news or Twitter can actually make their case or at least engage in a discussion with the audience in front of them. The fact Bannon won’t be given the opportunity to face tough queries from a seasoned journalist is a small blemish on the New Yorker’s reputation as an instigator of debate.
You don’t have to like Bannon personally or agree with his politics, policy stances, or worldview. Yet we can try to understand where he’s coming from — if only to challenge that worldview and better persuade Bannon and those who think like him to change their minds.
Alternatively, we can all go into our corners and bury our heads in the sand. The New Yorker regrettably chose the path of least resistance.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
