- Conservative New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens was at the centre of ridicule again this week after a column published Friday likened his being called a “bedbug” on Twitter to the dehumanising language about Jewish people under Nazi authorities in WWII.
- Stephens’ column highlighted parallels in the Nazis’ plans to slaughter of Jewish people under the Nazi regime to “delousing” and “bedbugs,” days after he lambasted a college professor for joking that Stephens was part of the Times’ newsroom bedbug outbreak.
- Many Twitter users reacted to the column with disbelief, adding a new chapter to the Twitter blow-up that led to him deleting his account and earning ridicule from people including President Donald Trump and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Conservative New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens was at the centre of ridicule again after a column published Friday mentioned bedbugs in reference to the horrors of WWII days after he let loose on a Twitter user for comparing him to the pest.
Stephens’ column highlighted parallels in the Nazis’ plans to slaughter of Jewish people to “delousing” and “bedbugs.”
“The political mind-set that turned human beings into categories, classes and races also turned them into rodents, insects and garbage. ‘Anti-Semitism is exactly the same as delousing,’ Heinrich Himmler would claim in 1943. ‘Getting rid of lice is not a matter of ideology. It is a matter of cleanliness.’ Watching Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto burn that year, a Polish anti-Semite was overheard saying: ‘The bedbugs are on fire. The Germans are doing a great job.’”
Read the article by Benjamin Goggin on Business Insider Australia.