Peter Beinart mocked for tweet on daughter’s fear

JTA — Peter Beinart, the liberal Jewish essayist, shared his feelings about Charlottesville on Twitter on August 18.

“Yesterday my 9 year old saw some footage from Charlottesville. Then she asked me if there would be a second Holocaust,” he tweeted.

When I saw the tweet, I got it immediately: I had been in Charlottesville the day of the violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters, and my worried teenage sons asked me about it afterward.

I didn’t know what to say because, let’s be honest, seeing Nazis march in 2017 is a gut-churn when you couple it with the faith that parents (irrationally, necessarily) maintain in what happens on this earth after we return to its dust. I froze. So kudos to Beinart for being able to talk about these things with his daughter.

Twitter was not so understanding. What Beinart got in response — at least initially — was disbelief and mockery.

“Nobody believes that for a second,” said someone with the Twitter handle JammieWF who has 12,000 followers.

Nobody believes that for a second.

— JWF (@JammieWF) August 18, 2017

@ReallyBroReally, who has 10,800 followers, resorted to sarcasm:

My 8 year old was watching the left tearing down statues and wanted to know if this was the start of cultural cleansing…. ????

— Rad Dude (@ReallyBroReally) August 18, 2017

And on it went.

David Nir, the political director at the liberal Daily Kos website, was appalled and said so on Tuesday.

Wow—basically every response to this @PeterBeinart tweet mocks his 9yo daughter for worrying about another Holocaust https://t.co/b3wgIwBT9D

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— David Nir on Bluesky: @davidnir.com (@DavidNir) August 22, 2017

Beinart, too, was amazed and understandably angry.

“This is close to the last subject I’d lie about,” he said on Twitter.

1) I don't lie 2) even if I did this is close to the last subject I'd lie about https://t.co/PXeKbh0AQR

— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) August 22, 2017