Two Guardian columnists have gone to war on Twitter [TWEETS]

Two of The Guardian‘s best known columnists are engaged in a Twitter war which has caught the public’s attention. But what brought Labour supporter Owen Jones and arch-neoliberal Nick Cohen to blows?

The Twitter war

It all started with Cohen’s assertion that The Canary backs Donald Trump.

This is simply not true; as any simpleton capable of an internet search could reveal. In fact, you can view The Canary‘s previous articles on the tangerine tycoon here. But Cohen doesn’t make his case because it’s true. He makes it so he can get his tired old point across: that there is an ‘alt-left’ in Britain as dangerous as the ‘alt-right’ in the US:

https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/895274600254320640

https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/895611177241255936

Cohen’s tweets caught the attention of fellow Guardian columnist Jones, who rejected the comparison:

Nick Cohen equates trans activists and male supremacists, Corbyn supporters and Trump supporters. He's an indefensible disgrace. https://t.co/eKR4KpLrRT

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) August 16, 2017

And he was not alone:

@NickCohen4 has made the journey from disgrace to journalism to disgrace to humanity in one short tweet 👏👏👏😒 https://t.co/eexwFcjZ45

— Mitch Blood 🏴‍☠️ (@mitchellblood) August 16, 2017

The idea that Nazis and people who oppose Nazis are somehow equatable is the most batshit fucking crazy shit I've ever fucking heard.

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) August 16, 2017

https://twitter.com/shonfaye/status/897947727509762048

Cohen then attempted to portray the reaction to his offensive tweet as some sort of witch hunt by that dangerous ‘alt-left’. He claimed Jones had misrepresented his criticism of The Canary, and denied that he meant to argue that the ‘alt-left’ was the equivalent of the ‘alt-right’:

https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/897916396444590080

This was an attempt to embarrass Jones, who has also been publicly critical of The Canary.

But Cohen has spent years demonising the left as the moral equivalent of the far right. Again, the simplest search of social media (and Cohen’s past columns) is all it takes to establish that fact:

Nick Cohen's view is what he calls the "far left" (which, for him, *includes Corbynism*) is basically the same as the far right. pic.twitter.com/DG3UqWUldI

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) August 17, 2017

Who is Nick Cohen, anyway?

Cohen is a trollumnist. A resident troll, paid by The Guardian/Observer to spew his bile in the direction of the left. His writing aches with tired clichés about the left which he hasn’t bothered to refresh since Super Gran was current.

His attitude was fully realised in his piece entitled Don’t tell me you weren’t warned about Corbyn. It is a finger-pointing lecture to working-class voters to ditch Corbyn. Predicting an historic electoral majority for Theresa May over the Labour leader, Cohen tells Corbyn supporters what they should do the morning after the election:

In my respectful opinion, your only honourable response will be to stop being a fucking fool by changing your fucking mind.

Of course, Cohen was as thumpingly wrong on this as most other things. Corbyn went on to increase Labour’s share of the vote by more than any leader since 1945, ending the Conservative majority. But the author did not take his own advice. Instead, he continues to denounce an ‘alt-left’ which simply does not exist.

Researchers who study extremist groups agree that there is no ‘alt-left’. As Anti-Defamation League analyst Mark Pitcavage told The New York Times recently:

It did not arise organically, and it refers to no actual group or movement or network. It’s just a made-up epithet, similar to certain people calling any news they don’t like ‘fake news.’

Like many of his peers, Cohen displays a revulsion response to the labour movement of working-class people. And he throws around terms like ‘alt-left’ and ‘fake news’ in the hopes of delegitimising that movement – and any media outlet, pundit or politician who speaks in its favour.

Awkward

Not so very long ago, Cohen wrote:

The English upper-middle class has always turned vindictive when the lower orders emerge from the underground and get ideas above their station.

Indeed Nick. Indeed.

Get Involved!

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