NY Times Suddenly In Favor Of Doxxing Campaign Contributors

As long as they are Republican contributors, of course. Now, it’s not hard to find out who has donated to campaigns, especially the big contributors. You can get this information from Open Secrets, among others. It’s public record. But, to use that data to “shame” and harass is disturbing, and along comes to the NY Times Editorial Board

May the SoulCycle Boycott Make Democracy Better
Stunts like Joaquin Castro’s upstage a real concern: Americans should want to know more about who funds political campaigns.

That’s an interesting take in the subhead, since this same paper had exactly zero interest in knowing who was donating to Mr. Obama’s campaigns, especially when he had no safeguards to stop foreigners from donating through credit card. Nor are they interested in broadcasting how so many Democrats receive money from people who live in far away states.

It has been an unsettling week for some of President Trump’s political contributors.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that Stephen Ross, the billionaire real estate developer whose firm owns SoulCycle and Equinox gym, was hosting a big-money fund-raiser in support of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee on Friday, with ticket prices running as high as $250,000. This news did not sit well with many patrons of Equinox and SoulCycle, who took to social media to call for a boycott.

Lower down the donor ladder, 44 residents of San Antonio who had contributed the maximum legal amount to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign found themselves in the spotlight, after their names were tweeted out on Monday by Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, who declared himself “Sad to see so many” of his constituents “fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’”

Unsettling? An elected politician, tasked with being a public servant, called for harassment of those contributors. Any violence that ensues will be on Castro’s head.

Public shaming seemed to be at the core of Mr. Castro’s tweet as well, though the outcry from Republican officials was much louder. The Texas congressman was accused of “inviting harassment” and “encouraging violence against” his own constituents. “People should not be personally targeted for their political views,” warned Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, noting that he knew “firsthand” that “lives are at stake.” (Mr. Scalise was shot by an apparently politically motivated gunman in 2017.) Donald Trump Jr. equated Mr. Castro’s tweet with the “hit list” kept by the perpetrator of Sunday’s mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio. There were calls for Mr. Castro to resign, and the hashtag #ImpeachJoaquinCastro trended on Twitter. (Note: Constitutionally speaking, impeaching House members is not a thing.)

But, in NY Times World

There is rich irony in Republican self-righteousness about public attacks on people’s political donations. Prominent Republicans routinely assert that the billionaire George Soros, a major donor to progressive candidates and causes, secretly controls the Democratic Party. Mr. Trump and his supporters spent over a year publicly smearing members of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team as “13 angry Democrats,” based on their voter registrations or political giving, or both.

Perhaps the NY Times might investigate those links. They’re happy to rail against the Koch brothers. But, this is just an attempt to normalize the doxxing of political contributors for harassment.

As with all political tactics, there is also a high risk of escalation, to the point where each side routinely sics the dark furies of social media on their opponents’ donors.

Yet, the NYTEB is not castigating Castro for doing what he did.