Matt Johnson

“Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself, ‘What would Christopher say about this?’ Matthew Johnson’s brilliant reappraisal of the Hitchens corpus illuminates how Hitchens can save not just the left, but our entire, impoverished political discourse.”

James Kirchick, New York Times bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
_______________

“It’s like reuniting with a long-parted friend to open this book and reenter the mind and world of Christopher Hitchens.”

David Frum, Atlantic columnist and author of Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy
_______________

“Excellent … Johnson offers more than an examination of Christopher Hitchens’s life and thought. His research takes him from the controversies about the Russian Revolution to today’s culture wars. No one reading it can deny that there has been a jolting cultural change in the US left over the past 10-15 years.”

Nick Cohen, author of What’s Left? How the Left Lost Its Way


Recent work

MSNBC, Tulsi Gabbard can’t be trusted to run American intelligence
The Bulwark, Gabbard and RFK Jr. were nominated to destroy, not to lead
Quillette, The open society and its new enemies
Persuasion, The deep and dangerous roots of Trump’s foreign policy
MSNBC, How Trump’s new ‘AI czar’ David Sacks went from MAGA critic to true believer
Quillette, ‘There’s nothing mystical about the idea that ideas change history’: An interview with Steven Pinker
The Bulwark, ‘Identity politics’ isn’t why Harris lost
The Daily Beast, Is Bari Weiss embarrassed by the Intellectual Dark Web?
The UnPopulist, Joe Rogan: A conspiracist for the Trump era
MSNBC, Trump’s ‘unity’ allies aren’t renegade liberals — they’re fringe, opportunistic right-wingers
Quillette, Towards a new liberal international order
Persuasion, A new paradigm for assisted dying
The Daily Beast, Jordan Peterson’s astounding ignorance on Russia and Ukraine
The UnPopulist, Niall Ferguson: The intellectual underwriter of Trump’s ‘American carnage’ idea
Quillette, Nationalist self-hatred
Haaretz, Why Tucker Carlson hates Ukraine so much
The Bulwark, Now is the worst time to abandon NATO
Quillette, Liberalism and the West’s ‘crisis of meaning’
Persuasion, We keep failing the blasphemy test
The Daily Beast, Left-wing defenses of Hamas are an insult to Palestinians
The Bulwark, When Hamas tells you who they are, believe them
Persuasion, The God divide within the heterodox community
Quillette, How Effective Altruism lost its way
The Daily Beast, Jordan Peterson’s constant state of delusional panic



Media appearances

KU chancellor right to veto multicultural student government

Published by

mattjj89

on

*This article was originally published in The Topeka Capital-Journal, May 14, 2016. 

KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little made the right decision when she vetoed the Multicultural Student Government (MSG) last week, but she better be prepared for months of shrill condemnation and misplaced outrage.

For many advocates of programs like the MSG, any opposition is automatically evidence of complicity with an oppressive status quo and indifference to the struggles of minority students. This kind of moralizing is antithetical to the rational conversation we need to have about race on campus, and it makes the implementation of corrosive institutions and policies (like the MSG and mandatory “diversity training”) more likely.

Read the full article in The Topeka Capital-Journal.

Leave a comment

Previous Post
Next Post