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This is an unbelievable piece of writing, by which I mean I can't believe someone works as a writer wrote it and people who work as editors published it. I want to spend some time on what this piece reveals about Stephens as a writer and writing for the public in general. 
I don't tag Stephens directly and use a screenshot deliberately. This is meant as a broader commentary in a public medium, not a direct response to him, in which case I'd respond directly. In other words, please don't reflexively tag in writers when they're being criticized.
First, every writer has experienced the sensation of believing their audience has gotten them wrong, either through bad faith or misreading. It happens to me all the time. This one where I tried to write about tenure for IHE sticks out still as an example. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
The comments show a lot of inflamed responses, which was the opposite of my goal. I was trying to put forward a nuanced argument about structural impediments to improving the status of contingent academic laborers. My title effectively shut that down.
Thing is, I knew I wasn't wrong about the message I wanted to convey. None of the responses convinced me that I was off base, so I took another swing at in a week later. I started by acknowledging the miscalculation in presentation on my part. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…
The result was a much better, more productive discussion that I hope nudged the ball forward on an issue I think is important. After my initial hurt/anger/frustration, it was my job as the writer to go back to the well and redo my attempt at communication.
Stephens seems incapable of reconsidering his own work. This is a terrible trait for a writer. There's a version of his column that acknowledges his misstep in framing while re-emphasizing whatever message he meant to send.
I still wouldn't agree with that message, but at least we could stop thinking of Bret Stephens as a launderer of white supremacist ideology and instead engage with the argument in the way he claims he was trying to achieve. Instead, he centers himself as the aggrieved party.
Stephens centering his own grievance reminds me of Meghan McCain's remark that she feels like a "caged animal" on The View. Imagine being a co-host of a national TV show with a million $ salary and still believing you are aggrieved. It's a weird pathology.
Anyway, I teach my students that one of the biggest steps writers can take is to achieve a level where you can surprise yourself with something that comes out during the process of writing, that is you make a discovery during the writing itself.
This is proof positive that the writer is thinking deeply during the writing. Rather than parroting others or sticking to a pre-determined script, some bit of knowledge is being revealed. It's the best part of writing. When you can change your own mind, you're working well.
I get the sense that Bret Stephens has never, ever changed his own mind while writing. I don't think he views writing as a process of thinking. His process appears to be the inverse of how good writers work, starting with a conclusion and fitting the evidence to it.
Stephens' process is why he makes so many errors. He starts with the conclusion. @ParkerMolloy brilliantly illustrated this with his ever-shifting column on the midterms. Even as the facts literally changed, the analysis was the same.
I also sincerely hope the Times did everything in its power to dissuade Stephens from publishing the follow-up column. It's a bad move on so many levels. Maybe there's a deal where columnists have full autonomy, but publishing it makes me think someone at the Times hates him
Many of the most prominent Times columnists are very bad at analysis because they start with an a priori conclusion. Kristoff was guilty this week with a column that is so light on evidence as to be meaningless.
Frank Bruni is often similarly guilty and David Brooks? Fahgettaboutit. The common thread is obvious. The reason these are bad analysts and bad writers is because their job is not to analyze, but to act as enforcers of a status quo where their voices are pre-eminent.
The bad work of these writers offends me because it reinforces an unjust system for sure, but almost worse (from my point of view as a writer and writing teacher), is that they commit offenses to writing itself and by hogging those spaces deny us access to better writers.
Stephens isn't being criticized for the "moral faux pas" of his opinion (as lame as it is), but because he is a lazy, bad writer and thinker who gets things wrong, has disdain for his audience and can't be bothered to learn from his own inevitable errors.
I want to be able to point to the opinion pieces in the NYTimes and tell students, opinions and political stances aside, this is the kind of thinking you should strive for. It's mostly impossible to do now. Their most prominent voices are spectacularly bad.
If I were editing the NYTimes op-ed columnists I might require a reflection assignment that I do with college students where I ask them to write about what they learned in the doing of a particular piece of writing. Can be factual, analytical, or even about writing process itself
I require reflection when students turn in their work because this is where the learning actually happens. If they reflect and internalize they can take the lesson to the next occasion. The most prominent NYTimes opinion writers seem to completely lack reflection.
If my hypothetical NYTimes columnist couldn't articulate something new they'd learned in the process I wouldn't allow the piece to be published until they'd gone back to the well and discovered something. Anecdotes from cab drivers and random airport encounters wouldn't count.
