How Steve Bannon Derailed the 2018 New Yorker Festival

The New Yorker’s annual festival of ideas draws the biggest names in politics, film, theatre, literature, food and music for a weekend of conversation and a meaningful exchange of ideas and opinions. This year, the lineup included Zadie Smith, Boots Riley, Judd Apatow, Christine Baranski, Haruki Murakami, Maggie Gyllenhaal... and Steve Bannon?

Just a few days before tickets to the festival went on sale, Steve Bannon was announced as a key act at the weekend-long festival in October, where he was due to appear for an interview onstage with longtime New Yorker editor David Remnick. Unsurprisingly, the fallout was quick. Not only were magazine staffers themselves quick to voice their dissension (some publicly, like Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kathryn Schulz, and some seemingly-privately like fellow Pulitzer winner Emily Nussbaum), but so were readers and New Yorker loyalists, as well as some of the prominent voices that had been tapped to appear at the festival. In a matter of hours, the festival lost some of its biggest names, such as Jim Carrey, Judd Apatow and Jimmy Fallon. Soon enough Remnick released a lengthy statement announcing he had reconsidered his decision, eventually disinviting Bannon, but the damage was done.

As glad as I am that the invitation was rescinded, I wish it hadn’t been extended in the first place. For one, the see-sawing is sure to give the far right more ammunition and room to air their “the left is stifling our right to free speech” grievances. Second, and more importantly, Bannon has been given enough global platforms to espouse his hateful ideology and doesn’t need another one, especially one that comes with the cultural cache of a New Yorker invite. I’m all for political debate, but there’s a difference between a civilized, good-faith exchange of ideas and the peddling of vicious, ethnonationalistic ideas. By inviting someone like Bannon to speak, the New Yorker is scuffing that line right out.

Read on for some of the impassioned Twitter statements from celebs in response to the initial Bannon announcement.