'Someone did something nice and you are victimized?': 'Woke' LA Times op-ed columnist is blasted for comparing Trump-supporting neighbors to Hezbollah and Nazi sympathizers after they kindly plowed snow from her yard
- Virginia Heffernan's article was published on Friday by the Los Angeles Times
- She told how her Trump-supporting neighbors cleared snow from her driveway
- Heffernan wrote of her internal struggle with whether to thank them
- She likened them to Hezbollah and supporters of Nazis and Louis Farrakhan
- Heffernan's views were excoriated by Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and others
- 'I'm very happy you and your judgmental attitude are not my neighbor,' said one
Megyn Kelly is leading criticism of a Los Angeles Times columnist who compared her neighbors to Nazi sympathizers and Hezbollah because they backed Donald Trump.
The Brooklyn-based author, Virginia Heffernan, wrote in Friday's paper that the 'Trumpites' next door to their 'pandemic getaway' in upstate New York had plowed her drive after a snow storm.
'Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks — and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro — but how much thanks?' she wrote.
Virginia Heffernan, a journalist and author, sparked fury with her LA Times op ed on Friday
Heffernan compared 'Trumpites' to Hezbollah, Nazi sympathizers and Louis Farrakhan's fans
Heffernan worked at The New York Times before freelancing for Politico, Wired and others
Heffernan, 51, worked from 2003 at The New York Times as a television critic, before specializing in the internet and online culture.
From 2008 to 2012 she wrote 'The Medium,' a weekly column about internet culture, for The New York Times Magazine.
She left The New York Times to work as national correspondent at Yahoo News, and work for a San Francisco venture capital firm, before returning to write freelance for publications such as Wired, Politico and The Wall Street Journal.
She co-hosted Slate's podcast chronicling the past four years, Trumpcast, and on Friday wrote about her struggle to accept the kindness of her Trump-supporting neighbors.
'Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamist political party in Lebanon, also gives things away for free,' she noted, detailing how 'they also demand devotion to their brutal, us-versus-them anti-Sunni cause.'
She gave the example of the Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, famously anti-Semitic but, to his followers, 'unfailingly magnanimous.'
Heffernan swapped Brooklyn (pictured) for upstate New York when the pandemic begun
And she told of the wealthy French family she stayed with as a teenager, who refused to join in the 100th birthday commemorations for Charles de Gaulle, who freed his country from Nazi Germany, but had on their walls portraits of Philippe Petain, the Nazi collaborator.
She concluded: 'My neighbors supported a man who showed near-murderous contempt for the majority of Americans. They kept him in business with their support.
'But the plowing.'
She added: 'Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth.'
Heffernan said she was 'not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.'
She did not specify where she was, but has frequently written about her experiences in upstate New York, having left Brooklyn when the pandemic broke out.
Her article sparked a furious backlash online.
Heffernan in video she posted to her Twitter account last month, from her 'pandemic getaway'
'This woman compares her Trump-supporting neighbors, who plowed her driveway, to Nazi sympathizers & Hezbollah & wrestles w/whether to show them any kindness since she 'can't give them absolution,'' said Kelly, the former Fox News anchor.
'Note to Virginia Heffernen's neighbors: don't plow again.'
Tucker Carlson mocked her on his Monday night show, saying: 'Virginia Heffernan, in charge of justice and truth.
'There's something deep about this, very revealing about the state of the country.'
His guest, Greg Gutfeld, said: 'I can't work out if this is real.'
'I want to know how the neighbors feel. I volunteer myself to go and interview them,' he said.
Gutfeld called her 'worse than an idiot'.
One Twitter user urged Heffernan to 'step away from politics'
Still another labeled her 'an arrogant elitist' and urged her to find God
One Twitter user believes the columnist needs to 'get help'
Another commenter questioned the concept of 'wokeness'
As did another Twitter user who mocked the idea of Heffernan being 'woke'
Carlson's guest Greg Gutfeld called Heffernan 'mean' and 'spiteful' for her views
'She's a spiteful, mean person to look at people with a political lens like that, and dehumanize them.
'And under this phony guise - this article was about unification - she calls them Nazis. It's like a Trojan horse.'
Carlson said that it revealed 'ideology is much more important than human kindness'.
Others on Twitter were equally fierce in their criticism.
'This is satire, right?' said one man. 'Take a freaking BREATH!'
Another questioned Heffernan's priorities, saying: 'Maybe don't let politics rule your life?'
A third concluded: 'This column says a lot more about your character than your neighbors.
'I'm very happy that you and your judgmental attitude are not my neighbor.'
(R-L): Tim Gunn, Virginia Heffernan, Bravo TV's President Lauren Zalaznick and Television Personality Gail Simmons, at a May 2008 New York Times gala
Heffernan revealed some of the hateful messages she's received
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