On Monday morning, it was announced that Steve Bannon would be headlining the upcoming New Yorker Festival.
As you can imagine, the idea of having a white nationalist headline anything — let alone something as prestigious as The New Yorker Festival — didn’t sit well with many.
Within hours the magazine’s readers as well as several celebrities who were slated to speak at the festival opted to boycott if Bannon would be in attendance.
If Steve Bannon is at the New Yorker festival I am out. I will not take part in an event that normalizes hate. I hope the @NewYorker will do the right thing and cancel the Steve Bannon event. Maybe they should read their own reporting about his ideology.
— Judd Apatow ?? (@JuddApatow) September 3, 2018
I’m out. I genuinely support public intellectual debate, and have paid to see people speak with whom I strongly disagree. But this isn’t James Baldwin vs William F Buckley. This is PT Barnum level horseshit. And it was announced on a weekend just before tix went on sale. https://t.co/oYk1llNgvV
— John Mulaney (@mulaney) September 3, 2018
I apologize to Susan Morrison as I was really looking forward to our conversation. And I look forward to future @NewYorker Fests & other public, even heated, debates between different voices. But hard pass on this amateur-night sonofabitch.
— John Mulaney (@mulaney) September 3, 2018
i’m no longer going to be speaking/performing at the new yorker festival as long as steve bannon is there
— jackantonoff (@jackantonoff) September 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/JimCarrey/status/1036734398702309376
David Remnick — editor of The New Yorker — issued a statement explaining why he thought having Steve Bannon would be a good idea in the first place and that due to the immense backlash Steve would no longer be in attendance.
You can read it in full below.
A statement from David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, explaining his decision to no longer include Steve Bannon in the 2018 New Yorker Festival. pic.twitter.com/opayiw5GQ2
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) September 3, 2018
