Jeet Heer is an Idiot

Every now and then, I will highlight a journalist who is an idiot. Or, in other words, a journalist. Today’s honoree is Jeet Heer.

Mr. Heer is the National Affairs correspondent for failing magazine, The Nation. He is also Canadian. Why The Nation would employ a Canadian to write about America is perplexing. Canada is a failed state with a blackface Prime Minister, and every second America doesn’t invade Canada is a US foreign policy failure.

Mr. Heer is perpetually wrong, to the point that it seems intentional. In June 2016, he wrote an article headlined “Donald Trump Will Be Buried in an Electoral Avalanche.” He argued that Trump could easily lose by over 10% and get less than 40% of the vote. In February 2020, he wrote a piece headlined “Bye-Bye, Biden.” He argued that Biden was unlikely to recover from his 4th place Iowa finish. Anyone who shares as many takes as Mr. Heer should occasionally be correct just by chance. Jeet’s wrongness is almost impressive.

But Jeet’s sin is not that he’s always wrong. Every journalist is wrong. Journalism is a jobs program for idiots. Jeet’s sin is that he’s boring. If you’ve read one Jeet Heer piece, you’ve read them all. He wouldn’t know an original idea if it slapped him in the face with a hockey stick and covered him in maple syrup. If he had an original thought, he might collapse from the shock. In case I’m not being clear, he is an uninteresting writer and “thinker.”

The Jeet Heer problem plagues journalism. Most people’s views defy partisanship. Someone might be pro gun and pro-choice. Or pro life and pro higher taxes. Or in favor of increased immigration and increased policing. In Florida, Trump won 51% of the vote in an election where 60% of Florida voters supported a $15 minimum wage. People’s views are inconsistent. But journalists are not people. Jeet walks into the Take Store, looks at all the takes, and says about each one, “I’ll have that in progressive.”

So you will never find something unexpected or thought provoking in a Jeet Heer piece. This is why it’s cheaper to subscribe to The Nation for a year than it is to subscribe to Matt Yglesias’ Slow Boring Substack for 2 months. To be fair, Mr. Heer did sign the infamous Harper’s Letter, so he does get credit for that.

If you have suggestions for other journalists who are idiots (but I repeat myself), leave them in the comments. If just one journalist gets a real job as a result, it will all have been worth it.

-Johnny