Faculty

2 Professors Walk Into a Dumpster Fire ...

An online spat between Ivy League scholars showcases the new normal of public political discourse

By Steve Kolowich June 20, 2017

Ullstein Bild via Getty Images
Laurence H. Tribe, of Harvard Law, says he can’t and doesn’t vouch for the accuracy of everything he retweets.

For an example of unimpeachable authority, look no further than Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University. He became a student at Harvard when he was 16 and a tenured professor there by age 30. He literally wrote the book on U.S. constitutional law, and has helped three countries write constitutions of their own.

Brendan Nyhan, a professor of political science at Dartmouth College, recently suggested a less flattering addition to Mr. Tribe’s curriculum vitae.

Dartmouth College
Brendan Nyhan, of Dartmouth College, is vexed by the sourcing of some of his Ivy colleague's tweets. He recently called Mr. Tribe a "vector of misinformation and conspiracy theories on Twitter."

"Bizarrely," wrote Mr. Nyhan last weekend, Mr. Tribe "has become an important vector of misinformation and conspiracy theories on Twitter."

He was referring on his colleague’s tendency to amplify unreliable news sources. Mr. Tribe had retweeted a Twitter user who had claimed that Steve Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, was being investigated for physically threatening White House staffers.

"You can’t make this sh*t up," Mr. Tribe wrote in a tweet that he later deleted.

Or can you? The source of the report, Washington-area photographer Claude Taylor, has a reputation for making apocryphal claims about the president that are generally ignored by professional news outlets. The Daily Kos, a left-wing blog that caters to Trump-hating Democrats, has gone so far as to warn its readers about Mr. Taylor, calling him one of several "self-aggrandizing, self-promoting hacks" who were taking advantage of bereaved liberals.

It was not the first time Mr. Nyhan had called out Mr. Tribe for shoddy sourcing. Now his frustration seemed to bubble over. He pointed to another time when the Harvard professor had tweeted, then apologized for tweeting, an article from another sketchy website.

"Innuendo 101," wrote Mr. Nyhan, "or is someone who almost argued Bush v. Gore really this naïve?"

Twitter, along with the drama of the past year, has had a leveling effect on political commentary. Traditionally arbiters of political wisdom, journalists and statisticians were kneecapped by Donald J. Trump’s election victory. Pro-Trump pundits who had never enjoyed any standing in Washington now have White House press passes. Anti-Trump conspiracy theorists have risen to prominence from nowhere, while some right-wing factions have followed the president’s lead in questioning the integrity the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal courts, and various intelligence agencies.

Then there are Mr. Nyhan and Mr. Tribe: professors who have pulled off the rare feat of parlaying their pedigrees as Ivy-League scholars into attention in the Wild West of online political analysis. Mr. Nyhan has 53,000 followers on Twitter; Mr. Tribe has 156,000. Both men see Mr. Trump as a threat to American democracy, but they seem to have different ideas about how to fight back.

Mr. Nyhan has positioned himself as an anchor in the crosscurrents. He claims no political loyalty except to "democratic norms and institutions." On Twitter he posts links to stories about the prevalence of fake news, ignorance, and distrust at all levels of politics, often appending a rueful lament: "Where we are as a country."

Where the Dartmouth political scientist shakes his head, the Harvard law scholar shakes his fists. Mr. Tribe, who is part of a group that sued the president for allegedly violating a Constitutional clause that prevents him from accepting payments from foreign powers, has chosen an approach that mirrors the president in style, if not substance.

"Imagine being the kind of person for whom being POTUS is mostly a way to become as rich as you falsely say you already are," he wrote on Monday. "Sick."

"Sucks up to dictators, disses democratic allies, plays role of Ugly American perfectly," wrote Mr. Tribe of the president’s first overseas trip in May. "Disaster."

After The New York Times reported that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, sought a private back channel with Russian officials prior to Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Tribe chimed in with some speculative fiction: "We’ll launder your mob money if you lend us a secret stash of cash," he imagined Mr. Kushner telling the Russian ambassador. "Need back channel for that, of course."

Mr. Nyhan declined to comment on the latest flare-up in his Twitter contretemps with Mr. Tribe, and Mr. Tribe did not respond to messages requesting an interview. (In May, when I first wrote to Mr. Tribe about Mr. Nyhan’s criticisms, he responded: "I can’t and don’t vouch for everything I retweet; but when I assert something myself, I take great care to ensure its accuracy.")

However, the Harvard professor did respond to Mr. Nyhan on Twitter. And though the circumstances were strange, the exchange itself was … normal.

"So are you infallible, @BrendanNyhan?" wrote Mr. Tribe. "I erred and apologized. Period."

"I’m hardly infallible but this is unfortunately part of long pattern," responded Mr. Nyhan, citing several instances in which the Constitutional scholar had pointed to dubious news sources. "I would urge much more caution."

Mr. Tribe noted that Mr. Nyhan’s earlier taunt — that Mr. Tribe seemed pretty naïve for someone who had "almost argued Bush v. Gore" before the U.S. Supreme Court — was technically incorrect.

"I did argue the first of the two SCOTUS cases btw Bush & Gore," wrote the Harvard professor.

Mr. Nyhan acknowledged the error, and retweeted the correction.

Steve Kolowich writes about writes about ordinary people in extraordinary times, and extraordinary people in ordinary times. Follow him on Twitter @stevekolowich, or write to him at steve.kolowich@chronicle.com.

Related Content
Return to Top

Questions or concerns about this article? Email us or submit a letter to the editor.