Terry Newman: Naomi Klein: From No Logos to Nazis

Canadian Author Naomi Klein speaks as Jewish protesters demonstrate near the home of US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Brooklyn borough of New York during the second night of Passover calling on Schumer to stop arming Israel on April 23, 2024. (Photo by Kena Betancur / AFP) (Photo by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)

Article content

Last Tuesday, Canadian author, documentarian and activist Naomi Klein admitted on Bluesky that she “truly f—ked up” for not doing her “due diligence” on Graham Platner, who recently won the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in Maine, before she praised him as an “extraordinary political communicator” in March.

Article content

Klein’s apology followed last Monday’s publication of Politico’s interview with Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old woman who accused Platner of forcing her to have sex with him five years ago, after she objected.

Article content

Article content

Article content

But last Monday wasn’t the first time Platner’s sexual impropriety made the news.

Article content

Article content

Back in May, Platner’s wife informed his campaign that he had sent sexually explicit texts to numerous women. Despite this, she posted a video excusing her husband’s actions, saying, “being newly married is hard.”

Article content

On Wednesday evening last week, Platner announced that he was suspending his campaign and exiting the race.

Article content

In her post on last Tuesday, Klein admitted that, “Enough was out there at the time,” and that she “should have been more cautious,” while apologizing to women “who came forward only to be disbelieved and smeared.” This mistake, she wrote, “gutted” her.

Article content

What Klein failed to mention was that months before she praised Planter, he admitted on a podcast that he had a Nazi SS emblem tattooed on his chest.

Article content

Numerous people pointed this out to her on social media back in March, prompting a follow-up post saying that she “didn’t see the podcast and … stuff people are flagging, which suck.”

Article content

But she qualified her feigned displeasure by saying: “He is surging and I think it’s worth understanding what he’s doing right.”

Article content

Article content

Klein rose to fame in the late 1990s after publishing her first book, No Logo, a critique of the brand strategies of large corporations like Nike and Disney, whose marketing campaigns sold lifestyles and identities that she believed were turning people into passive consumers.

Article content

In the book, Klein criticizes Nike for opening factories in foreign countries in order to avoid unions, take advantage of vulnerable workforces and increase profits, blaming the rise of temporary and low-paid McJob’s on competition among corporations for cheap labour.

Article content

This was Klein’s more innocent, well-meaning, anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-globalist and pro-labour period.

Article content

After No Logo became an international bestseller, Klein, who married Avi Lewis, now leader of the NDP, in 1998, published more books, becoming a lifelong professional activist.

Article content

Klein’s activism, which began with spunky culture jamming — rewriting corporate ads in order to critique companies — has grown increasingly hopeless and dark. It includes climate alarmism, austerity activism and her upcoming co-authored book, “End Times Fascism.”

Article content

Like Lewis, Klein is also a vocal anti-Zionist and suggested in an interview with Democracy Now last year that Israel weaponized October 7 trauma to justify “genocide” in Gaza.

Article content

Article content

National Post

Article content

This column was originally published in Right? A National Post Newsletter. Sign up now.

Article content