A New York Times opinion writer has been ripped for claiming that straphangers scared of “half-naked lunatics” menacing Big Apple subways need therapy for “imaginary monsters.”
Elizabeth Spiers sparked incredulity with her condescending response to the suggestion that a “polite society” is “one where people can safely ride the subway to work or take their children out in public without being accosted & menaced by half-naked lunatics.”
“Hi – New Yorker here,” wrote Spiers, who is also a Democratic pollster and NYU journalism professor.
“I’ve safely ridden the subway for 23 years and my child has never been menaced by a half naked lunatic, but these imaginary monsters in your head are addressable with therapy,” she continued.
Her tweet quickly went viral, seen more than 3 million times by Wednesday — with many questioning how serious she was.
“Not satire …,” one person wrote as others questioned if it was actually “a parody account.”
National Review writer Dan McLaughlin — to whose tweet Spiers had replied — was among those amazed that his critic had escaped seeing anything alarming for so long.
“If you’ve never encountered an alarming lunatic on the subway or its platforms, I question what city you’ve been traveling in,” McLaughlin tweeted.
“And how small your circle of friends must be if you don’t know anybody who’s experienced unhinged people in the subways.”
Others also noted how not seeing something firsthand does not mean it is not there.
“Exactly, Elizabeth! I feel the same way about tornadoes,” one person tweeted sarcastically.
“Everyone complains about them, but they’ve never bothered me. I’ve never even seen one and, frankly, I don’t really believe they exist.”
Spiers repeatedly doubled down on her views, replying to a flurry of critics to stand by her initial “imaginary monsters” claim.
She even dismissed someone who noted “all the videos showing mentally ill people in the middle of a psychosis.”
“All the videos? That you found on the Internet? That you have no idea where they came from or when they were shot? That you have not independently verified? And I’m the naive one?” she asked.
“My position is that the maybe two recent videos you’ve seen that are real,” she said. The two included the video showing the chokehold death of troubled vagrant Jordan Neely, said Spiers, who defended the subway system as suffering just “an occasional incident.”
“I see far more videos of unhinged people in Walmarts and it doesn’t make me think Walmarts are generally unsafe or stop going into them,” she wrote.
She even stuck by that when someone recounted recently seeing “a homeless guy pull his d–k out and pee off the side of one the subway tracks” at Grand Central in full view of women and kids at rush hour.
“Yeah I saw that s–t where I grew up. Except the guys weren’t homeless,” Spiers claimed dismissively.
When someone else noted how “everyone who’s ridden the subway in NYC for any amount of time has a crazy homeless person story,” Spiers maintained that she had similar experiences “everywhere I’ve ever lived.”
“I fail to see why homeless people on the NYC subway are any different from homeless people at the Walmart in my hometown and why anyone should consider either inherently dangerous,” said the proud “Alabamian/Rednexican.”
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