Nathan J. Robinson

Nathan James Robinson (born August 23, 1989) is an English-American writer, political commentator, and editor-in-chief of the left-wing progressive Current Affairs magazine, which he founded in 2015.

Early life and education Born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Robinson moved with his family to Sarasota, Florida, at age five. His father worked for an international corporate training firm in Britain before the move. Afterwards he pursued a PhD in sociology and social policy at Harvard University. He took a leave of absence from the program after founding Current Affairs, eventually receiving his PhD in May 2022. Robinson lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Career

Robinson founded the left-wing and socialist magazine Current Affairs in 2015 after a Kickstarter campaign raised $16,000.

On February 10, 2021, Robinson published an article alleging that Guardian US editor John Mulholland fired him for tweeting criticism of U.S. military aid to Israel; Robinson had been a Guardian columnist. Robinson wrote a pair of tweets: "Did you know that the US congress is not actually permitted to authorize any new spending unless a portion of it is directed toward buying weapons for Israel? It’s the law.", and "or if not actually the written law then so ingrained in political custom as to functionally be indistinguishable from law". In his article, he said the tweets were a joke. A representative for Guardian US stated Robinson was "neither a staff employee nor on contract and so was not 'fired'". Reason magazine said the distinction is marginal for recurring columnists.

Staffing controversy In August 2021, Robinson asked a number of Current Affairs staff to resign after disagreements on how the company should be run. Some staffers accused Robinson of asking staffers to resign because they wanted the magazine to be a worker-owned co-op. Journalist Glenn Greenwald called Robinson a "brazen hypocrite" on Twitter, and National Review writer Caroline Downey called Robinson's actions hypocritical.

Political views

Robinson is a proponent of libertarian socialism, citing Noam Chomsky as his main political influence. He has criticized both totalitarian state socialism and free-market libertarian capitalism.

He supports abortion rights, animal rights, Medicare for All, and LGBTQ rights.

Robinson has been critical of American foreign policy, including its military interventions in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. He has remained critical of Israel and its human rights record. He has also criticized the United States' support for Israel and the United States' hostility towards critics of Israel.

Robinson supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 United States presidential election. After Sanders lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton, Robinson voted for Clinton. In the 2020 United States presidential election he supported Sanders again.

According to reporter Alaric DeArment, writing in Above the Law, when Tara Reade alleged that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her, Robinson published articles in Current Affairs "equating genuine skepticism with ad hominem attacks against Reade". One of the articles had the headline "Everything Has Changed Overnight" and he wrote another article supporting Reade's allegation. As editor of Current Affairs, he published a transcript of Reade's interview with Katie Halper. DeArment wrote that Robinson's conversations with Reade and her brother Collin Moulton "amounted to PR consulting, while operating in a journalistic capacity. This creates a significant conflict of interest—something that journalists are taught early on to avoid".

Robinson identifies as an atheist, but has criticized prominent exponents of New Atheism, including Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, saying, "at their worst they were bigoted and ignorant, possessing the very qualities that they deplored in the religious".