Editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine resigns after anti-Trump rant on social media

11/20/2024 / By Laura Harris

Laura Helmuth, editor-in-chief of the Scientific American magazine, has resigned from her position in the publication after a series of social media posts labeling people who voted for President-elect Donald Trump as “fascists.”

Helmuth assumed her role as editor-in-chief of the United States’ oldest continuously published magazine in April 2020 after serving at the Washington Post. On Nov. 14, she posted inflammatory comments on the social media platform Bluesky – heralded as an alternative to X by many Democrats.

In one post, she referred to Trump supporters as “fascists” and criticized her own generation, Generation X, for being “so full of f—–g fascists.” Another post described her home state of Indiana as “racist and sexist.”

Helmuth later deleted the posts and issued an apology, saying her posts did not reflect her beliefs but were an emotional reaction to the election results.

“I respect and value people across the political spectrum,” she wrote on Bluesky. “These posts, which I have deleted, do not reflect my beliefs; they were a mistaken expression of shock and confusion about the election results.” (Related: Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic who compared Trump to Hitler was a prison guard at IDF facility known for abusing prisoners.)

However, screenshots of the comments quickly circulated widely on X. Critics accused her of politicizing the Scientific American, a publication historically devoted to science and discovery, rather than partisan commentary.

Under her leadership, the magazine took an unprecedented political stance, endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time in its 175-year history by supporting Joe Biden over Trump in 2020.

This year, the Scientific American endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris over Trump.

Not the first “Trump-related” resignation in the industry

This incident is not the first “Trump-related” resignation in the publication industry.

A few days before the 2024 presidential election, two prominent Washington Post columnists also resigned after billionaire Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided not to endorse a presidential candidate. The non-endorsement, posted by publisher and chief executive William Lewis, revealed that the publication decided to return to its roots of “not endorsing presidential candidates” this presidential election and in any future presidential elections.

As a response, two of its prominent columnists resigned. The newspaper’s editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, was the first to go. He has been accusing Trump of being “anti-Ukraine,” while suggesting that he could “destroy democracy” if re-elected.

Michele Norris, another prominent opinion columnist and former NPR host, followed suit. In a thread posted on X, Norris, who joined the Washington Post as a reporter in 1988, called the decision a “terrible mistake.”

“As of yesterday, I have decided to resign from my role as a columnist for WaPo — a newspaper that I love. In a moment like this, everyone needs to make their own decisions. This is the reason for mine. [WaPo’s] decision to withhold an endorsement that had been written & approved in an election where core democratic principles are at stake was a terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard of regularly endorsing candidates since 1976, ” she said in October.

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