Politico Editor Michael Hirsh Resigns After Threatening White Nationalist on Facebook

Image by C-SPAN
A top editor at Politico quit over a social media post in which he suggested attacking white nationalist Richard Spencer — who happens to be his own neighbor.
Michael Hirsh, former national editor, spoke about taking baseball bats to Spencer and even posted the ‘alt-right’ figure’s home address on his own street in suburban Washington D.C.
“He lives part of the time next door to me … Our grandfathers brought baseball bats to Bund meetings. Want to join me?” Hirsh, Politico’s former national editor, wrote on Facebook, in comments reproduced by the Daily Mail, referring to meetings of an American Nazi organization active in the 1930s.
“Here are his home addresses,” he wrote on Twitter, disclosing Spencer’s address in Arlington, Virginia as well as another in Montana. “I think it’s good that Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer is moving to Washington. It’s important that we know where he lives.”
It is a common tactic of Internet trolls on the “alt-right” to “dox” their victims, parlance for the dumping of personal information and whereabouts.
Hirsh, a longtime Washington, D.C. journalist who used to write at the National Journal, swiftly resigned after the posts came to light. Politico denounced his words in a statements from editor-in-chief John Harris and editor Carrie Budoff Brown.
“These posts were clearly outside the bounds of acceptable discourse, and POLITICO editors regard them as a serious lapse of newsroom standards,” the two wrote. “They crossed a line in ways that the publication will not defend, and editors are taking steps to ensure that such a lapse does not occur again.”
Spencer, coiner of the term ‘alt-right,’ has emerged a figure of notoriety and newfound influence in the wake of Donald Trump’s political rise. He is the founder of the National Policy Institute, a think tank that promotes the creation of a white “ethnostate.”
He attracted negative attention in the press last week, on the heels of an “alt-right” conference in Washington, D.C. at which he threw up a Nazi salute and questioned the personhood of Jews, comparing them to the golem monsters of Yiddish folklore.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion How Trump’s attacks on the university target what has made America great for Jews
-
Culture This Jewish New Yorker survived the Holocaust and the Hungarian Revolution, and is still helping others today
-
Fast Forward Trump says he and Netanyahu are ‘on the same side of every issue’ following talks on Iran, tariffs
-
Fast Forward California school board members accused of antisemitism during contentious meeting
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.