Seattle Times Editorial Board Member Fired After Comparing Lenin And Hitler On Twitter

A journalist whose family was targeted by Nazi Germany was fired from his position as an editorial board member for The Seattle Times after he was accused of “defending” Adolf Hitler on Twitter.

David Josef Volodzko began his career as a university lecturer but decided to switch to journalism to report on injustices throughout the world. He has spent the past 15 years covering stories about refugees, prisoners of war, and war itself. In an essay about his firing posted to Bari Weiss’ Substack “The Free Press,” Volodzko describes himself as a democratic socialist and notes that his wife is a DEI trainer.

None of that prepared him for the current cancel culture movement.

David Voldzko was fired from his job after comparing Lenin and Hitler.

David Voldzko

Volodzko thought that he, his wife, and his baby daughter would fit in perfectly in ultra-progressive Seattle.

His first official column for the Times was about Seattle’s statue of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. Volodzko wrote about how the people of the Fremont neighborhood in which it stands dress it up and make it a joke, but also about his own family’s struggles and Lenin’s genocidal killings.

He received positive and negative responses, as any columnist would. The column was never the issue, but the words Volodzko used to post it on Twitter cost him his job.

“In fact, while Hitler has become the great symbol of evil in history books, he too was less evil than Lenin because Hitler only targeted people he personally believed were harmful to society whereas Lenin targeted even those he himself didn’t believe were harmful in any way,” Volodzko wrote in a now-deleted tweet.

He followed up this post by explaining that he was only comparing the two by their intentions, not their actual atrocities.

“Hitler was more evil than Lenin if we’re looking at what they did to people and that’s a pretty important metric for assessing evil!” he wrote.

As Volodzko noted in his essay, this is the kind of topic one could debate in person, but not on Twitter. “And the argument I was making is a fraught one even under the best of circumstances—you don’t need to compare anyone to Hitler to argue that they are evil — and my delivery was poor, to say the least,” he wrote.

He was accused of “defending” Hitler and had his life threatened.

Six days later, Volodzko thought his job was safe after he was told the media outlet stood by him. But he was soon fired for “poor judgment” and “continuing to engage online.” After he was terminated, the paper issued an apology statement that appeared to contradict that reasoning.

“An editorial writer engaged in Twitter recently in a way that is inconsistent with our company values,” the paper wrote. “We apologize for any pain we have caused our readers, our employees and the community.”

Volodzko is now trying to earn income through his Substack, “The Radicalist,” in which he covers political extremism from communism to fascism and the cancel culture environment of which he is a recent victim.

On Saturday, Elon Musk announced that his company – which he has renamed X – would fight for anyone punished by an employer for their actions on his platform.

“If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill,” Musk tweeted. “No limit. Please let us know.”

Volodzko responded to the tweet with his Substack essay, and Musk eventually responded by saying: “This does sound like a good case.”

It is unclear whether anything will come of Musk’s response, and any action would not be immediate for Volodzko and his family, but it does provide some hope.

Millions Of Americans Give Up Hope They’ll Ever Be Able To Retire, Poll Finds

It’s not just young people who are getting screwed by the current economy.

New surveys are finding that a striking proportion of older hard-working Americans no longer harbor aspirations of retirement.

The notion of retirement, once held as a sacred stage of life and a shared expectation in the workforce, now finds itself fading away. A secure and comfortable retirement necessitates diligent savings, and yet, many toil under the weight of insufficient funds.

A poll conducted by Axios and Ipsos in July found an astonishing 29% of workers under the age of 55 boldly declared, “I don’t believe I will ever retire.”

“One in five Americans don’t think they’ll ever retire. Among the people who don’t think they’ll ever retire, a decisive majority (70%) say that they won’t ever retire because they can’t or won’t be able to afford to retire, versus 19% of people who just don’t want to retire (an additional 10% picked ‘other’ as a response),” the pollsters wrote.

In another study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a staggering one-third of workers now anticipate reluctantly bidding adieu to the workforce at the ripe age of 70 or beyond, or worse, never doing so.

A third report, this one from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, echoed a similar sentiment, revealing that 40% of Generation X employees and nearly half of the Baby Boomer generation had resigned themselves to the prospects of retiring after the age of 70 — or surrendering altogether.

It appears that apprehensions surrounding retirement are on the rise. The EBRI survey unveiled a disconcerting reality; the percentage of workers intending to postpone retirement magnified to 33% in 2023 from 29% in 2022 and just 26% in 2021.

Ironically, the summer of 2023 seems an inopportune moment for Americans to find themselves grappling with dwindling retirement coffers. A substantial 75% of all 401(k) funds lay invested in the ebbs and flows of the stock market, which, at large, is experiencing an upward trajectory, notwithstanding some recent market turbulence.

Census data reveals a staggering statistic: more than 40% of Baby Boomers aged 55-64 have no retirement savings. Reasons range from limited options in small companies to being self-employed or lacking the means to save. A NerdWallet analysis shows that this age group’s median retirement savings account sits at a modest $71,168. However, this falls woefully short of the commonly accepted wisdom that workers will need around $1.8 million for a comfortable retirement, as revealed in a recent Charles Schwab survey.

As if this weren’t concerning enough, many Americans express doubt about their ability to live comfortably in retirement. According to the 2023 EBRI survey, 36% of respondents have little or no confidence in their financial security after retirement. Alarmingly, this figure has increased from 27% just a year ago.

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The picture is no brighter for Generation X workers, with only 17% feeling “very confident” about their retirement prospects, according to Transamerica research. It’s worth noting that the oldest members of this demographic are nearing the age of 60.

Amidst these sobering realities, it’s clear that urgent action is needed to address the retirement crisis in the United States.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

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