New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was ripped on social media Friday after he wrote that “there wasn’t a mass outbreak of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence” following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
“Overall, Americans took 9/11 pretty calmly,” Krugman wrote in a series of tweets to his more than 4.6 million followers. “Notably, there wasn’t a mass outbreak of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence, which could all too easily have happened. And while GW Bush was a terrible president, to his credit he tried to calm prejudice, not feed it.”
The tweet generated more than 25,000 mostly negative responses as of Friday afternoon.
Hate crimes against American Muslims surged after the 9/11 attacks, which were carried out by al Qaeda terrorists led by Osama bin Laden.
Krugman won a Nobel Prize for economics in 2008.