APPETITE FOR SELF-DESTRUCTION: 1619 Project’s Nikole Hannah-Jones picks a fight over Frederick Douglass and gets TKO’d.

In his best-selling 2000 book Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks wrote:

To get the most attention, the essay should be wrong. Logical essays are read and understood. But an illogical or wrong essay will prompt dozens of other writers co rise and respond, thus giving the author mounds of publicity. Yale professor Paul Kennedy had a distinguished but unglamorous career under his belt when he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, predicting American decline. He was wrong, and hundreds of other commentators rose to say so, thus making him famous and turning his book into a bestseller. Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay called “The End of History,” which seemed wrong to people who read only the title. Thousands of essayists wrote pieces pointing out that history had not ended, and Fukuyama became a global sensation.

Hannah-Jones seems determined to take her fellow Timesperson’s advice to spectacular heights.