Cambridge Residents Slam Reappointment of Inflammatory Blogger to City Committee

Updated November 26, 2024, at 3:32 p.m.

More than a dozen residents and a City Councilor criticized the reappointment of civic blogger Robert Winters to the Central Square Advisory Committee at a Council meeting Monday, citing his history of offensive social media posts.

Winters, who runs the Cambridge Civic Journal, first came under fire during his failed bid for City Council last year, as local activists and other candidates surfaced posts he had made on X — then Twitter — saying that “Islam and government don’t mix” and alerting the far-right Libs of TikTok account to a drag queen story hour held at the Cambridge Public Library.

On Monday, residents used those posts to argue that he was unfit to serve on the committee. Winters previously served on the committee for more than 20 years until his term ended in June.

“Robert Winters makes Cambridge less safe for queer and trans people,” said Siobhan McDonough, who identified herself as transgender. “As this Council knows, he invited a right-wing provocateur, one known for her posts causing bomb threats, to direct her hate mobs towards Cambridge.”

Dan Totten, who ran against Winters for City Council last year, said he “has put the LGBTQ community in this city in danger by alerting conservative TikTok accounts to a drag story hour at the library, and that is a problem.”

The criticism was amplified by Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler, who said Winters “has a history of anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim posts on social media.”

City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05, who reappointed Winters to fill a vacancy on the committee, said some of Winters’ views don’t “reflect the values of our city,” adding that “this is an especially difficult time for our transgender community” following Donald Trump’s reelection.

But he said that after consulting with the city’s Law Department, he came to the understanding that he could not rescind an appointment without “cause and due process,” adding that the concerns around Winters were “not a sufficient reason.”

“Mr. Winters has been serving for the last 20 years on the Central Square Advisory Committee. He is well known to each and every one of us, and usually sits in this chamber every week,” Huang said. “And until the reappointment last week, nobody has been contacting me or just or asking him not to be reappointed.”

In an email Monday night, Winters said he had not watched the Council meeting but called his reappointment to the committee “routine” and said there was “no merit in any of the negative things they said about me.”

He also accused Totten of running a “hateful campaign against me for well over a year.”

“Honestly, this should not even be a story - except as a personal squabble that has been elevated to absurd proportions by one individual,” Winters wrote.

Totten wrote in an email Monday night that Winters’ “lack of remorse is deeply troubling and residents had a unified message that he should not continue to represent Mid Cambridge on the Central Square Advisory Committee.”

“Instead of pointing fingers, Robert should reflect on the broad sentiment in the chamber and apologize to everyone he has harmed,” he wrote.

During the meeting, Sobrinho-Wheeler also argued that the case was an opportunity to examine how the city fills its 60 boards, commissions, councils, and task forces.

“I do think it's incumbent to try to make sure we get folks who really represent the values of Cambridge on them,” he said. “We’re a city of 120,000 people. There are so many folks who would be great on this committee.”

Several officials acknowledged that Winters had made unsavory comments on social media, but defended his character and his expertise in Cambridge politics.

Huang criticized what he described as an impulse “not just to oppose the hurtful things that are said, but also to seek to cancel into silence, into exile, the people who have said them.”

“We speak about valuing a diverse community, and some of that diversity will mean people who hold views or say things that are hurtful or harmful to others,” Huang said. “I’m not sure if it’s a wise policy if cities are seeking to draw ideological circles and exclude those who are outside of them.”

Councilor Catherine “Cathie” Zusy said she finds Winters “insightful and refreshing.”

She said she feels “very sad that a few divergent comments that he’s made might prevent him from contributing to the city as a member of this committee, where he would make substantial, substantial contributions,”

“He’s not a scary or dangerous person,” she added. “He’s an extraordinarily devoted Cambridge citizen who has good ideas and has posted some stupid things.”

Although Councilor Paul F. Toner said Winters’s online remarks were a “mistake,” he said he also supported the reappointment.

“I think he brings a lot of great value to the City of Cambridge,” he said. “I hope we can move beyond this because I think we have to be able to have conversations across the table.”

—Staff writer Benjamin Isaac can be reached at benjamin.isaac@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @benjaminisaac_1.