So disappointing! A friend recently sent me a copy of a post that has been making the rounds: it shows the letter that Education Secretary Linda McMahon recently sent to Harvard–a letter filled with vitriol and announcing the cut-off of any further grants to that University–with copious red mark-ups correcting its numerous grammatical and spelling errors. The post suggested that Harvard had returned the letter with those mark-ups to the Education Secretary.
Unfortunately, it turned out not to be true. (Granted, had Harvard done so, it would have been petty and unnecessarily provocative.) As it was, the circulation of the post simply underlined the fact that McMahon–like all of Trump’s appointees–is massively unfit for her role.
One thing the letter did accomplish–probably accidentally–was the abandonment of what has always been a phony motive for Trump’s assaults on higher education: his purported concerns about anti-Semitism on the nation’s campuses.
As an article in the Atlantic recently observed,
What you will not find in the McMahon letter is any mention of the original justification for the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on elite universities: anti-Semitism. As a legal pretext for trying to financially hobble the Ivy League, anti-Semitism had some strategic merit. Many students and faculty justifiably feel that these schools failed to take harassment of Jews seriously enough during the protests that erupted after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. By centering its critique on that issue, the administration was cannily appropriating for its own ends one of the progressive left’s highest priorities: protecting a minority from hostile acts.
Now, however, the mask is off. Aside from one oblique reference to congressional hearings about anti-Semitism (“the great work of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik”), the letter is silent on the subject. The administration is no longer pretending that it is standing up for Jewish students. The project has been revealed for what it is: an effort to punish liberal institutions for the crime of being liberal.
As the article noted, McMahon’s letter contained a “disconnected grab bag of grievances.”
The original reason given for the assaults on academia–concern about anti-Semitism–was always laughable, especially given Donald Trump’s own amply documented history of anti-Jewish bias. Wikipedia even has an entry detailing that history. It includes everything from his constant use of anti-Semitic tropes, to his weird accusation that Jews who support Democrats are “disloyal to Israel” and that Jews who are Democrats “hate their religion.” (I assume this accusation follows his acceptance of the old canard that America’s Jews have “dual loyalties”– loyalties that mean we are supposed to favor Israel over other countries, no matter what Israel is doing at any given time and no matter how many of us see its government’s actions as grossly inconsistent with time-honored Jewish values.)
A gratifying number of Jewish organizations have issued denunciations of Trump’s efforts to pretend that his assaults on universities have anything to do with legitimate concern for the Jewish students on those campuses. These “not in our name” statements reject what they’ve accurately labeled as Trump’s effort to use Jews as pawns masking an overtly political agenda.
Trump’s animus toward universities–especially Ivy League universities–is undoubtedly rooted in his festering and well-documented resentment over his failure to be accepted by the graduates of those institutions who dominated elite society in New York, and who dismissed him as the needy and pretentious buffoon he was.
MAGA’s rage at institutions of higher education, however, has more ideological roots, as displayed in a 2021 speech by JD Vance, titled “The Universities Are the Enemy.” As the article in the Atlantic noted,
Then–Senate candidate J. D. Vance declared that universities, as left-wing gatekeepers of truth and knowledge, “make it impossible for conservative ideas to ultimately carry the day.” The solution, Vance said, was to “honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.” We’ve been seeing the aggressive part of that formula for two months. With the McMahon letter, the administration has gotten much closer to honesty.
I think Vance has confused “conservative ideas” with reactionary ones. Conservatives typically seek to preserve an existing social and economic order, while reactionaries typically want to return to a perceived golden age, and to reverse the current direction of society. Project 2025 is an excellent example of a reactionary document.
There’s a reason so many actual conservatives are “never-Trumpers.”
Trump himself is neither conservative nor reactionary–he’s the useful fool being used by the reactionary forces behind Project 2025. JD Vance is right about one thing: universities are enemies to ignorance and reaction.
The attack on them has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
Donald Trump has a long history of working with Jews. And develop a extremely close relationships. Unfortunately, those Jews were of the criminal element, and is evident by those who frequented the Trump Tower. His first war counselor was a previous mob counselor who happened to be Jewish! Roy Cohn was his name and he was a real doozy. Birds of a feather! There’s a reason why this current presidency and his previous one, resembles a mob organization more than a political one.
Why is a criminal allowed to run out the clock, litigating his way to absolution? It really is pathetic, the leniency given an obvious criminal and bigot, and that the criminal is always given the benefit of the doubt. Over decades of criminal activity, there should be no benefit of the doubt and no leniency.
How could one justify being a dyed in the wool Nazi and have a friendship with a certain sleazy element of Jewish criminality? Well birds of a feather stick together. It’s not about a religion, ethnicity or race, it’s about skirting the law, to enrich oneself by being a dishonest broker always keeping their thumb on the scale. Being a carpetbagger never ruin out violence to accomplish their goal! If there ever was a picture of the man of lawlessness, it would be number 45.
But it does go to show how cowardly the political system is, afraid of one dude, a dude that everyone thinks is crazy, so they’re not sure exactly what that dude would do when cornerd. Capitulation towards that particular individual Just gives him the go-ahead to continue his lawless behavior. And those enablers don’t have the right to complain.
Never ruling out violence to accomplish their goal.
Not ruin! Oops.
John Sorg mentions Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, being Jewish, but don’t forget Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein, whom Trump “disappeared” in his first term. Many of the Jewish criminal element were part of the Mossad network. I’ll also add Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine’s daddy, to that crew. As I’ve noted before, Jeffrey videotaped everything to collect compromising material on the financial and political elite in the US and Europe. Where are those videos, and why hasn’t Bondi made one arrest against the pedophiles? 😉
Miriam Adelson owns Trump and props him up as a savior to American and Israeli Jewry, but he’s anything but a savior. He’s just a usable pawn, but not very reliable. However, I suspect he’s being used to putting Bibi Netanyahu out to pasture. This Middle East trip is just one example. The really nice grift, I mean gift, from Qatar has probably upset Bibi as well. A well-researched independent journalist says Bibi was in Germany looking for security/protection because he doesn’t trust Trump. I think Bibi’s hubris may have cost him.
Here’s what I find interesting: many Jewish Americans give sizable gifts to Ivy League universities, and they used those gifts to influence the presidents to kill off the campus protests last year. Even our mass media assisted in that project by calling the students “pro-terrorists,” “pro-Hamas,” or “pro-Palestinian.” None of them called the student protesters anti-genocide, which was precisely what they were.
Which begs the question: Is the battle against Ivy League schools really about being liberal or woke, or is there something else going on?
I read the letter the Trump administration sent to Harvard, and it was apparent to me that Trump wanted to control the school. The demands went far beyond DEI or treating Jewish students fairly. I think it has more to do with the university’s independence. Trump and Vance want the schools to be obedient to the regime, and Harvard flipped them both off. Now it’s about control, IMHO.
Todd. I’d say all the atrocities we are seeing are about control. Control of wealth, control of the courts, control of our bodies, control of everything. These are egomaniacal people addicted to power and utterly conscience free.
Yes, Sharon, control is right. Control of the law enforcers and makers. Why? To allow more crimes to go unpunished. It’s as clear as the writing on the wall at a once-famous feast: These bastards are in it for the biggest grift in world history.
On the matter of the attacks on higher education: It’s deliciously ironic that a bunch of intellectual and evil dwarfs are going after the elite in education and universities where our very civilization learns how to be everything it is intended to be.
This is our darkest day in our history since the mid-19th century. Only time will tell if we’ll recover in time to prevent another mass self-inflicted wound.
In 1970, law enforcement was authorized to use live ammunition against peaceful student anti-war protesters at Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi.
There were no allegations that the nationwide 1970 student protesters in multiple states and multiple campuses were antisemitic.
Dropping the pretense, the 1970 students were killed by government because they were protesting a war the government was financing.
The Trump family criminal enterprise was financially vulnerable at the start of Trump 1.0, but due to insider trading behind our collective backs, they will be (in fact, may already be) in the billionaire class by the end of Trump 2.0.
He will also have succeeded in making the rest of us poorer by isolating us from every aspect of the rest of humanity.
That is the best-case scenario because the worst-case scenario is unthinkable.
We see the effects mounting daily because the rest of the world cannot afford to be associated with us.
This is all because we fell for the disguising of dysfunctional as conservative.
We are making history. We live in history in the making.
Gordon Evans…
Not only did the government kill those unarmed students, but many among this blog supported the Republican Party during and thus decades after those events.
In fact, we keep reading from the “professor ” how the Republican Party was once a bastion of nobility.
That revisionist tripe requires me to forget the events mentioned and of course…. The Southern Strategy.
Btw,if the average American has only a sixth grade reading level, it’s obvious America’s education system failed long before Trump arrived at the WH.
“Many students and faculty justifiably feel that these schools failed to take harassment of Jews seriously enough” – I kind of wish how people “felt” VS the reality of the situation was ever considered.
I don’t recall any “anti-Jewish” protests. I recall anti-mass-killing-of-innocent-people protests. I recall pro-Palestinian survival protests. I recall people saying “hey, the hard-right psychos in charge of Israel are killing WAY too many women and children, they should stop it” protests.
It’s kind of messed up that all those protests were always reported as pro-Hamas rather than pro the survival of innocent people. It doesn’t depend and it isn’t complicated. Israel’s (hard-right, monstrous government of lunatics) response to the attack against them is an axiomatic evil. You should be allowed to say that without being called anti-Semitic.
IU, as an example, deployed soldiers with scopes and riffles and sit on the roof of various buildings and aim at students who were peacefully protesting about a messed up atrocity. So…. who, exactly, wasn’t responding hard enough for these people? What did they want? How many bag-over-the-head, disappeared into an unmarked van for saying “stop bombing hospitals!” would be enough to feel better/consider the response to protesters enough?
Apologies for ranting. This whole “1,000 innocent people killed so respond by killing 55k+ and counting innocent/unrelated people” just enrages me.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but consider the following:
BiBi was facing mass protests at home for his attempt to take over the judiciary.
BiBi was about to face trial for corruption.
BiBi funded Hamas..
BiBi was advised that Hamas was planning a major action in the near future.
BiBi moved IDF troops out of the area.
Hamas struck, killing a thousand Israelis.
BiBi started his revenge play.
BiBi dragged out the war and played games with cease fires.
BiBi suddenly had minimized the protests against him..
Someone please tell me if I’ve gotten anything wrong.
BTW most American Jews don’t approve of the Netanyahu regime and many of them were in the tents with the protesters. Being Jewish doesn’t mean following the leaders of Israel.
Ian, given what you said about the sad state of reading levels in the country, it may be that the various states that make up the “Red” group, have long failed to properly educate their children, as was the case in Florididia, even before DeSantis came along.
Regarding Trump’s BS about anti-semitism, I wish to point out that every rationalization he has put forward for any of his actions is BS.
And, yes, grifting is his game.