Universities And A Fork In The Road

There is no dearth of commentary/punditry addressing the Trump administration’s frenzied effort to discard the Constitution and install a Right-wing autocracy, Much of that commentary is thought-provoking. (And yes, much more of it ranges from naive to dissociated from reality.)

A column in last week’s New York Times was one of the best I’ve read.

The author, M. Gessen, was examining the administration’s war on America’s universities, which she quite accurately noted is being driven by anti-intellectualism and greed. As she writes, “Trump is building a mafia state, in which the don distributes both money and power. Universities are independent centers of intellectual and, to some extent, political power. He is trying to destroy that independence.”

Gessen then makes an incredibly important point–one that requires academia to acknowledge how far higher education has strayed from its central purpose, which must be the production and dissemination of knowledge. As she insists, successful resistance will require more than simply refusing to bend to Trump’s will. It will require abandoning concerns about rankings, donors, campus amenities and the like —concerns that, as she correctly points out, tend to preoccupy university administrations and divert them from their core mission.

Most prominent American universities, most of the time, measure their success not so much by the degree to which their faculty and graduates contribute to the world as by the size of their endowment, the number of students seeking admission and their ascent in rankings by U.S. News & World Report and others, which assess the value of a university education in part by looking at graduates’ starting salaries.

Trump has focused on research grants as an ideal instrument to blackmail academic institutions.

His first target, Columbia University, acceded to his demands within two weeks of losing $400 million in grants and contracts. When Columbia’s first sacrifice didn’t bring back the money, the university made another: its interim president, Katrina Armstrong. That didn’t satisfy Trump, who now reportedly wants Columbia to agree to direct government oversight. He is also brandishing financial threats, separately, at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern — and still there is no sign of organized resistance on the part of universities. There is not even a joint statement in defense of academic freedom or an assertion of universities’ value to society. (Even people who have no use for the humanities may see value in medical schools and hospitals.)

The assault on Columbia has demonstrated the futility of submission.

Slashing and burning its way through the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wilson Center, the United States Institute of Peace, the Smithsonian, and others, the administration has shown that it considers knowledge production worthless. In the rare areas where the president — or perhaps Elon Musk — may see value in research, the emergent mafia state is almost certain to distribute funds to its friends. One shudders to think what universities would have to do to fit themselves into that category.

Universities in other countries have faced similar assaults, and some have successfully defied them. Gessen provides a “case study,” from Poland which she acknowledges was radical–but which worked.

Adopting such a radical approach, and forsaking the usual concerns of development offices and communications departments, would be costly, to be sure. The universities most actively targeted by Trump have the resources necessary to weather such a radical reorientation. But as Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, told me, “Too many of our wealthiest universities have made their endowments their primary object of protection.”

I really urge you to click through and read the entire essay. Reading it paradoxically put me in touch with my inner Pollyanna. Perhaps–if resistance to MAGA’s assault on academic and intellectual achievement is successful–it will restore academia’s focus on the essential purpose of education: the production and dissemination of knowledge. Not job training. Certainly not acquiescence to the prejudices and fantasies of a “Dear Leader.”

Gessen’s final paragraphs are worth pondering.

So this is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement.

Alternatively, you can try to negotiate with a mafia boss who wants to see you grovel. When these negotiations fail, as they inevitably will, it will be too late to ask for the public’s support.

Harvard has just refused to be blackmailed by the administration’s threat to withhold a breathtaking nine billion in grants. Here’s hoping other schools follow its example.

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Health And Safety

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry while you’re watching the Keystone Kops dismantle the federal government.

A recent article charting the decimation of HHS under RFK, Jr.–aka Mr. Brain Worm– contained the following tidbits: employees who were laid off and who wanted to pursue discrimination complaints were told to contact Anita Pinder, former director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. Pinder died last year.  Then there was the report that a number of FDA staff members only discovered they were part of the sweeping reduction in force when they arrived for work one morning and their badges would no longer let them into the building.

Kennedy’s haphazard and unprecedented downsizing of the federal health workforce–the dismissal of twenty thousand workers–was evidently conducted with similar inattention to careful analysis, let alone standard procedures or pesky details. The dismissals removed what the article called “a broad swath of expertise: biomedical scientists, staff who respond to freedom of information requests and researchers who work to improve patient safety.”

Those dismissed from HHS included numerous senior leaders–individuals who represented often irreplaceable institutional memory.

At the National Institutes of Health, a nearly $48 billion biomedical research agency, at least five top leaders were put on leave. Among those offered reassignment were the infectious-disease institute director Jeanne Marrazzo, according to emails obtained by The Post and multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Marrazzo had succeeded Anthony S. Fauci as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped lead the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and later became a target of Republicans. An internal email showed that two other leaders there, H. Clifford Lane and Emily Erbelding, also lost their jobs, and the agency had no advance notice of who had been targeted for layoffs through the reduction in force, or RIF

The story was the same throughout the reckless purge of HHS. At the CDC, for example, senior leaders overseeing global health, infectious diseases, chronic disease, HIV, sexually transmitted disease, tuberculosis, outbreak forecasting and information technology were all among those notified that they would be reassigned to the Indian Health Service (a reassignment most refused). The article quoted one official for the probable effect: “The agency will not be able to function. Let’s be honest.”

The purge included some 3500 scientists working on bird flu and vaccine safety, as well as the safety of the U.S. food supply and tobacco products.

“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed,” Robert Califf, who served as FDA commissioner under Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, wrote on LinkedIn on Tuesday morning.

Forbes was among the publications warning that the cuts could have profound effects on the health and well-being of Americans. A capacity to respond to emerging new diseases that has arguably already been inadequate will be even more vastly curtailed; food and drug safety are being imperiled; and research on diseases like cancer, Alzheimers and Parkinsons (among many others) will be dramatically set back. Other cuts significantly reduced the number of caseworkers who assist Affordable Care Act consumers and Medicare beneficiaries.

The list goes on.

And what about the “savings” being touted? Will the vast majority of Americans whose health and safety are being compromised by these ill-considered dismissals at least see a financial benefit? Hardly. The Trump administration is “saving” this money in order to fund further tax reductions for the wealthy–trading the health and well-being of the many for fatter pockets for the few.

America has long been the only Western democratic country without a program of national health care. Now we face the prospect of greatly diminished public health and safety protections, in order to exempt our plutocrats from paying their fair share of taxes.

Makes me want to ask those folks with the red hats: are we great yet?

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It Can Happen Here…

In fact, it’s happening.

I’m old enough to remember learning of the death camps in Nazi Germany, and feeling grateful that I was safe in a good country–a country established on the premise that all men were created equal. Even at that young age I was aware that the United States hadn’t always lived up to its principles, but–like most Americans–I viewed those times as regrettable lapses that we were outgrowing, not as warnings that we, too, harbored many damaged and destructive people intent upon dominating and demeaning those they consider “Other.”

Much as we might wish it, we can no longer pretend that America isn’t in the middle of a coup engineered by oligarchs determined to jettison the Constitution and spit on the rule of law. (Those motives impel the attacks on universities and law firms–they quite correctly see education, law and legal ethics as threats to their ambitions.) Trump and Musk have two main motivations: more rewards for the rich– which requires plundering the nation for the benefit of the “already haves”–and restoring the social and legal dominance of White Christian males.  

The assault on America’s already-inadequate social safety net is intended to move even more wealth to the billionaire class via tax reductions. The effort to restore White “Christian” male supremacy requires a more multi-faceted assault–from demands to rid schools and businesses of DEI and similar demands, none of which the administration has the legal authority to make, to the purging of websites that accurately show contributions made by women and minorities–especially Black people–to efforts to disenfranchise millions of women voters via the Save Act.

As the Center for American Progress has explained,

This legislation would require all Americans to prove their citizenship status by presenting documentation—in person—when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. Specifically, the legislation would require the vast majority of Americans to rely on a passport or birth certificate to prove their citizenship. While this may sound easy for many Americans, the reality is that more than 140 million American citizens do not possess a passport and as many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.

Because documentation would need to be presented in person, the legislation would, in practice, prevent Americans from being able to register to vote by mail; end voter registration drives nationwide; and eliminate online voter registration overnight—a service 42 states rely on. Americans would need to appear in person, with original documentation, to even simply update their voter registration information for a change of address or change in party affiliation. These impacts alone would set voter registration sophistication and technology back by decades and would be unworkable for millions of Americans, including more than 60 million people who live in rural areas. Additionally, driver’s licenses—including REAL IDs—as well military or tribal IDs would not be sufficient forms of documentation to prove citizenship under the legislation.

This attempt may be too blatant to pass the Senate, but the mere fact that the MAGA cult is willing to propose so anti-democratic and anti-woman a measure is stunning–and illuminating.

And then there’s the growing Rightwing radicalization of the military.

Following the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, investigations revealed that at least 151 of the insurrectionists had a military background. In response, the Pentagon issued a historic stand-down order and created a working group on extremism.

In December of 2021, that working group released new policies, defining what constitutes extremist activities, and policing how soldiers behave on social media, including affiliations with extremist organizations. This February, the Department of Defense issued a memo halting efforts to to root out white nationalists and other far-right influences. The reason given was that such efforts were “not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders.”

That would be the same Donald Trump who asserts his authority to arrest and deport immigrants, green card holders, and for that matter, American citizens who oppose him–without due process, and in defiance of court orders. 

I’m quite sure our would-be autocrat knows no history and has never heard of Louis XIV (although he seems to have adopted that monarch’s over-the-top decorating style.) He’s also adopted a sentiment attributed to him– “L’état, c’est moi” (I am the state). Louis XIV saw himself as the embodiment of the French nation, and believed his decisions and desires were the law of the land.

Trump actually has more in common with Louis XVI, who was executed for treason in 1793.

In the absence of a guillotine, I hope to see you all at the protest this Saturday. 

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Hayek’s Warning

Among the many–many–frustrating elements of today’s political discourse is the media’s insistence on characterizing MAGA and the Trump administration as “conservative.” That consistent misuse of language is right up there with the persistent sanewashing of what any sentient American recognizes as insanity coming from he whom a friend recently called “that malignant moron.”

There are multiple ways in which today’s GOP is dramatically inconsistent with genuine conservatism. At the very least, people with a conservative philosophy are notable for wishing to conserve elements of society that have value. Indeed, one of the historic differences between conservatives and liberals has been the reluctance of conservatives to endorse social and institutional changes when the status quo has rather clearly outlived its usefulness.

Conservatives have also been believers in free trade–a belief endorsed by the Republican Party of the past.

True conservatives are thus appalled by the Trump/Musk radical destruction of America’s constitutional and legal framework–and by the incredible and destructive economic ignorance displayed by Trump’s fixation on tariffs.

One of the historical icons of genuine conservatism was Frederich Hayek; back when I was a Republican (and Republicans were largely conservatives, not ignorant racists), Hayek’s Road to Serfdom was required reading for conservative intellectuals, so I was interested to read a recent Bulwark column by Charlie Sykes, in which he noted that Hayek had addressed the reasons for the periodic emergence of Trump-like figures.

Sykes quoted Roger Kimball, for a 2016 essay titled “How Hayek Predicted Trump With His ‘Why the Worst Get on Top’.” (Sykes notes that Kimball has subsequently joined those who fawn over “Dear Leader.”)

The Austrian-born economist and classical liberal, who played such a central role in the emergence of American free market conservatism, had a keen understanding of the temptations of authoritarianism. That’s what makes his warnings seem so prescient. “’Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded,” he wrote. Hayek’s chapter on “Why the Worst Get on Top” in his classic work, The Road to Serfdom, diagnosed the populist impulse that would lead to the demand for ceding power to a “man of action.” This is “the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime.” At some point in a political or economic crisis, there “is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action’s sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough ‘to get things done’ who exercises the greatest appeal….”

Hayek described several preconditions for the rise of a demagogic dictator, including a dumbed down populace, a gullible electorate, and scapegoats on which that demagogue can focus public enmity and anger.

Hayek thought that the more educated a society was, the more diverse members’ tastes and values would become, and the less likely they would be to agree on a particular hierarchy of values.  He observed that the desire to create a high degree of uniformity and similarity of outlook in society requires descending “to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive and ‘common’ instincts and tastes prevail.”

But in a modern society, potential dictators might be able to rely on there being enough of “those whose uncomplicated and primitive instincts,” to support his efforts. As a result, Hayek said, he “will have to increase their numbers by converting more to the same simple creed.” Here is where propaganda comes into play. The “man of action,” Hayek wrote, “will be able to obtain the support of all the docile and gullible, who have no strong convictions of their own but are prepared to accept a ready-made system of values if it is only drummed into their ears sufficiently loudly and frequently.”

Hayek predicted MAGA in his description of the third and most important element of demagoguery: the need to identify an enemy. It is easier, he noted, “for people to agree on a negative programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the “we” and the “they”, the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action.” If you want the “unreserved allegiance of huge masses” you must give them something to hate.

There are some things our “malignant moron” knows instinctively…

There are a number of labels we might apply to Trump’s supporters. “Conservative” isn’t one of them.

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Telling It Like It Is

As Americans try to cope with the national lunacy being imposed on us by the cretins in charge of our federal government, two essential elements of our current disaster have become too obvious to ignore.

First, voters did this. Granted, not a majority–most voters cast their ballots for someone other than the cult leader, and a disgraceful number of American citizens didn’t even bother to vote. Trump’s “victory” was razor-thin–but it was a victory, and we are reaping the consequences of that disastrous civic failure.

Second, the overwhelming reason voters supported Trump was racism. Those voters didn’t cast ballots for the destruction of America’s global dominance, or for the evisceration of Medicaid and Social Security; most of them (if they followed actual news and knew what was going on) would oppose measures hobbling the IRS’ ability to audit our billionaire overlords. No–what they wanted, and what the administration is providing, is culture war, an effort to take the United States back to the social arrangements of the 1950s and before, a time when LGBT folks were closeted, no one had even heard the word “trans,” women were in the kitchen, and Black people “knew their place.”

A recent essay from Jennifer Rubin in The Contrarian examined the language MAGA employs in an effort to veil that obvious effort. Prominent, of course, is the administration’s war against “DEI.” (It’s so much nicer to rail against letters of the alphabet than to use the N word…)

As with “CRT,” the MAGA censors, thought police (aimed at rooting out “improper ideology”), Great Replacement paranoids, and outright bigots cannot tell us precisely what “DEI” is—they merely know they are dead set against it. Teaching children to hate America. Making whites feel guilty. Quotas. None of that resembles the “DEI” practices utilized by universities, employers, researchers, and government entities—but that’s irrelevant to them.

Nuanced concepts (e.g., outreach to recruit Americans of all backgrounds, medical trials to ensure women’s physiology is taken into account) do not appeal to people who think Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick epitomize “merit.”

Increasingly “DEI” in the MAGA dictionary has come to mean “Blacks” or “women” or “a convenient scapegoat who represents the ‘other.’” A plane goes down? DEI. A museum pays tribute to the greatness of Jackie Robinson? DEI.

Increasingly, the anti-DEI mission has become an explicit attempt to blame or erase non-whites, females, and other disenfranchised groups. Remember when they used to oppose “canceling” people and policing speech? MAGA ideologues no longer hide their core belief: that white men are inherently qualified, the “true” history of America has been made by white males, and non-white men are to blame for all calamities.

What Rubin correctly calls a “ham-handed effort to bolster white advantage” doesn’t conceal the obvious. The goal is to resegregate America, to return the country to what White Christian Nationalists believe is the proper, “Godly” order of things: dominance of White Christian Males over everyone else. As Rubin notes, if we had any doubts of that goal, Trump’s repeal of LBJ’s Executive Order 11375 gives the game away.

LBJ’s Executive Order “gave the Secretary of Labor the authority to ensure equal opportunity for people of color and women in federal contractors’ recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices,” The point was simple; if the federal government was contracting with private firms, it had the right to demand that those firms refrain from discriminating. If the composition of the relevant workforce was markedly different from local demographics, that didn’t necessarily preclude contracting, but the business would need to show that it had taken affirmative steps to recruit a more representative workforce.

In other words, the government wasn’t going to use our tax dollars to reward intentional discrimination.

As Rubin points out,

The anti-DEI crusade seems aimed to repeal the fundamental statutory and constitutional protections that prohibit discrimination and give meaning to “All men are created equal.” After all, if the MAGA crowd really wanted to root out unfairness and promote merit they would insist we reject unqualified white appointees and dump legacy admissions at colleges and universities schools. Instead, the anti-DEI crusade aims to bolster white entitlement and eradicate any sense of obligation to right society’s wrongs.

The war against “DEI” and the effort to make “woke” an epithet are intended to cloak MAGA’S racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism with neutral language, to pretend that efforts to address systemic inequalities are the problem, not the inequalities themselves.

Ironically, in voting their fears and bigotries, MAGA folks voted to retreat from the foundational principles that really did make America great.

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