Well, that's a terrible way to start the morning. Alas, this sort of damage isn't going to be undone anytime soon. This is going to long outlive Trump, and it might outlive me.
I'm sorry you have to write about this so often, but I appreciate your takes
You think this is a bad way to start the morning? What I did was worse. I read Adam Serwer’s article, “The New Dark Age,” before I went to bed last night. 😳
Right on. Undermining US leadership in knowledge creation and, to put it bluntly, in snarfing up the best minds from all over the globe, is a strategic error of massive proportions. Our postwar leadership at global level derived in significant part from attracting the best minds and giving them the freedom and resources to to their best work. (As the child of a Europea scientist who immigrated to the US, this history is very personal to me.) And Serwer is absolutely correct in describing the assault on universities and on knowledge creation as a dimension of the authoritarian/quasi-monarchical project which unites virtually all the actions of the Trump regime.
Education is where power and free thinking collide so illegitimate power always attempts to crush education. A coordinated undermining of free thinking in general is also served by a splashy attack on Harvard. This spectacle is calculated to rally MAGA. Unfortunately, the spectacle of bringing a place like Harvard to heel will resonate with many people in middle America. Harvard reads "snob". This is a Trump produced reality show with a class warfare theme.
Trump's play here is to use Harvard as a vehicle for a class-based populist-like backlash from the put-upon. And I think it could work unless his nefarious plan is directly countered. Superficially, taking Harvard down feels like sticking a thumb in the eye of snobs to a lot of people. My guess is this framing will be effective in the real world unless and until political actors and public figures frame the Harvard attack through the language of universal values and broaden the public's perspective about the practical effect of attacking Harvard. I have yet to see the Democratic party using a coordinated message campaign in this way, although some individual Democrats are.
Professional educators have a leg up here. Teachers know how to meet students where they are. Others have this training as well. Teachers, trial lawyers and clergy use specific techniques to help people internalize abstractions. They apply concrete examples to peoples' lived experiences so they can build a thought castle enabling them to connect the dots. Ask voters to put themselves in Harvard's shoes weathering an attack by government. Lead people to make the connections between what DOGE and Project 2025 are doing to FEMA, the VA, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Parks, etc. to harm everyone's interests in the same way as Harvard is being harmed. Allow people to take Harvard's side against Trump.
Basically, our rhetoric needs to ignite the public's natural antipathy to the raw application of power and then train that antipathy on Trump. For too long, Trump has positioned himself as the champion of the little guy against power. Now is time to reveal him as the champion of illegitimate power against the little guy. Which is what he has always been because he is a people-user, not a people-helper.
These attacks on higher ed are not and will not affect only Harvard. International students often pay the full freight of tuition which is much, much higher than what domestic students pay. Without these students across the country, every parent and/or aspiring college student will ultimately end up paying more for their education because of trump’s attempted destruction of higher ed, science, culture, and everything that is good about the US.
Personally I think the decision to attack Harvard isn't petty but strategic. It serves two key purposes. The first is to rile their base. "Harvard" is also an easy code for "elitist liberal out of touch institution your kids won't get into." so beating them up creates the spectacle of attacking the ivory tower. The second is that Harvard is the tallest stalk of wheat and like Thrasybulus he understands that you cut down the tall wheat as a message. Trump is trying to do both and he will not rest till he gets some blood.
His reasons of course are wrong, and if he is allowed to succeed we will all suffer. But the Republican party has already turned away from education and the law. So we have no hope in any of them, not anymore.
You should be concerned about the "why". Simply because of zionists and AIPAC. How dare the school that so many zionists attended allow protests that crticise Israel.
I think one of the goals is to make elite schools rich and white again. Harvard and others of its ilk will go back to being small(er) undergraduate schools and much less diverse, as they were pre-GI bill, instead of international centers of excellence.
Not only Trump and not just Harvard though. The House bill taxes endowment at a punitive rate, which applies to many schools. Not sure effect on Tufts, per se. That alone will destroy the upper reaches of higher education.
Said it before, but by agreeing with Trump that the peace protests were in reality hate marches, Harvard and others put themselves in a greatly weakened position. They painted themselves into a corner, and now are paying the price.
I attended that Center for Jewish History panel virtually and I can say with confidence that our host was right about Bill Ackman who seemed to be there as an emissary from MAGA social media. In any event Ackman tried to threaten American universities by saying that German universities before they became infected by antisemitism used to be the best in the world and Heidelberg was the Harvard of its day. He also said that you can see from the tariffs that overreaching is a classic Trump negotiating technique. Well, Trump has piled overreach on top of overreach in a way that didn't happen with the tariffs when China could say no to him. And I think what Trump is doing is worse than what Ackman had in mind which might simply have been Jewish students and scholars abandoning the university.
I think the attack is on knowledge as a public good. Knowledge could be attainable in a thousand private salons like Chatham House or under explicit religious sponsorship or by working with an AI but a secular public sphere fueled by knowledge isn't something Team Trump is that interested in.
This is fascism 101. Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet, and Orban all purged free thinking from universities. The only reason this administration isn’t going further is our federal “system,” in which states fund most higher education. But even this protection is meaningless if a state is run by a fascist cabal like Florida.
Well, that's a terrible way to start the morning. Alas, this sort of damage isn't going to be undone anytime soon. This is going to long outlive Trump, and it might outlive me.
I'm sorry you have to write about this so often, but I appreciate your takes
You think this is a bad way to start the morning? What I did was worse. I read Adam Serwer’s article, “The New Dark Age,” before I went to bed last night. 😳
You win! 👊
Feels like we’re already in a dark age.
Right on. Undermining US leadership in knowledge creation and, to put it bluntly, in snarfing up the best minds from all over the globe, is a strategic error of massive proportions. Our postwar leadership at global level derived in significant part from attracting the best minds and giving them the freedom and resources to to their best work. (As the child of a Europea scientist who immigrated to the US, this history is very personal to me.) And Serwer is absolutely correct in describing the assault on universities and on knowledge creation as a dimension of the authoritarian/quasi-monarchical project which unites virtually all the actions of the Trump regime.
Education is where power and free thinking collide so illegitimate power always attempts to crush education. A coordinated undermining of free thinking in general is also served by a splashy attack on Harvard. This spectacle is calculated to rally MAGA. Unfortunately, the spectacle of bringing a place like Harvard to heel will resonate with many people in middle America. Harvard reads "snob". This is a Trump produced reality show with a class warfare theme.
Trump's play here is to use Harvard as a vehicle for a class-based populist-like backlash from the put-upon. And I think it could work unless his nefarious plan is directly countered. Superficially, taking Harvard down feels like sticking a thumb in the eye of snobs to a lot of people. My guess is this framing will be effective in the real world unless and until political actors and public figures frame the Harvard attack through the language of universal values and broaden the public's perspective about the practical effect of attacking Harvard. I have yet to see the Democratic party using a coordinated message campaign in this way, although some individual Democrats are.
Professional educators have a leg up here. Teachers know how to meet students where they are. Others have this training as well. Teachers, trial lawyers and clergy use specific techniques to help people internalize abstractions. They apply concrete examples to peoples' lived experiences so they can build a thought castle enabling them to connect the dots. Ask voters to put themselves in Harvard's shoes weathering an attack by government. Lead people to make the connections between what DOGE and Project 2025 are doing to FEMA, the VA, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Parks, etc. to harm everyone's interests in the same way as Harvard is being harmed. Allow people to take Harvard's side against Trump.
Basically, our rhetoric needs to ignite the public's natural antipathy to the raw application of power and then train that antipathy on Trump. For too long, Trump has positioned himself as the champion of the little guy against power. Now is time to reveal him as the champion of illegitimate power against the little guy. Which is what he has always been because he is a people-user, not a people-helper.
These attacks on higher ed are not and will not affect only Harvard. International students often pay the full freight of tuition which is much, much higher than what domestic students pay. Without these students across the country, every parent and/or aspiring college student will ultimately end up paying more for their education because of trump’s attempted destruction of higher ed, science, culture, and everything that is good about the US.
Personally I think the decision to attack Harvard isn't petty but strategic. It serves two key purposes. The first is to rile their base. "Harvard" is also an easy code for "elitist liberal out of touch institution your kids won't get into." so beating them up creates the spectacle of attacking the ivory tower. The second is that Harvard is the tallest stalk of wheat and like Thrasybulus he understands that you cut down the tall wheat as a message. Trump is trying to do both and he will not rest till he gets some blood.
His reasons of course are wrong, and if he is allowed to succeed we will all suffer. But the Republican party has already turned away from education and the law. So we have no hope in any of them, not anymore.
Social media vetting of students from Israel might be interesting. As would vetting of students from Hungary and parts of Germany.
You should be concerned about the "why". Simply because of zionists and AIPAC. How dare the school that so many zionists attended allow protests that crticise Israel.
I had a take on Harvard and broader issue that might be of interest
https://tapen.substack.com/p/assault-on-the-citadel-of-global
Trump will chicken out as usual. His rich supporters will stop this nonsense.😎
I think one of the goals is to make elite schools rich and white again. Harvard and others of its ilk will go back to being small(er) undergraduate schools and much less diverse, as they were pre-GI bill, instead of international centers of excellence.
Maybe, the US ought to study the destruction of tertiary education in Germany after 1933.
Do you have any suggestions on reading up on that?
for starters:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universities_in_Nazi_Germany
Not only Trump and not just Harvard though. The House bill taxes endowment at a punitive rate, which applies to many schools. Not sure effect on Tufts, per se. That alone will destroy the upper reaches of higher education.
Said it before, but by agreeing with Trump that the peace protests were in reality hate marches, Harvard and others put themselves in a greatly weakened position. They painted themselves into a corner, and now are paying the price.
These attempts to destroy Higher Ed has very little, to nothing, to do with anti-semitism.
That's the given reason by Trump.
I attended that Center for Jewish History panel virtually and I can say with confidence that our host was right about Bill Ackman who seemed to be there as an emissary from MAGA social media. In any event Ackman tried to threaten American universities by saying that German universities before they became infected by antisemitism used to be the best in the world and Heidelberg was the Harvard of its day. He also said that you can see from the tariffs that overreaching is a classic Trump negotiating technique. Well, Trump has piled overreach on top of overreach in a way that didn't happen with the tariffs when China could say no to him. And I think what Trump is doing is worse than what Ackman had in mind which might simply have been Jewish students and scholars abandoning the university.
I think the attack is on knowledge as a public good. Knowledge could be attainable in a thousand private salons like Chatham House or under explicit religious sponsorship or by working with an AI but a secular public sphere fueled by knowledge isn't something Team Trump is that interested in.
(It is not looking too good for the Knicks either and Game 7 in the unlikely circumstance that it is played would be on Shavuot)
This is fascism 101. Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet, and Orban all purged free thinking from universities. The only reason this administration isn’t going further is our federal “system,” in which states fund most higher education. But even this protection is meaningless if a state is run by a fascist cabal like Florida.
It’s not called the dark enlightenment for nothing.
That Sewer piece is worth reading in full, to understand the abyss USians voted for: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/trump-defund-schools-research-republicans/682742/