If Oct. 7 had never happened, Trump would right now be pulling funding from Columbia and Harvard because of DEI policies or admissions requirements or what research they were doing or all of the above. The right hates universities and that’s it.
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I agree, but the four-year debt-driven college system has serious problems we shouldn’t ignore. A reset is needed. We must restore the meaning of a high school diploma (“good jobs right out of high school”) and create shorter affordable paths to successful careers that don’t require college degrees.
The "antisemitism" charge is just a Trojan Horse that wheels in a host of ideological repression and targeting the primary bastion of critical thought in American society: Higher education.
The reich wing has always hated expanded knowledge, and expanded insight. The Nazis are the blind enemies of anything moral, and good; therefore, they despise schools and universities.
The conservative movement wants to destroy universities because students having different beliefs than their parents can only be "indoctrination," and authoritarians want to destroy then as independent centers of power and truth. The rest is window dressing.
They know tariffs on automakers will lead to teslas being the cheaper option after they raise the automotive tariffs to ridiculous heights while writing exemptions for Tesla. Mark my words... we'll be forced to only be able to afford Tesla's.....
Look at what’s happening in Ohio right now with our Senate bill one, which our governor just signed on Friday. Ohio is about to become the new Florida, except with fewer alligators and theme parks.
Doubtful. This is a demand from some of Trump’s deepest pocketed donors who also have tight connections with prestigious universities like Miriam Adelson. She ordered Trump to disappear anyone who is antiIsrael.
This is red meat for his base. Trump wants to debase and undermine the "elites" in any way he can. Once these organizations capitulate, they're worth less to those of us who care about integrity. Their images are destroyed. Law firms, universities, public radio, etc.
Universities will stand together or fall together.
They have great strength—strong alumni networks numbering in the hundreds of thousands, even millions; great importance to local businesses; etc. How many parents won’t to see their kids harmed by their collapse?
And the universities - who decided long ago to follow the money and run themselves like a business instead of an educational institution- have all fallen in line to stay on good terms with the admin.
💯 JD Vance: "We have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country" and "the professors are the enemy". That's why it's dumb to crater to MAGA on culture war stuff. They'll just go on to the next thing. "CRT" begets "DEI", & after DEI it'll be something else, like civil rights
At a local town hall tonight speakers reminded us to always say the complete words “Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility” instead of using MAGA’s shortened *initials only* term.
They hate education because it encourages critical thinking; thinking outside the box and wanting proof before you believe something🤔…It’s why GOP is always blaming higher education for making people “woke”….because it makes it too hard to manipulate people once you develop these thinking skills.
Also maybe If Oct 7 never happened, Israel wouldn’t have declared war or whatever on Gaza & killed more than 50 thousand Palestinians, and universities wouldn’t have protested Biden/Harris inaction, and maybe Trump would have LOST the 2024 election.
Universities and colleges, public or private need to rise up and speak out against all these harmful policies. Now is the time to show up before we’re silenced.
The use of antisemitism as a cudgel to bring universities to ruin is of course a subterfuge to unleash resentment and hostility to education. It is also ironic given the status education was given in my home and the Jewish home of everyone I knew and everyone I know now.
But this way it can be blamed on the Jews. The university sanctions are no more about combating antisemitism than the trans bigotry is about protecting women.
Trump doesn't give a sh*t about anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is a convenient pretext for harming liberal academic institutions. I assume convenient because it coincides to some extent with what some powerful Jewish donors want. How long do we have to give these pretexts any credence?
It's a very specific hate with a very specific target: It's the hate of a white male racist for brown and black people. The targets are those people at elite universities (how uppity!) and the targets are Gazans who caanot be allowed to raise their heads. Fight the white male racism please.
Exactly. They hate that their political opinions never took hold in most colleges. Exposure to different ideas and critical thinking leads to more liberal politics. They've been out for revenge ever since. It's either victory or resent fueled revenge for them
False. He may have still WANTED TO. He would not have been able to. If Oct. 7th never happened, Trump almost certainly would have lost to Harris. It was anti-Zionist propaganda that ensured Trump's victory as so many idiot White saviors thought Harris "supported genocide."
arguably if oct 7 had never happened, along with all that followed, trump might very well be in a federal courtroom right now, maybe even in an orange jump suit.
The trial run for this was British Labour’s purge of Corbyn and the left, as if they were somehow more anti-semitic than the Tories or centrist Labour. It worked, though, and showed the US’s own bigots how they could get away with it.
Ivies signed up to serve the kingpin of international gangsterism. Maybe if they spent more time around the farm they'd know how chickens come home to roost
Jane Mayer has a whole chapter in "Dark Money" that outlines the beachheads and other texts used by the Koch brothers to take over and control universities. This is par for the course for Trump & Co.
I'm a conservative, and have liked the liberal orthodoxy of our universities. I have also realized that, as a student, I could say whatever the hell I wanted on campus. I might have to argue my point, and I might lose, or win. Now, that's not permitted. It wasn't the left which did that.
I'm a liberal, but didn't become partisan until 2004. Grew up in a state university mid-west town. Whole family (except me) is 'conservative'/team R. Never understood why it had to be a zero sum fight.
Absolutely. And that also means the right is abusing antisemitism -- a real thing that happens and must be *actually* opposed -- to advance their own goals. Which is wildly antisemitic in a non-bullshit way, and should be roundly condemned by liberals. Instead, many have been made complicit in it.
At some point there will need to be a conversation about the way that liberals, out of a desire not to be antisemitic, allowed the Christianist right to define the boundaries of antisemitism, over the protests of many Jewish Americans. And thereby helped an antisemitic, fascist regime take control.
More than anybody else, it is this unholy alliance of Christianist fascists and mainstream white liberals -- who all agree, with profound bigotry, that pointing out that Palestinians are being systematically cleansed by Israel is anti-Jewish -- that has driven the United States into a ditch.
The least that liberals can do is acknowledge this, and stop the bleeding by changing course. No more entertaining false accusations of antisemitism against defenders of Palestinian dignity and agency. Instead, assail the false accusers. As you were mistaken not to have done in the first place.
I doubt liberals are ready, now, to face reality here, as in at least several other major areas. But this reckoning will sit enqueued as long as it takes. There’s not another real way to read it — only false, unstable ways that are destined to crumble in the full light of history.
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What a nightmare we are in.
Senate Bill 1, which was just signed into on Friday, aims to turn my adopted state into the new Florida, with less humidity as our only advantage.
They just hate smart people.
They have great strength—strong alumni networks numbering in the hundreds of thousands, even millions; great importance to local businesses; etc. How many parents won’t to see their kids harmed by their collapse?
Fight now or Trump will kill you.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-shin-bet-probe-tied-oct-7-directly-to-pms-policy-of-sending-qatari-money-to-gaza-may-be-another-reason-hes-firing-bar/
But what if Netanyahu *let* Oct 7 happen in order to start a retaliation war, to spark protest in US, to help Trump get back in power?
To ethnically cleanse Gaza.
It's frustrating. Maddening.
If you want to win the war, think about how you're fighting your battles.😉
Appeasement is a lose-lose proposition with this "administration."
The only real choice is to RESIST EVERYTHING.
Even though I suspect another version of the "Uncommitted" movement would have been conceived.
Especially in Blue States.
An uneducated public is easier to (mis)lead.