Memo to Bari Weiss, Christopher Rufo, JD Vance and other anti-woke warriors.
The good news: you have succeeded in eliminating or tamping down some of the liberal/woke dictates.
Universities are under pressure to diversify faculty and students; shouting down conservative speakers is less likely; social media sites are more reticent to censor right wing messages, and diversity, equity and inclusion projects are being disbanded.
The conservative critics had a case: There was too much ideological bias at elite universities with hostility to the political right. Antisemitism and reverse racism dominated some circles. Ridiculous politically correct language was demanded like Latinx for Hispanics or pregnant persons rather than pregnant women.
What is emerging in its place, however, is a more prevalent and pernicious right wing, Trump-dominated crackdown on free speech, curbing academic freedom and crafting ideological litmus tests for the 250th anniversary of America.
With the leverage of withholding federal grants, the Trump Administration forced changes at some leading colleges. Under the guise of ending discrimination they forced the end of diversity programs, brought pressure for curricula reform and for more open discourse.
Today, at other schools, responding to political conservatives, there’s not just pressure, there’s censorship. At Texas A&M, the largest public university in America, a course on ethics and public policy was cancelled when the professor declined to say when and how the class might address race or gender issues. Another professor was required to remove a passage from Plato for fear it might violate the school’s ban on these issues.
It’s not just Lone Star state right wingers. At New York University a student, in his graduation speech, decried “the atrocities currently happening in Palestine.” The University withdrew his diploma. Whatever your views on the Middle East, that’s a free speech issue; NYU should be ashamed.
The anti left wing crowd, led by Bari Weiss, now the rightward-leaning President of CBS News, and history scholar Niall Ferguson helped launch the University of Austin, as a beacon for free expression, open and civil discourse; wealthy donors rushed to the cause. Today, according to accounts in the Chronicle of Higher Education -- must reading these days -- and Texas outlets, UAustin faces a “raft” of resignations, including the President and the Provost and is in academic chaos.
There is nothing more disturbing in higher education than Trump’s politicalization of the academic and social life at the United States Military and the Naval Academy. These young men and women, the future leaders of our forces, suffer from political litmus tests for professors, restrictions on teaching and even some book banning.
Pen America, an organization that champions free expression, notes there has been a surge in book banning chiefly relating to race, gender or sex. Before the past year, this was underway, mostly in conservative states, but has been intensified by Trump’s executive order which has been used to justify removal of more than 600 books.
Trump is hostile to a free press and the First Amendment. He has brought legal actions against ABC, CBS, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Des Moines Register and its pollster, Ann Selzer. These weren’t about legitimate defamation; they were about intimidation, to suppress criticism. ABC and CBS capitulated to his shakedown.
The Federal Communications chair Brendan Carr is a spear carrier for the cancel culture right threatening government action against media content with which he disagrees.
The overall hypocrisy is stunning. As a Senator, JD Vance sought to block ambassadorial and diplomatic nominees until they answered a range of questions including views on LGBTQ and other “woke” issues. He questioned whether the U.S. can build “stronger relationships” with countries that have traditional Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu moral values by promoting rights for LGBTQ.
The Trump-Vance Administration’s Ambassador to France is Charles Kushner, father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. The wealthy real estate executive was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. The latter arose from Kushner hiring a prostitute to arrange a sexual encounter with his brother-in-law who was cooperating with authorities. He secretly recorded it and sent it to his sister. The U.S. Attorney, Republican Chris Christie, called it one of “the most disgusting crimes” he prosecuted.
Wonder what the French, even with their more laissez-faire attitudes toward sex, think of their ambassador’s moral vaalues ?
Trump wants the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary to reflect his ideas, he wants a “patriotic education” that skips over shortcomings. A monument to slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence square was removed by the National Park Service.
This bothers Joe Ellis, a foremost scholar on the founding fathers. “They were the greatest generation and their achievements were the most extraordinary,” he says. “But there were mistakes made in dealing with slavery and Native Americans and it’s a disservice to history to ignore that.”
Ellis has written multiple acclaimed books on the founders and given their disdain for King George III suspects they also wouldn’t have regard for Trump since he “thinks of himself as a King.”
you lost me about half way thru with your over/the/top emotional even slanderous adjectives (filthy rich like elon musk who is a nazi) and many spins by omission (book banning — where never is the fact “age appropriate” ever mentioned.
both sides exaggerate. and lose their credibility
I’m old enough to remember when people who gave themselves the label conservative were not as toxic as people who call themselves conservative these days. President Reagan someone people will say it was a conservative Granted amnesty to 2 1/2 million undocumented workers. George HW Bush was willing to do the same thing. That humanitarianism.
I remember when so-called liberals were doves and so-called conservatives were hawks. That seems to have changed. Conservatives seem to be pro Russia and I guess that’s because Russia is corrupt and today’s conservatives are corrupt.
I remember when conservatives are preaching family values yet they supported a president who is a pig of a man in so many ways. If Obama had three failed marriages, bragged about grabbing women by their pussies, wrecked the economy the way Trump has both conservatives and liberals would suddenly reject him.
Mike Pence is the classical Paleo conservative. He’s not a vulgar uncouth person. He doesn’t treat women like they are toilet paper. Mike Pence Probably would not have been a borrow and spend thieving Republican. Many of us recall the bullshit thing that Republicans would push When they called Democrats and Democrats. I don’t know how much of a lie that was but when it comes to fiscal conservatism, the truth is, Republicans are the party of borrow and spend. It was Bill Clinton who balanced the budget, put more cops on the street and created one of the strongest economies in American history but total trash people like the kind you wanna beat the shit out of such as Newt Gingrich continued being a lying sack of shit because Bill Clinton beat so called conservatives at their own game. Alan Greenspan has referred to Bill Clinton has the best Republican president we ever had and of course Bill Clinton was a Democrat.
The truth is, today’s Republicans who call themselves conservatives have no core. The MAGATS Are incredibly stupid and incredibly toxic and incredibly dangerous. These people supported Donald Trump who is everything classic conservatives pretended to be against. If Donald Trump and the the slime in his orbit want to call themselves conservatives the whole thing becomes laughable and tragic.
Today, people who understand the facts and lead moral lives And believe in the rule of law get labeled liberals. People who support social justice and the constitution get marked and called snowflakes. The collective IQ of America’s seems to have decreased by 10 or 20 IQ points. Conservatives were not always this stupid or this intellectually lazy and this intellectually dishonest.
The base of the Republican Party is morally corrupt and these Republicans want to get elected so they pander to the MAGAT moron pervert Anti-intellectual anti-truth and total asshole wing of the Republican Party because that is the core of the Republican Party. The MAGAT is not only low IQ, purposefully ignorant, and morally depraved, they are more likely to be a criminal, a bigot, a sex offender, divorced, obese, possessing a low life expectancy, but are slaves to what they pretend are their politics. The politics of the MAGAT are the politics of dishonesty and near total depravity. The MAGAT or Trump supporter make up the majority of the Republican Party. An actual conservative today such as Mike Pence, or Jeff Flake Doesn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of even winning a primary especially in the most horrid part of the world known as the Bible belt.
Some people will credit the modern Republican Party and their love for depravity too liars and scumbags like Rush Limbaugh and the trash that’s on Fox News. But blaming Fox News for the depravity of the self labeled conservative is dishonest because if you think a little bit deeper, Fox News and these right wing shitheads are simply telling the most depraved people in this country what they want to hear and to hell with the truth.
The way I see it liberalism, conservatism are not actual things, they are labels. The word liberal has really been Weaponized by the trash known as MAGA. Even the so-called conservatives of yesterday year would talk about family values and even the ones back then really had no moral values many of them. I remember Democrats with counter by saying they value the family and I think that’s true now and I think it was true then but modern Democrats also have a certain sleaze factor to them and I suppose that is why I believe there are some truth to the word libtard. Political types all seem to have an agenda and very often that agenda has nothing to do with the welfare of Americans.
If the angry MAGAT where to have enough intellect to realize that their enemies are not people on the left or people on the right or intellectuals or feminist or LGBTQ And woke up to the fact that their enemy is not the guy on the left that their enemy is above them.V the enemy of all humanity are corporations and the filthy rich. The filthy rich today are not what the captains of industry were 70 or 100 years ago. The filthy rich today are people like Elon Musk who is a Nazi and Elon Musk and people like him should be castrated to protect the gene pool. Corporate media is the enemy because they created a lot of of this tribalism that is destroying the American way in American society. Americans used to be able to rely on the evening news and now the evening news whether it is Fox, ABC, CNN or NBC and especially your local news, are a bunch of whores. Whores whores whores whores whores whores whores. Corporatism is WHOREDOM!