Let’s discuss a theory that the Left learned hard lessons from the election.
Proposed Theory: Academia Is Finally Learning Hard Lessons
Washington Post writer Megan McArdle says Academia Is Finally Learning Hard Lessons. I respond inline in brackets. That is a free link.
The Trump administration is not just trying to get the government under control or save taxpayers money. It is mounting a frontal assault on every center of left-wing institutional power it can reach: academia, the civil service, nonprofits. The object is to break these institutions so badly that the next Democratic administration will not be able to put them back the way they were.
I probably don’t have to tell our readers why this is bad. [Actually you do, but can’t, because it’s a good thing]
Since you know that, [Well, we don’t know that because it’s false] let me make a less obvious and probably less welcome point: The left, not the right, picked this fight. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support. [For starters, it’s completely obvious, not less obvious, and the Left did it on purpose, too. But the following two sentences are things McArdle gets right. It was criminally stupid and politically naive]
It has long been clear that cuts to research funding could be the first step if Republicans were so minded. The student loans and Pell grants that subsidize tuition could be slashed, the tax rules that let elite institutions accumulate massive endowments could be changed, and in red states, government aid to public schools could be reduced. The resulting budget holes would be calamitous in many cases and would filter through the ecosystem even to schools that survived. [Let’s hope so]
Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. [Another correct paragraph]
Even if you think this was a move in the right moral direction, it was dangerous behavior. [No one in their right mind should believe this was the right moral directions. And academia did not only go along for the ride, it embraced and fostered the cancel culture]
Fundamentally, they took their prestige and public support for granted and seemed unable to imagine a world where the word “education” no longer conjured reverent deference among most of the population. [Again correct, but where the hell is proof the Left learned anything from this?]
Like children throwing rocks from an overpass, they felt protected by their elevated position, assuming their targets could do little but yell back. They weren’t expecting one of the drivers to get out of the car and grab a baseball bat from the trunk. [More accurately, the Left welcomed this battle in the foolish belief that Trump could never win again. Now they whine about the result]
None of which justifies what Republicans are doing now. It is crude, destructive and — like a baseball bat — unconscionably disproportionate. [That statement shows how clueless not only McArdle is, but all of the Progressive Left. Dismantling DEI is 100 percent welcome and needed]
But complaining about Republicans, while emotionally satisfying, isn’t very useful. The institutional left can’t control what Republicans do. It can only control its own behavior. And that behavior, however well-intentioned, was reckless in the extreme. [Complaining about DEI dismantling is further proof the Left learned nothing. They should be admitting DEI was a big mistake and apologize for the mistake. Instead they take DEI out of department names hoping to disguise what they are still doing]
What Lesson Was Learned?
Does anyone get a sense the Left learned anything from this?
McArdle mostly blames Trump. She also says the Left picked this fight.
Thank goodness I can freely say “she” without having to ask ridiculous questions about pronouns. But it was the “extreme-Left”, led by academia, that picked this fight, not just “the Left”.
The average center-Left, center-Right, Libertarian, and far-Right person is sick of Black Lives Matter, ridiculous nonbinary sex theories, favoritism for non-whites, praise for Hamas, college application favoritism, men playing female sports, and all the other bullsheet that the radical Left supports.
Progressive Derangement Syndrome
The Wall Street Journal comments on Maine’s Transgender Madness.
If Democrats want to know why so many voters abandoned them in November, they could take a gander at the progressive meltdown in Maine. On Tuesday the Maine House of Representatives voted to censure Republican Rep. Laurel Libby for posting photos of a transgender high school athlete on Facebook.
The teenager, who previously competed in boys’ track and field, switched to compete in the girls’ pole vault this year, winning the class B state championship. “This is outrageous and unfair to the many female athletes who work every day to succeed in their respective sports,” Ms. Libby wrote on Facebook.
Cue full-on progressive derangement. Lawmakers voted 75-70 to formally reprimand Ms. Libby. The censure means she isn’t allowed to speak or vote in the Legislature unless she apologizes. She has said she will not.
I propose a new acronym, PDSTM, for Progressive Derangement Syndrome. A quick search shows the PDSTM is untaken.
AOC Says She’s Fighting President Trump’s “Illusion of Power”
NPR reports Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says She’s Fighting President Trump’s “Illusion of Power”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, says she thinks Republicans have begun making mistakes… and her party is resolved to strike back.
Colleges Cautiously Navigate Trump’s DEI Crackdown
The AP reports Colleges Cautiously Navigate Trump’s DEI Crackdown
In Boston, Northeastern University renamed a program for underrepresented students, emphasizing “belonging” for all.
And around the U.S., colleges are assessing program names and titles that could run afoul of a Trump administration crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
As they figure out how to adapt, some schools are staying quiet out of uncertainty, or fear. President Donald Trump has called for compliance investigations at some schools with endowments over $1 billion.
Others have vowed to stand firm.
The president of Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts school in Massachusetts, said she hopes colleagues in higher education will not capitulate to Trump’s vision for the country. Danielle Holley said she believes Trump’s orders are vulnerable to legal challenges.
“Anything that is done to simply disguise what we’re doing is not helpful,” said Holley, who is Black. “It validates this notion that our values are wrong. And I don’t believe that the value of saying we live in a multiracial democracy is wrong.”
Many colleges have said they are no less committed to recruiting students of color and helping all students succeed, even if strategies change or go by a different name.
Northeastern changed the name of what had been called “The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” to “Belonging in Northeastern,” which it described as a “reimagined approach” that embraces everyone at the school.
Here’s the height of not learning delusion.
California Polytechnic professor Cameron Jones said he is worried whether he would still get a $150,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study the history of African descendants in early California, even though it’s not a DEI grant. He also worries about the ban’s effect on his students, especially students of color.
There is no value in taxpayer-funded studies on the history of African descendants in early California. That idiot and all like him should be fired. But that won’t happen.
So instead, I suggest we shut down the entire National Endowment for the Humanities.
Dear Megan McArdle
Where is there any evidence radical Progressives learned a damn thing from this Trumpian revolt?
But it’s not just Democrats who fail to learn.
Lesson for Republicans
Blacks and young adults did not swing the election to Trump because they suddenly became Conservative.
Rather, it was a protest vote against the extreme-Left who hijacked the Democratic party.
President Biden who campaigned on a platform of being a moderate and a healer morphed into the Progressive’s wet dream candidate.
When Biden was finally forced to drop out over dementia (that the Left hid until it was impossible to hide), the babbling word-salad fool Kamala Harris took over.
Mandate? What Mandate?
Despite winning a huge majority of the electoral college, Republicans barely held the House.
Polls do show Trump has a huge mandate to stamp out DEI nonsense.
However, Trump has no mandate for bombing Mexico, breaking trade deals ratified by Congress 89-10, or destroying small businesses with preposterous tariff experiments.
To believe Trump has a mandate to do those things is no better than Democrats’ belief that Biden had a mandate to overrule the Supreme Court on student loans.
Plight of Small Businesses
On January 31, I noted The BLS Confirms US is Now Losing Jobs in Net Business Creation
The BLS BED report provides further confirmation the BLS Birth/Death jobs model is seriously screwed up.
I also wrote about the plight of small businesses this morning in How One Small Business Owner Is Coping With Trump’s Tariffs
Fifty-four percent of small businesses polled said that tariffs would negatively affect their companies, while just 11 percent said they would benefit.
Please read that if you haven’t already.
Bullying allies like Canada and Mexico, and nonsensical tariff theories will backfire.
And Republicans hypocrites won’t do a thing about massive budget deficits.
Neither party is willing to learn anything. That’s the sad reality.