The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for:
- an end to diversity initiatives
- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
- a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view
- ending speech-control policies
- auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
- ending discipline of students who violate policies related to inclusion
- disciplining particular students who violated policies related to inclusion
It is easier to understand their thinking when you combine each pair of demands: what they want is reversals, they've just split each into two steps because they think that will be more palatable. It makes it easier to sell to their own base certainly, because they can concentrate on whichever half has the most emotive effect in any given speech, and easier for their base to parrot: they just repeat the half they want and don't need to think about the other.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
--------
[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
[..] The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time [..] was that it might all be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?
[..] It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'The quotes seem to be from the famous book "1984" by George Orwell. We had it in English literature class in high school.
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984? … a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
Animal Farm is even more creepy than 1984, going by my memory, which may be wrong, since it is quite some years since I read both those books.
I am strongly reminded of my own governments (Sweden) attempts to introduce diversity programs into the school system, only to have each attempt ending in the court system that then finds the programs as discriminatory. In a few examples where they then went and tried to circumvent the anti-discriminatory laws, those attempts tend to favor the wrong demographic and get canceled shortly after. The very concept of favoring or hindering one demographic over an other in terms of grades or admissions are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the basis for those laws. It is somewhat understandable why politicians tries to work around laws that protect human rights, but the rulings of the courts are not surprising in the least. For now it seems that most those initiatives has died off with fewer attempts to challenge the courts on this issue.
Strong fundamental laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights exist for a good reason. It prevents political winds from undermining the very pillars that society is built on. It also forces those that want to create exceptions to design their ideas in general form, which has some nice side effects of illuminating contradictions and false premises. If political demonstration on university grounds are disrupting education, then it doesn't matter what political message they are shouting. Either you allow it all, or none of it. If you want to give women higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority, you got to give men higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority. If the consequences of such general rules are not fitting the political winds then the default is return back to the foundation that is human rights.
Sadly America was founded on principles that too 200 years to try and undo. And given the last year alone, they are still stripping rights as we speak. I don't know which fork we turned on that made us so reliable on racism and sexism to function and band together as a country that much of the EU seems to have navigated better. Maybe reconstruction should have had an actual Nuremburg trial instead of "forgiveness" (aka pushing the can down the street until someone could assassinate the one trying to compromise).
the main thing is that it's acceptable, meritorious even, to resent the privileged white male. But a jewish white male, that's racist. Also most white males in the ivies are jewish - the so-called privileged (non-jewish) white male is in fact underrepresented now vs. the general population.
Hello, 55 day old account that's definitely not a troll
It literally is this way. America has ignored the plight of poor working class whites by grouping them with elite whites and treating them as one privileged group.
Then they focused on elevating nonwhites non Christians and homosexuals to higher social and economic standing not realizing or simply choosing to ignore that most white people really arent that much better off than non whites if you remove elites from the statistics.
So to poor white Americans this seems like a free pass or line jump for everybody else and we are now living through the political reaction to this injustice.
You can't tell 65% of your population to step aside without some repercussions.
Enjoy the madness.
Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary. That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle over reason or consent.
Consistency is undesirable, because if everyone is breaking a law, you apply the hammer of justice only if they aren't a friend.
It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.
This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.
No, it's still stupid. High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Nepotism looks like winning right until it sinks your company.
Right, this is why fascist governments tend to fail. In the meantime, though, normal folks will be hurt.
And in the meantime, the people in power in these fascist governments tend to make out like (literal) bandits.
This is fine if it ends by being subjected to that convenient device they developed in France somewhere in the 1800s.
Very unlikely in the first place, but second, that way lies far worse chaos.
Similarly, when Julius Caesar turned the republic into an empire, and was subsequently assassinated: it did not mean the empire reverted back to being a republic - rather that centuries of increasingly despotic emperors lay ahead.
Agree that it's unlikely, but while knives in the back still led to centuries of imperialism, the guillotine cleanly ended absolutist monarchy in France once, and then some ships and exile ended the second time, and it generally stayed dead afterwards.
Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king.
It's iterative republic development. Release a republic, test it in the field, make improvements. Makes sense to me.
Nazis again? We did Nazis remember? End of the Third Republic, all of that? Everybody agreed Nazis were a bad idea, why the fuck are there more Nazis?
> Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king.
Their last king wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England, and was one of three (or four) kings (Louis XVIII, Charles X, (arguably Henry V), and Louis Phillippe, who reigned between the First Empire (and consequently also after the First Republic) and the Second Republic (and consequently also before the Second Empire.)
Their last monarch was even later, and also wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England. The series of governments after the last monarch includes only the Third through Fifth Republics (and, depending on how you look at it, the Vichy regime between the Third and Fourth Republics.)
And IIRC there wasn't much substantive difference between the Third and Fourth Republic; the latter was basically a restoration of the former after France was freed from German occupation, not a change in governing philosophy by the French people, so you could argue that there were as few as two substantively different French systems of government after the last monarch was deposed.
French model was largely a failure in every way. This is the 5th iteration of their republic now, and it's gripped by internal issues that can quickly approach those US is dealing with.
The important difference that you mentioned in your comment as well is: the French problems lie in the realm of possibilities, while the US problems are in the present. So the comparison doesn't really hold. Maybe it's also helping that the French iterated 5 times, a concept we are all taught in agile 101.
Based on this thread I'm starting to believe that any static governmental system is a failure and it's the iterations that bring about prosperity.
You also have to consider that the guillotine ended up killing more revolutionaries than nobles though.
There are also historical examples of nations where nothing was done to reign in the chaos and that led to far worse long term consequences for the people.
That is a divisive issue.
By “divisive” you mean dividing heads from bodies, right?
Looks to me like a legitimate and democratically elected regime. There are many unsolved issues in the world, having sympathy for people getting exactly what they want seems like a waste of a finite resource.
It is not a waste.
(1) It is still an interesting topic, because in this case, it has world-wide consequences.
(2) Many of the problems of the world can only be solved if people are convinced that those are important problems. You need to fix people's closest problems first, like their bread and perceived security. Each individual has just one life, I wouldn't say it's selfish to want an OKish life, and only then think about what's best for the human race.
(3) Most of the right voters were convinced (and might still be) that they were doing what is good for them. But it isn't. They voted wrong, they were tricked against their actual will.
(4) This is not a singular event. The same may happen somewhere near or around you maybe sooner than later, so analysig how it happened, which groups exactly voted against their own advantage, and how to make the consequences clear and understandable beforehand, and how to prevent it in general -- all this is important.
Not wasted resources at all. The opposite. We need to remember that this is not a boring news topic.
Until america experiences the full consequences for their stupidity they will continue being stupid. Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, with a responsible person nearby and then never again.
The sooner that happens the better for everyone it is.
OK, burning is happening right now, so mission accomplished, I guess? Are you sure people will learn from it? And who is the responsible person nearby in this reality?
> Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, ...
That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove.
Also, this is not an individual Darwin problem like the stove example -- this has consequences for many bystanders who did know better, and many more bystanders who had no say in this.
> OK, burning is happening right now
Nowhere near it, the hand is hovering near the fire - people are shouting "don't put your hand in the fire" and the kid is saying its nice and warm and see nothing bad has happened, I am going to put my hand right into the fire and it will be great.
Trump term 1 they bailed out the Farmers for 20bn when they messed around on tarrifs and blew it up. They learn't that there are only two outcomes to fucking around 1) you win, 2) you find out and they give you 20bn.
If those are your outcomes the only rational choice is to vote for Trump and cheer him on in fucking around as much as possible.
Let them burn their hand.
beeforpork says >"That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove."<
So you really have no idea! Sad!
I suppose you have also never been hungry and bitten into a wonderful-smelling and -tasting hamburger only to find that a finger (yours, to be clear) is in the bite, and thus you become at one moment both ravenous attacker and fearful prey struggling to escape?
Such experiences are part of life, to be embraced only afterward.
> beeforpork says >"That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove."< > So you really have no idea! Sad!
Is this like "you're not a strong man unless you've been this stupid at least once"?
Strong vs. weak does not seem like a desirable way to structure society. It's no fun. Yes, I also find football competitions really boring.
It isn't strong vs weak. But the lack of such experiences sets you apart from others and marks you as literally inexperienced. It does not mark you as smarter or stronger, but as one who simply "has no idea!" You'll never know (until you do!8-))
I revisited the "stove experience" several weeks ago. While at a convenience store I entered the restroom to find the sink water running full blast. This only increased my urgency and aided the process (as flowing, dripping, or running water often does). Once relieved, I walked over to the sink and plunged both hands into the cold whirling water in the basin. At once I was caught between my (vividly-imagined) thought of cool swirling relief and the sensory reality of boiling hot water - the former wished to enjoy the pleasant ice-cold flowing water in the sink and the latter could not withdraw fast enough.
Life provides you with a sequence of such experiences:
- a pre-adolescent viewing with puzzlement his older siblings as they mature and begin to participate in courtship,
- falling in love,
- making love, etc.
Some people never have certain experiences. We're all different to some degree b/c of that.
Go ahead, put your hand on the stove. But be careful about touching that woman!8-))
P.S. Yes, I turned the sink off, depriving the next poor soul of my worldly experience.
Dismantling the current world hegemony might have a few unanticipated impacts. When little Timmy responds to burning his hand by evaporating the world economy we might not be so smug.
The smug little so-and-so here is the USA. Dismantling their hegemony and releasing the 95% of the world that are not Americans, I am looking forward to it with the same enthusiasm as MAGA chants "lock her up".
The problem is that dismantling their hegemony in too fast of a fashion will cause the rest of the world _a lot_ of trouble.
Normal folks vote for the fascists.
How many Americans despise the liberal universities and their students? How many Americans think the US should be a Christian nation?
Fascism is popular. Many people will fall for it. Time and time again. The US is not special- it happened in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal. It can happen in America.
> No, it's still stupid.
It doesn't serve the goals you think it should, that's not necessarily stupid.
> High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states).
Yes, but the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" and, to the extent that it related to economic performance, doesn't have any necessary relation to a broad aggregate, its more concerned with very specific aspects of relative distribution.
> It doesn't serve the goals you think it should
I maen, what are their goals? To make more money? Yes, stupid to crash the economy just to insider trade. Power and influence? Yes, it's stupid to overextend too fast. Ask 99% of regines from human history (Rome, Soviet Union, Great Britian). Ideaological warfare? Yes, it's stupid to outright declare constitutional war on day 9x out of 1400.
What are their goals?
> the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance"
well they should have. Again, Bread and circuses. Mess with people's money and they get neither.
Again, stupid move. This could have been an easy, silent, calculated takeover in the course of two years. Instead they just swung a hammer at the house and are frustrated that people are yelling at them.
Who is "others"? Who is "aggregate"? You're being vague because your idea doesn't make any sense.
Let's be clear:
1) Trump very clearly - very obviously - cares a lot about broad US economic performance compared to China.
2) This is at odds with his desire for unlimited power within the US, because corruption and oppression doesn't do very well economically.
That's why it's stupid - it doesn't serve its own goals. One of those two has to give.
He and his voters don't understand "Woke" is great for the modern economy. You want everyone working at their absolute full potential. Slaves don't invent chips, corruption drives away business investment, etc. It's very simple to understand if you're not a racist, but the South has been stuck on this point for generations.
They're not selecting to maximize performance, they're selecting to maximize their own control. Pete Hegseth isn't SecDef because he's good at it. He leaks war plans and can't get through a press conference without being seen with a drink in his hand. He's SecDef because he'll do what Trump tells him to do regardless of whether it's legal or a good idea. The tariffs aren't meant to bring manufacturing back. They'd have gradual and consistent and the money raised would be earmarked for developing that industry at home if they were. They're arbitrary because they're the way the people in charge punish countries and companies that don't bend the knee. Everything they're doing is about removing the institution of government with its pesky rules and procedures and bringing everything under the control of one guy who can reward and punish arbitrarily as he sees fit. Overall economic performance simply isn't a factor.
It's changed my outlook a lot to make an arbitrary decision to stop assuming people are stupid when their stated goals don't line up with their actions, and to start assuming the easily predictable results of their actions are their actual goals regardless of what their stated goals are. Once I did that, I started being able to understand and even predict what these previously inscrutable people would do next.
?
I look forward to your article about Americans obviously being pro-obesity, and finding heart disease super attractive.
their stated goals (avoiding obesity) don't line up with their actions (food choices that promote obesity), so they must have different goals (enjoying food regardless of whether it promotes obesity). not the opposite of their stated goal, just a different one.
Then I can agree with that: short-sighted decision-making on both obesity and Trump's tariffs.
I think you're equivocating between the value of the actual goal itself and the value of the actions they're taking in the context of fulfilling that goal. Blowing up the economy to maximize your personal power is short-sighted, I agree, but once you accept that as Trump's goal you'll see that arbitrary tariffs (and other financial manipulation, look at how he's using federal funding to thought police universities and punish dissident state governors) is a ruthlessly effective strategy. If you don't do what he wants, he'll starve out you and your underlings until either you give up or the people beneath you revolt and replace you with someone who'll do what he says.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to [federal funding]. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.
>is a ruthlessly effective strategy. If you don't do what he wants, he'll starve out you and your underlings until either you give up or the people beneath you revolt and replace you with someone who'll do what he says.
He really screwed up the "people beneath you" part with his "effective strategy" . The people beneath him wanted at best lower prices and at worst stronger deportation. As it is, they are the ones suffering the most from these economic policies (because blue states tend to have more funding to weather this BS) and he decided to go full mask off on the idea of deporting US citizens. These aren't popular actions nor views, outside of the most fringe supporters (who aren't enough to carry such a narrative).
The people beneath him aren't just not part of his plan, they're the lever he's pulling to get the powerful in line behind him.
Ok so you're a fan of aggressive stupidity. That's certainly on-brand American. Not relevant to this discussion though, you do you.
You're taking everything I discuss and projecting my moral approval on it. I've purposely expressed no opinion either way, but you can't fathom the idea that Trump might be good at something. You have to live in a world where he's just a flailing idiot, and I'd caution you to take some time with the fact that that flailing idiot is currently batting a very prescient .666 against those of us who'd like the USA to at least last out their own lifetimes.
lol you think .666 is a lot? The entire South has been stuck on this point for generations. They keep voting for tribalism/racism/nepotism, and the poorer they get the angrier and more aggressive they get.
Voting is just one big popularity contest, and 54% of American adults read at or below 6th grade levels.
I'm just not a good bootlicker. I call stupidity wherever I see it. You can keep your "caution", I'm moving on from this conversation.
It’s not about the economy! They don’t need that anymore. It’s about POWER.
They already have more than everything money can buy, and more than the GDP of most countries.
It’s not about the “company” anymore. They want _everything_. And will do whatever they can do get it, even if we think it looks stupid.
“Whoopsie doopsie we said something contradictory, anyway you’re all wrong and deported - don’t call back ever, and your school doesn’t get your taxes anymore but bombs for killing people in the Middle East does!”
Not stupid, just careless. Trump has fuck-you money, he doesn't care about the rest of the country. He wants means of extortion so people have to lick his boots to get a reprieve.
Is there any political tool to prevent rampant rule breaking and making the disliked rulebreaker specially vulnerable? Rule breaking is common and apocrypal form of strike involve following the rules to the letter and paralyzing the business. The prevailing principle is "you cant defend yourself by pointing to other rulebreakers" while reality is "its legal if a hundred businessmen do it".
> Is there any political tool
It's a social problem. Smaller democratic political arenas work closer to the ideal. Larger political arenas have more noise and less concise agendas, because of the disparate groups being appealed to. The US is too big. Large societies, across time trend toward authoritarianism (sometimes leading to full-fledged) until revolution and dissolution. Then the remaining states fight amongst themselves within a region, assembling into a singular organization due to practical and political factors, until it starts over again. Eventually you get something like europe and most of southeast asia. States tend to be more stable if they roughly match their regional terrain boundaries and aren't too large.
The whole society functions on a set of agreements. Some get codified in laws, many not. And as soon as some of those rules, laws or habits, get constantly broken, it means the society has changed. Now what? Do you accept the new change, or do you try to change it again? Remember, you can't enact a new rule - if it's not agreed upon it will simply not be applied.
The normative government continues to shrink while the prerogative government grows.
It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups. Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives. Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word online.
The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
The goal is power. Suppressing DEI, etc is just a simple way to find a group of people that have different values and eliminate them from the power structure.
An important part about targeting DEI and trans communities is that these two groups stand for immutable properties: I can’t change my race. I can’t stop being my gender identity.
When you “other” people based on immutable properties, it becomes very dangerous. If you can’t force someone to be white and straight, what do you do with them? The government stops funding programs to help these groups, they spread lies and fear about them, and then they sit back. When the people in power tell their supporters that the “other” are the enemy, what recourse is left for one’s safety other than violence. Authoritarian regimes always trend towards genocide, and they always target groups with immutable traits.
When these people use "freedom of speech" all they mean is they want to say their vile Nazi stuff without people complaining.
Also called freedom from consequences. Free speech makes sense in a free society, freedom from consequences does not. Yet that's what they're calling for.
The demands of the administration are the demands of a bully who doesn't want your lunch money, he just wants you to know he can take it away at any time.
"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
Any organization is probably in violation of any number of rules and regulations due to the sheer number of them.
Just wait till the sniffling Marc Andreessen shows up to explain why this will save his small town brethren.
It’s a good strategy. Even if Harvard had attempted to satisfy every bullet point, the govt could still retort that their demands were not satisfied.
Like the whole initial excuse for the tariffs on imports from Canada "because of fentanyl" despite <1% of fentanyl coming into the US arriving via the Canadian border https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5283957/fentanyl-trump-...
If you don't measure you can just assume all valies are 0.
But assuming it's a large number is not possible, of course.
I assume it's a large number because the fentanyl superlative the Canadian police raided had literal tons of precursors.
so you understand how much "tons" is with regards to a population of 330m Americans? Now consider that China probably has gigatons and is where all of NA gets most of its supply.
Hmmm, is this akin to what Russia means, when it says "we do not negotiate with terrorists"?
They want to have the old system (deliberate bias and vehement denials of there being any "bias,") but working for them, and the way to demand that without describing it is to require all of the results and "forbid," by name only, the necessary methods.
It all makes sense with a fascist power logic. The goal isn't to implement consistent policy to reach rational targets. The goal is to wield power and slowly errode any opposition with divisive actions that support anybody that is loyal to you. Importantly being loyal doesn't guarantee you will be spared. In these goals consistency is irrelevant, in fact being inconsistent and acting with arbitrary despotism is a feature since it produces more fear.
If you ever find any fascist critique of their enemies you will quickly realize that all of which they accuse their enemies of doing, they will do themselves. Decry freedom of speech as no one is "allowed" to say sexist/racist things anymore? Be sure they will go in and ban books, political thoughts and literal words. Hillarys emails? We literally operate our foreign policy in signal groups.
Quite frankly I am a bit puzzled by the neutrality with which some Americans try to analyze this absolutely crazy political situation. It is like pondering over the gas mixture in the smoke while your house is on fire, absolutely unhinged.
I’d like to get out while I can, but to what country? Any suggestions?
By the way the answer to your question is simple: the American people are fascists, not just the president.
First I think people who recognize there are problems is what is needed now. You leaving makes things worse.
Then again, it is understandable not everybody has the luxury to be in circumstances that allow adequate forms of resistance.
If you ask about which country, I'd say it depends. It depends on who youaare, what your skills are, which climate zones and cultures you prefer, whether you're willing to learn a new language and so on.
Nothing they do makes sense until you accept that hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, for them and their base. They know that what they're asking for is impossible to meaningfully comply with...
What the demand is, is institutional fealty to Donald Trump. Trying to interpret it as anything else is going to lead these institutions into poor decision making. Harvard is doing the right thing.
You see the establishment of separate, unwritten classes of things here, right? It will be a case-by-case basis which of these rules is invoked, that way no matter what happens they're "just following the rules we all agreed to" but they get to hand-select which thoughts are compulsory and which are forbidden.
and the irony at the beginning of the demanding government letter:
"But an investment is not an entitlement."
>>- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
I'm sure we both know what this one means though. Forcing the university to hire people who think the earth is flat and that climate change isn't real - for the sake of diversity of course.
I don't think it's confusing. It's classic "my way or the highway" stance. "Free speech for everyone! (except for things I don't like...)".
It makes sense when you realize that their true position is "free speech for me but not for thee". The contradictions are about censoring speech they disagree with and promoting speech they like.
They go after their enemies (liberals, trans, pro palestinians, brown migrants) and help their friends (right wing white people).
To the fascist regime, "diversity" means "hiring black or gay people". Likewise "diverse points of view" means "viewpoints that think it's okay for black and gay people to be hired and for transgender people to pee". And "speech control" means "kicking out people who shout Hitler did nothing wrong in the middle of the library". And "inclusion" means "letting black or gay people study". It's all newspeak.
The demands only seem inconsistent if you don't look at the actual principle underlying them. Political discourse tends to present opposing ideologies as being about principles like "free speech" or "free markets" - it's really all about power, who has it, and who wants it.
In this case its strengthening particular social and economic hierarchies - america vs the rest of the world, and white christians over non-whites or non-christian.
What's interesting is that this is not necessarily a struggle between the top of a hierarchy vs the bottom of one, but between two different hierarchies. The democrats support cultural non racial and economic hierarchies, while the republicans support racial international and the same economic hierarchies. So while they both support the rich over the working class, there is a struggle over whether to support racial and international hierarchies. Democrats tend to support globalization, i.e unifying of the power of the top of the economic hierarchy across international boundaries, while eliminating racial and sexual hierarchies as they are seen as "inefficient" from a neoliberal perspective. Republicans are more focused on the "national elite", the rich people that depend on america being a global hegemon specifically, energy industry, military industira-complex, etc..
Plenty of Democratic voters are on board with taxing the rich and flattening those economic hierarchies.
The problem has been that the Democratic party is the neoliberal wing of the establishment. Its purpose has been to create the illusion that economic progress is possible while working hard to maintain the economic status quo. Cultural diversity was the distraction and consolation prize.
Now the establishment wants full, unquestioned, totalitarian control now and no longer cares about maintaining the illusion of choice.
Ultimately it wants a country run on plantation lines with voting rights restricted to wealthy white male property owners, a "Christian" moral narrative (really just racism, greed, supremacism, and sexual opportunism dressed up in bible rags) and no independent sources of intellectual dissent.
Which means the bare minimum of public education, no science, no difficult or non-commercial art, no free thought in universities or academia, and as little free travel and contact with the outside world as possible.
The most comparable country is North Korea. So the likely end will be a heavily militarised and even more heavily propagandised country, run as a pampered inherited monarchy which tolerates a certain amount of education when it's useful, but is violently hostile to all dissent.
It's quite hard to get there from here. The shock-and-awe of the last few months were supposed to establish dominance, but it's not going to happen without resistance. Harvard is one example. There will be more.
Ultimately the military will be used to force compliance, and - absent a not entirely unexpected medical event - they'll decide which way this goes.
it's pretty clear. it's twitter's policy. neo-Nazi rhetoric must be allowed, empathy must be banned.
Cowards are now saying it was a mistake: "Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard" - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/business/trump-harvard-le...
The demands are simple and not confusing at all.
- Stop promoting Democrats' agendas as the ultimate truth; stop bullying people for non-Democratic views - Allow Republicans' agendas to be equally represented
Is it really so difficult to understand?
Out of many bad things Trump has done, this isn't really bad for anyone except core Democrats voters.
The US academia has become hostile to anyone except one particular culture. This should stop.
Conservatives should start their own universities, if they aren't happy with the existing ones. The federal government has no business enforcing conformity to certain ideological demands in private institutions. It's right there in the very first amendment.
If the university was founded by the government, it should represent Americans. All of them. Half of Americans are conservative. Approx. half of academia should be conservative.
Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.
It was founded by a government, not the federal government, let alone this government. It was founded before this government existed.
And it's been a private institution for hundreds of years.
Why should any university go out of its way to "cater to" conservatives and liberals in equal measure if those ideologies don't equally value things like reason and truth? The mission should be providing education and facilitating research, not keeping political partisans happy.
So, we should have merit-based hiring with respect to race and gender, but then have a quota-based system for political affiliation? How do you even measure this? Who counts as a "conservative"? MAGA-only, or do we get to count RINOs? Won't people just lie about their political beliefs to get a job? Do you detect any irony in the way your agenda exactly parallels that of structural racists who see racism in any job where the racial distribution doesn't match that of the general population?
The reason that academia is overwhelming left-leaning is that those are the people that choose to go to grad school and pursue academic careers. For whatever reason (whether ability or inclination) conservatives do so in much smaller numbers. You want conservatives in academia, go get a Ph.D.
Are you arguing that _all_ universities that receive government funding should cater equally to conservatives and liberals? Given that Texas Christian University receives funding from the government, would you argue that it too should stop receiving federal funding until represents America equally?
If they receive federal funding, they should represent Americans. If 100% of Americans will be Democrats, then it can be this monoculture. If more people shift to Green politics, or Libertarian, it should represent those more too.
If there is a Christian university, it should either be sponsored by Christians only, or similar funding should go to other universities representing other major American groups (for example Jews).
Discrimination based on political views should be treated the same as discrimination based on sexual orientation or race.
So you do think that Texas Christian University should lose all federal funding until it proportionally represents all Americans' political beliefs?
I have answered that already.
Either lose funding, or comparable other universities should be funded so all relevant spectrum is covered.
Federally funded institutions should cater for all Americans. The army, police, schools, hospitals... shouldn't be there only for one half of people.
Conservatives have started their own Universities. No one likes going to those schools, and they end up bankrupt, with students who are functionally uneducated.
> Conservatives should start their own universities
They did. Remember Trump University? It got shut down for fraud.
I don't think Trump University was ever indented to be a real university. Wasn't it basically the Trump-branded version of those late night infomercials promising to teach you how to get rich in real estate? You know, the ones where ultimately they basically just sell you a bunch of tapes for $5000?
If you're looking for an actual conservative university, a better example would be a place like Liberty University. I think the problem is starting an institution is hard, it'll only really hit its stride like 100 years after being founded, and it's hard to keep an ideological project on track for such a long period of time.