Defiance vs. Defeatism
Why Harvard has to fight. Plus: Week in Review.
Tariff rants and trade wars; an orgy of corruption in plane (sic) sight; debates about addled presidents; threats to investigate Bruce Springsteen; a massive congressional debt bomb; a brutal murder in DC; attacks on the courts, the media, and academic freedom.
In other words, another week of sleep-walking toward the Putinization of America (which, BTW, is the title of Sunday’s “To the Contrary” Podcast with Garry Kasparov.)
Happy Saturday
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The NYT’s Defeatism
I wasn’t planning a weekend rant, but this piece from the NYT set me off: “Why Harvard Has No Way Out.”
My point here is not to criticize the authors or the journalism — it’s the attitude that it chronicles. It is the despairing voice that says resistance is futile; that capitulation is the only prudent move.
But we need to call bullshit, because this is a fight that demands defiance, not defeatism.
The Trump administration’s attempt to block international students from attending Harvard University was a sharp escalation in the showdown between the federal government and one of the nation’s oldest and most powerful institutions.
It also showed how the younger side — the government — is the one with the upper hand.
Harvard has won praise for fighting back, and many legal experts believe the law is squarely on its side. [Ed note: Sounds good, but wait for the NYT’s “But”.]
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But the administration holds the levers of power, and is methodically and creatively using them in a take-no-prisoners assault on the school.
I would use a different word than “creatively” to describe the cruelty, illegality, and thuggish attack on Harvard and the international students. But the piece goes on to describe how Trump’s “audacity and creativity” has placed Harvard in an “impossible position” even if the university has the law on its side.
Here’s the NYT laying out the scenario of fear:
Even if Harvard runs the table in court, it’s still persona non grata with the Trump administration, and that means that it’s going to continue to face investigations, including from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump has stripped extensive federal funding from Harvard. Let’s say a judge gives back all of that money for this year. Half of the university’s research budget comes from the federal government. Where is Harvard going to get the money in the year after that, and the year after that? If you’re a researcher, do you want to be doing research at a school where your funding is in question?
Harvard finds itself in this impossible position. If it continues to fight the administration, it will continue to get hit with these extraordinary uses of federal power to punish the university.
The federal government has more levers to use against an institution like Harvard than certainly I had appreciated. If you are persona non grata with Trump, he’s got you by the lapels in a way that is extraordinary. And Harvard is feeling it. What we saw yesterday is just the latest pressure point.
This is the rationalization for surrender. And we’ve seen it over and over again. It’s the voice inside the heads of every cowardly law firm, oligarch, or media Quisling who rationalize bending the knee.
But Trump’s “creativity and audacity” is not a reason for Harvard to cave. To the contrary, his aggressive Putinism is exactly the reason the university needs to draw a bright red line that says: No More.
I hardly need to point out how high the stakes are here — not just for Harvard, but for the First Amendment itself and the rule of law. And if an institution as rich, powerful, and prestigious as Harvard University cannot wage this fight, then who will?
So, contra the NYT’s counsel of hopelessness, there is a “way out” for Harvard. It is to stand its ground — and reaffirm that this is still an America where we don’t cower before a vindictive autocrat.
ICYMI: A Week of Straight, Sober, Snarky Commentary
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday dog
My buddy, Eli.
The Times piece on "no way out" for Harvard vs tRump regime is a call for "peace in our time" and capitulation, rather than carry the battle to the aggressors. The NYT has many times disappointed us during the tRump era, but this bit of sordid defeatism is a new low...feh!
Thank you Charlie. The whole tone of that piece—and so much of the Times’ reporting echoes this. That newspaper did and does more to hurt Dems than any other, while sanewashing Trump and dismissing the need to defend democracy because that isn’t in their wheelhouse. They cut an unspoken deal with Trump a long time ago, it just wasn’t as blatant as what is happening with Columbia, the DC law firms, and corporate “leaders.”
The Times approaches this as if Trump will be in power forever. I despise the publisher, Ed board, and the entire political reporting staff. They have failed America and the world, in abdicating their role as the Fourth Estate.