497 Comments
User's avatar
Jonathan Feig's avatar

It's not just that they want to keep America ignorant. Now that they have established themselves as the dominant force they don't care if they destroy 90% of the American economy, in fact that is what they are intentionally doing, do that, at the end of the day theu have 100% control over the 10% of the economy that is still existent.

This is what faschist dictators do. They destroy and control.

The existence of Boston as an economic force is a threat to their hegemony.

Expand full comment
mike gramig's avatar

An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.”

– Sun Tzu

Expand full comment
George Patterson's avatar

While not stated by Sun Tzu, one need only read about Hitler's last days and statements to know it's true.

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

So what? It’s true!

Expand full comment
Edwin Callahan's avatar

I think the observation has been kicking around for a long time. There was a line of dialogue from one of the earlier Game of Thrones how one of the contenders would be willing to do just that to rule Westeros.

Expand full comment
Hugues Talbot's avatar

The quoted sentence might be true but the attribution is false. In standard logic, this means the entire statement is false.

This bothers me, so I pointed it out. No harm done, I think.

Expand full comment
Greg's avatar

Thanks for the correction. I was wondering when I read it if it was in fact true. Here is one from our wasted lives, money, and time in Vietnam that is indeed true though: "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

Expand full comment
Joe Zeigler's avatar

It is not fair, I've lived though Vietnam, Civil Rights, Nixon. Just as I think I've lived an interesting life... THIS!

JosephZeigler.substack.com

Expand full comment
Greg's avatar

On this one, I think I will go with Peter Arnett on this one.

Expand full comment
Jim Caserta's avatar

Alfred - Some men just want to watch the world burn

Expand full comment
Joe Zeigler's avatar

trump must destroy the country in order to save it.

JosephZeigler.substack.com

Expand full comment
Joe Zeigler's avatar

Well selected. And, here we go.

JosephZeigler.substack.com

Expand full comment
Raul Ramos y Sanchez's avatar

Their attack on diversity and higher learning is what the Taliban did -- and continue to do.

Expand full comment
Nina V's avatar

And look how well they are doing!

Expand full comment
Theodora30's avatar

Their slogan should be MARS — Make American Really Stupid — not MAGA.

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

America is already stupid. Look who they voted back to power.

Expand full comment
Marliss Desens's avatar

Or they sat at home and let a minority of the population vote into office.

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

Those who chose not to vote in 2024 are equally culpable.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

A large portion of America (49.6%) is morally depraved. That's worse than stupid, imo.

Expand full comment
NubbyShober's avatar

Maybe a few are. Most of the GOP voting Base are simply high on well-crafted propaganda, artfully crafted out of (mostly) thin air, by FOX News and RW media. Like all professional grade propaganda, it adds a few grains of truth to the mix; but is largely fact free, where Haitians are eating peoples pets, and Dems kill babies after birth.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

I'm having a difficult time trying to find the comment to which you are replying. But if it's the one about morally depraved, I will simply note they voted for a convicted felon, rather than vote for a black woman. A convicted felon who bragged about sexual assault and publicly mocked a disabled person. They voted for this. Proof of their utter moral depravity.

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

That's what I also call, "Morally depraved". They find sources that agree with their white, Christian, racist, homophobic, transphobic views, and decide it's true. They believe in Jesus and own guns and ammunition.

Expand full comment
Judith Auerbach's avatar

I meant to ask Charles how he came up with that percentage

Expand full comment
Francis Accardo's avatar

49.6% of votes for president in 2024 went to Trump.

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

49.8% Trump; 48.3% Harris. Voter turnout nationally in 2024 was 63.9 percent. 36% of voters chose not to participate, and they are equally culpable. There's no excuse for letting an insurrectionist, convicted felon, sexual assaulter, and habitual liar, become POTUS. None.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Soviets lost 26 million soldiers. US list some 250,000, i.e., 1% of the total Soviet losses.

Expand full comment
Judith Auerbach's avatar

I don't understand what the Soviet losses has to do with anything. In any event, the Russians signed a mutual defense pact with Hitler and split the spoils with him until. Surprise. He turned on them

Expand full comment
Judith Auerbach's avatar

How did you come up with that percentage , Marliss?

Expand full comment
fsm's avatar

And i guess its just a coincidence that the Obamas graduated from Harvard?...i think not , I think that plays a part in the special attention they're recieving..

Expand full comment
Joe Zeigler's avatar

Assuming you are a U.S. citizen, we voted him back to power. trump must destroy the country in order to save it.

JosephZeigler.substack.com

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

Save it? From what?

Expand full comment
Lance Khrome's avatar

Always remember: "I love the poorly educated!" — DJT

Expand full comment
John L's avatar

That's because he's one of them.

Expand full comment
Lance Khrome's avatar

And proud of it!

Expand full comment
Chad C. Mulligan's avatar

They want to burn America down so they can rule over the ashes.

Expand full comment
Jp's avatar

Paul defending the Chinese regime now??? What happened to you Paul??

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Deliberate and with gleeful malice

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
May 27
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
1d2080's avatar

Thank you for your input, Senator McCarthy.

Expand full comment
Robert Duane Shelton's avatar

With funding from a half-dozen Federal agencies, I sent 50 delegations of US scientists abroad to foreign research groups to assess where America stood in science and technology. We learned a lot of things, like China was investing huge amounts in R&D to pass the US in world leadership in science. And succeeding. Now the Trump Gang is accelerating that process by kneecapping American universities, which have been the world's incubator for the best science. Take a look at the posted research group photos of American universities. They all look like the United Nations with researchers from China, India, and many other countries, plus a few from the US. Now the Trump Gang is driving away this talent, which has been critical to America's technology companies. There's only one solution. Elect a Democrat who can clean this mess up, like FDR did for Hoover's debacle.

Expand full comment
td12212's avatar

When I was in grad school doing electrical engineering at least 70% of the student body were foreign. What happens when that 70% disappear? Research stops dead in its tracks .

Expand full comment
NSAlito's avatar

China—which actually values technical education—cranks out a million engineering degrees each year, and they put them to good use. They have a commanding lead in renewable energy, flexible manufacturing and cost-effective AI. And they've finally figured out that pollution is bad and are working to fix their environment.

Expand full comment
mike harper's avatar

back in the before times, early to mid 1980's, my branch chief attended a meeting at U Cal Biserkeley where Cal engineering were interested in knowing what NASA was interested in. He was shown a stack of engineering school applications and told that they could fill the entire freshman class with Asians.

Expand full comment
td12212's avatar

Many of that 70% graduate student class go on to work in tech cos.. This is why 50-60% of all engineers are foreign born as well. Imagine what happens when that well drys up in 3-4 years...and no, AI can't take the place of an engineering work force, even though that's what Thiel, Musk, Sacks and Altman would like you to believe.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
May 26Edited
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

I really must object. In my teaching experience (teaching ESL), my Vietnamese students were the hardest-working students I ever had, and my Chinese students were the relative "freeloaders." All of my Asian students out-worked all American students (taught English also). Any serious teacher would be happy to have taught only Asian students.

Expand full comment
George Patterson's avatar

BTW. The Chinese students at UT in the '70s were studying engineering and computer science. They weren't immigrants and had no real interest in ESL. My two Vietnamese students were Business majors. They were probably the sons of refugees from the fall of Saigon, but I don't know their actual history.

Expand full comment
George Patterson's avatar

Obviously different schools and/or times.

Expand full comment
mike harper's avatar

My late wife taught accounting at Mission College night school. When she walked to the podium all talking stopped and the students were ready for class. She substituted for a friend at day classes at De Anza College. No one stopped talking until she said there would be a test at the end of the class. Day students were fresh from high school and the night students were adults upgrading.

She had to council two students about cheating. They were asian. They told her that they were only trying to help a friend. It is not seen as cheating.

Expand full comment
Mary Beth O'Quinn's avatar

Under the Soviets in the 1970s-80s, cheating was rampant, an expected norm, particularly for the matura. Even professors helped students cheat on the matura. All for party dominance.

Expand full comment
Harvey Kravetz's avatar

Have you ever noticed that clearly foreign-sounding names author many research papers? The tRump era has and is destroying all that was good about this country. Whoever thought we would live to see the demise of our once great country? This is what voters wanted, at least enough of them. What a sad, horrifying, pathetic period we are enduring.

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Despite the widespread horror of the depression, it was easier to overcome than

these deliberate and ruthless destroyers. Sad but true

Expand full comment
stuart burstin's avatar

I realize the time is not right, it may never be, but isn’t it time to listen to Lennon “imagine there’s no countries.” Science is not defined by countries. Nature is universal. Yet science and technology define the future. The names on and locations of research document in globalization. Isolationism has been the US position to our detriment multiple times. We live in a dystopian past at our peril.

Expand full comment
Lynn hamilton's avatar

Yes, too bad most of us don’t realize that “the age of nations is past” (T de Chardin). At least, imo, the borders should be much softer!

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Imagine no possessions.

Expand full comment
linda bilmes's avatar

Thank you for this succinct analysis of the potential far-reaching damage. Our international students are a force multiplier for advancing knowledge that benefits the US and global economy. It’s one of America’s best ideas.

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

"And no religion, too."

Expand full comment
Maye Z.'s avatar

Was it a millionaire who said imagine no possessions

A poor little schoolboy who said we don't need no lessons

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

It is ironic. Lennon's estate at the time of his death was. IIRC, estimated at some $250 million. Mark David Chapman, Lennon's assassin, viewed himself as some real-life “Catcher in the Rye,” trying to rescue young people from Lennon's hypocrisy. A simplistic reading of Salinger but maybe understandable.

Expand full comment
Alastair Robb's avatar

Australian here ex- University sector. I'm glad you mentioned soft power. Having had multiple excellent Asian PhD students, making sure their stay in Australia was positive, enjoyable, and left them with fond memories of Australia was enormously important. I always viewed these men and women as personal friends and friends of Australia more broadly. Vitally important in times of uncertainty.

Expand full comment
Bob Bowden's avatar

I’d be completely unsurprised by Mark Carney announcing that Harvard and other elite U.S. universities are being invited to relocate to Canada, with a path to dual citizenship being offered to American staff and enrolled students.

With global warming making Canada’s climate more temperate, encouragement of immigration to Canada for millions having or seeking elite education would assure Canada of healthy population growth and dynamic economic growth as it establishes itself as the elite education hub of the world. In 100 years it may have become the next great nation, arising from the ashes of the former United States.

Expand full comment
Maye Z.'s avatar

Maybe y'all are just kidding here, but for the record, it's a fallacy that global warming is going to benefit anyone.

Expand full comment
Bob Bowden's avatar

Global warming is destined to become a disaster for humanity overall, but climate scientists are not predicting a uniform and universally unliveable helholle is to be the result everywhere for every square mile of land that remains above sea level at every lattitude. You’re right that no one should use that to minimize the warnings about anthropomorphic climate change, and my flip comment about Canada was not made for that purpose

Expand full comment
Joseph Sandor's avatar

Wonderful idea but still too cold for me -- while rapid, global warming isn't coming fast enough. Can we have a Southern Campus in Mexico or Panama?

Expand full comment
chris lemon's avatar

I'm thinking that the British Empire might rise again. If the anglophone UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and maybe Kenya all got back together in a coordinated joint effort to boost spending on universities and R&D they could capture much of talent that the US is driving away. A group of competent politicians could even get China to fund the effort.

Expand full comment
Ian Armstrong's avatar

we have already had a uS Nobel leading one of best unis; I suspect we would welcome many more; our scientific organistions are world leading in critical areas and we have plenty of rare earth reserves for lots of future research....and lots of friendly neighbours who welcome visitors for sun soaked holidays....without armed gangs....

Expand full comment
Peter Chapin's avatar

I used to joke that I needed to buy up land in northern Alberta and then sell it later at an enormous profit when it became prime farmland. Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea!

Expand full comment
Nigel's avatar

But for oil sands mining and massive forest fires...

Expand full comment
Dave Anderson's avatar

Canada already demonstrated a readiness to hire away American professors seeking respite from the coming chaos.

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

A tad of humanity, rare in American institutions these days

Expand full comment
Sam Beam's avatar

I don't think it is rare, in reality. I don't think that is the view held by the people involved. Sounds more like your feelings, passed off as evidence.

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Just paying attention to the changes in the last 4 months

Expand full comment
Stephen Birchett's avatar

Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Pinochet and now Trump all sought to eliminate intellectual thought and replace it with fascist dogma. They did this with repressive laws, hegemomic propoganda and financial coercion, leading in Germany, Spain, Chile and Italy to violence, intimidation and murder. Book burning wasn't the start but acts as a vivid reminder of where the journey goes. The journey didn't end well for the route planners because of immense sacrifices made by millions of people. Trump and his fascists ( I will not call them 'neo-fascists') need to be opposed, defeated, disgraced and demeaned. The civilised world must support brave American citizens in the battle for democracy.

Expand full comment
Roxane's avatar

My German ex-husband used to always comment about how much the US benefited when Germany drove out the intellectuals (those who left early or survived the holocaust). He is saying this 80+ years on from when it happened. This isn't damage that can be undone in a few years.

Expand full comment
Johanna C.'s avatar

Unfortunately, Stephen is confused about which authoritarian regime has inflicted the reputational and scholarly damage we've seen over the last 30 years. When the administrators and faculty at the top universities are overwhelmingly "liberal" or "very liberal" (80%+ vs 2% who say they are "conservative"), two generations of students have been educated in entirely one ideological direction. Half the intellectuals in this country have already been driven out of academia.

Expand full comment
Jennie H.'s avatar

Mao's Cultural Revolution as well.

Expand full comment
Kate Bergam's avatar

This is what I thought Paul’s essay would lead to discussing the parallels of the cultural revolution and the purge at American universities. Given the photo at the beginning of the post. Hopefully there will be a follow up post on the topic. All of this is so completely un-American!

Expand full comment
Derek Smith's avatar

You forgot Mao.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Hitler opened Auscwitz; Stalin (and the Red Army) shut it down. Enough with the false equivalences.

Expand full comment
Dominique BOISCLAIR's avatar

... and openned the goulag!

Expand full comment
Michael Brooke's avatar

In 'Bloodlands', Timothy Snyder pointed out that Stalin's body count was many, many orders of magnitude bigger than Hitler's by the time that WWII started.

Indeed, this imbalance gave rise to the curious, understandably brief historical phenomenon of people fleeing Stalin's Russia to Hitler's Germany, as they believed - with credible reasoning at the time - that it couldn't possibly be anything like as bad as what they were escaping.

And this imbalance continued into WWII itself, what with Stalin's murder of tens of thousands of members of the Polish military and educational élite in the Katyń Forest in early 1940, a crime that they later tried to pin on the Nazis, only Poles weren't fooled. (The USSR only admitted culpability under Mikhail Gorbachev, and pretty late into Gorbachev's rule at that.) And the fact that one of the purposes of the Katyń massacre was to eliminate Poland's intellectuals and make the country more malleable to totalitarian rule makes it firmly on-topic in the context of the main subject under discussion.

And yes, Hitler subsequently proved himself to be worse (although this is surely pedantic hair-splitting when we're talking millions of victims), but pretending that Stalin was one of the good guys because he "shut [Auschwitz] down" is the kind of whitewashing worthy of a current New York Times front page.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Um, we were allies with the Soviets. They fought and defeated Hitler along a 2,000-mile front (at the cost of some 26,000,000 casualties) while we were playing at war in North Africa. History matters.

Expand full comment
Michael Brooke's avatar

A matter of necessary Realpolitik rather than enthusiasm on the Allies' part, as I'm sure you're fully aware already.

And history does indeed matter, which is why I brought up the Katyń massacre. Which was far from Stalin's only bout of mass murder, but it's the one that's most directly relevant to the topic under discussion - i.e. the deliberate attempt at extirpating a country's educated elite in order to make it more malleable for complete takeover. (Stalin never forgave the Poles for having the temerity to win the 1919-20 Polish-Bolshevik War.)

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

The Tory Churchill said he would praise the Devil in Commons if Hitler invaded Hell. That hardly sounds like "realpolitik" to me. But YMMV.

Expand full comment
Michael Brooke's avatar

Yes, my mileage does vary, in that I'm not minded to turn a blind eye to people's almost inconceivably vast crimes just because they happened to be "on our side" during a comparatively brief period.

For instance, the massacre in the Katyń Forest clearly showed which way Stalin was heading with regard to Poland, which he and Hitler carved up as a by-product of the laughably misnamed Non-Aggression Pact.

And of course the alliance between the Allies and Stalin was based on Realpolitik - how could it have been based on anything else? Throughout the whole of the 1920s and most of the 30s the biggest threat to the Western world was presumed to come out of the USSR rather than Nazi Germany - and with good reason. Just because Hitler declared war on the USSR doesn't mean that Stalin magically became cuddly Uncle Joe, whatever the propaganda of the time may have tried to claim.

Expand full comment
Stephen Birchett's avatar

Playing at war to prevent Axis forces control of the oil fields. Few serious historians dispute the sacrifice of the Soviet population and its armed forces but dismissing other allies as 'playing' is plain wrong.

Expand full comment
JB's avatar

What a silly objection. To state that “Authoritarians, including Stalin and Hitler, did X” does not imply that everything that Hitler did, Stalin did too.

I think there’s a kind of corollary to Godwin’s Law - Any mention of Hitler will eventually attract the attention of someone who wants to shut down the discourse by blindly insisting that any reference to Hitler is illegitimate.

Expand full comment
Sam Beam's avatar

JB - Correct. And Godwin never denied that Nazis actually exist. Very much the opposite.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Not as silly as insinuating (as Birchett did) that Stalin was "fascist " On this Memorial Day, we would all be well served by remembering that 26,000,000 Soviet skiers and partisans doed to defeat Naziism in Europe. (U.S. losses in Europe were 1\100 of that.)

Expand full comment
NSAlito's avatar

I'm trying to wrap my head around how very high losses in WWII reflect well on Stalin, as if we're keeping score by cannon fodder.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

The USSR fought and defeated Hitler and the Nazis along a 2,000-mile front while the US was playing at war in North Africa. But Stalun = Hitler. SMDH

Expand full comment
NSAlito's avatar

And you think Stalin gave a damn about how many of his own people died?

Expand full comment
Carol Bradford's avatar

My cousin died in Tunisia in 1943. "Playing at war?"

Expand full comment
Stephen Birchett's avatar

That is misreading my point. Not all tyrants are fascist but all fascists become tyrants.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

*26,000,000 Soviet soldiers and partisans

Expand full comment
NSAlito's avatar

As I understand it, the proper response to genocides *within* a sovereign state is, "Tsk, tsk!"

Cross a certain line drawn on a map to kill the same number of people is, on the other hand, completely unacceptable.

Expand full comment
Marc R Hapke's avatar

Thanks for the link.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

What's your point?

Expand full comment
Johannes Widi's avatar

So you didn't manage to read that? Come back when you did.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

What's your point?

Expand full comment
William Turnier's avatar

Do not make a hero out of Stalin post 1941 without noting that in 1939 Russia under Stalin and Germany under Hitler jointly invaded Poland kicking off a major segment of what became WWII. Only after Hitler betrayed Stalin in 1941 with Operation Barbarossa and attacked Russia did Stalin find virtue and had no choice but to join the fight against Nazi Germany.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

I object to equating Hitler and Stalin, calling Stalin "fascist ", saying the Holodomor was "like" the Holocaust, ad. nauseum.

Expand full comment
Michael Brooke's avatar

It was "like" the Holocaust in that millions of people died as a direct result of government policy drawn up by people who were fully aware of the only credible outcome of said policy. The fact that the motives for mass murder were different, as indeed were the methods (deliberate starvation versus gassing), is neither here nor there.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Of, for Christ's sake. You should know that there is NO agreement among historians as to the "deliberate" nature of the Holodomor. As opposed to the well-documented 1941 Nazi Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution was set in motion. The Holodomor is NOT EQUAL to the Holocaust.

Your specious arguments have grown tiresome.

Expand full comment
Michael Brooke's avatar

Both involved the deaths of millions, both were preventable by the governments concerned, both actively chose not to prevent them from happening. Only a full-blown apologist for one side or the other would claim that there's any significant difference as far as the outcome was concerned.

In any case, the Holodomor was merely the first of the three mass-casualty atrocities that happened on Stalin's watch between 1930 and 1940, and there's nothing remotely "specious" about highlighting them. Especially since you seem hell-bent on either minimising them (the Holodomor) or, as far as I can see thus far, blanking them entirely (the Great Terror, the Katyń massacre).

Expand full comment
SophieM's avatar

I'm sick and tired of reading your asinine comments. Perhaps you're not the expert on Stalin you believe you are.

Expand full comment
Richard S Lipov's avatar

Don’t know what your point is: Hitler bad guy: Stalin good guy.

It took stacking up more than 20 million dead for Red Army to defeat Hitler on the eastern front.

What credit would u give US for the defeat of the Nazis😵‍💫

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

1% of the credit, since our casualties were 1% of the USSR's.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Cue the what-aboutism in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1

Expand full comment
Claire 🦆🦆🪿's avatar

What an excellent portrait of American higher ed’s contributions to the country and the world. We should all be proud.

On another note, I suspect that someone else was rejected by Harvard…and Columbia. Hell hath go fury like an orange baby

man scorned.

Expand full comment
Deidre Woollard's avatar

Rumor has it Harvard rejected Barron, hence the hate.

Expand full comment
Claire 🦆🦆🪿's avatar

I forgot about Barron!

Expand full comment
Ethereal fairy Natalie's avatar

It's easy to do, he's a bit of a nonentity.

Expand full comment
Fred WI's avatar

Ah.

Expand full comment
Margaret Reis's avatar

Yes, obviously his father bought him his degree!

Expand full comment
Winston Smith London Oceania's avatar

It makes me wonder what leverage he used to get accepted into UPenn.

Expand full comment
Roger Hedspeth's avatar

Apparently, he came as a transfer student with a "donation". He could never get in as a direct from HS admission. Don't remember there source, though.

Expand full comment
Denney Clements's avatar

$$$

Expand full comment
Sam Beam's avatar

Daddy's money and arm twisting.

Expand full comment
JP Connolly's avatar

Another lump sum of dosh.

Expand full comment
Mike McGlade's avatar

Anyone in the world with an internet connection and a device can take free courses from Harvard. One of the best (and best known) is the

Expand full comment
Mike McGlade's avatar

Oops, posted by accident without finishing. The Harvard cs50 class is probably the most taken computer science course in the world, and it’s free! Highly recommended.

Expand full comment
LifeLongLearner's avatar

I’m shocked that Harvard rejected your application in high school. Their loss!

Expand full comment
Bob Adolph's avatar

Not so shocking considering the lore that undergrads often coming from very wealthy families (legacy acceptances). (Please see Grant Whitney’s reply below.) Harvard grad schools are the big deal - launching a huge number of Masters and PhD’s into the world, plus providing so very much research.

Expand full comment
Grant Whitney's avatar

I worked at the university for 2 decades in a role where I saw how out of touch your legacy and wealth comment truly is. Far more first-in-their family to be accepted to college and others without the proverbial silver spoon. Uninformed Opinion without fact is just that.

Expand full comment
Bob Adolph's avatar

Thank you for your well informed reply. My comment above has been updated.

Expand full comment
J M's avatar

Very congenial of you.

Expand full comment
Somewhere, Somehow's avatar

If true, maybe I don’t dislike Harvard as much as I did a minute ago.

Expand full comment
Iris Stammberger's avatar

What do you mean?

Expand full comment
AnneS's avatar

I have to mention the Harvard Extension School, which is open enrollment and has many classes taught by Harvard instructors at a fraction of the cost of the “day school”. For anyone wanting to work toward a Harvard degree, it is a wonderful way to learn and meet new people and maybe even get started in a new career. Also support Harvard at the present moment.

Expand full comment
Peter d's avatar

The scuttlebutt always was that the extension school is the better educational experience - the best teachers and more driven students. The extension school is truly wide open and you will find people of all ages taking classes with you. The costs are reasonable too.

Expand full comment
Cheryl Boone's avatar

I took courses at Harvard Extension almost 50 years ago. Teachers were rerited or early-career professors from both Harvard & MIT, and a PhD student. No grades, and no degrees were granted, and each class cost about $35. The students in my classes, all of us working, were smart and interesting, and the classes were terrific.

I was disapppointed to discover a few years ago that the approach has drastically changed. Instead of cheap, non-degree interesting classes, there is now a degree path, courses aimed at job training, and worst of all, fees of several thousand dollars per course. I'm sure that's still cheaper than admission to Harvard College, but the shift is still disappointing. The original idea was classes that almost anyone could afford.

Expand full comment
Karen Rile's avatar

Haha, I had the same thought!

Expand full comment
Peter Wood's avatar

Better to be king of the world you destroyed than to be a loser in jail

Expand full comment
Stacy1946's avatar

The most eloquent and economical statement of Trump's intentions I've heard. Kudos, Peter. If Trump knew who Milton was, he might see the irony.

Expand full comment
Pragmatic Folly's avatar

And if he wants to run when things get ugly for him, perhaps Putin or Xi or Orban will be so grateful to him for destroying America that they give him safe harbor.

Expand full comment
Richard's avatar

Harvard and other universities are key to basic research, which has high returns and which private industry tends to avoid (since it doesn't have near term clear payoffs). This is essential for the productivity increases which drive economic growth. See, for example, https://www.aau.edu/newsroom/leading-research-universities-report/new-research-suggests-returns-federal-investments-rd

Cutting this funding, as they're doing at Harvard and more generally, is cutting our future.

Expand full comment
Marco Lara's avatar

Excellent point @Richard, the administration is slashing funding for basic research to "cut waste" and attacking the universities that complement it. This is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs of innovation that has driven the productivity gains that have powered American growth.

Expand full comment
Matthew Brown's avatar

American universities are sort of a domestic Peace Corps, I think.

Expand full comment
Paul's avatar

As a graduate of both public and private American universities, and a returned PCV (LT 1993-1995) I don't understand your comment. I'm interested, please elaborate, who knows I might agree.

Expand full comment
Matthew Brown's avatar

The Peace Corps was put formed under JFK to provide volunteers in developed countries. The volunteers were usually young, and many were college students. To the people they worked with, they represented American values. The Peace Corps volunteers were supposed to promote a better understanding of America, partly in the service of opposing Marxist influences. American universities do much the same thing. Foreign students get to know American values. When they go home, they will have a positive attitude toward the U.S. because they will have gained something valuable here -- an advanced education. They will also have encountered how universities operate in the US. That's why masked ICE agents scooping up students off the street and spiriting them away is such a crappy policy. It achieves the opposite of promoting American values, something that universities do by promoting free speech and free, fact-based inquiry.

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

It has taken quite a while and a hell of a lot of propaganda and money to segregate the anti-intellectual forces in America all under one 'big tent'. The religious types who know critical thinking will eventually kill their grift. The business types who want cheap (read that 'slave') labor and absolutely no government regulation. The deliberately-poorly educated who don't want smart people pointing out their deficiencies. And finally Authoritarians who know it is much easier to control the masses when they are not educated. We are 2 different Nations sharing the same real estate. Both with competing agendas and expectations. I am coming to believe that never the twain shall meet again.

Expand full comment
Aubrey W Kendrick's avatar

Yes, the Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, and similar organizations have been working at this for a long time and for most of this time, the Democrats and progressive forces seem oblivious to what is going on or at least have been unable to counter it.

The reactionaries have taken over the Supreme Court and much of the Federal Judiciary. There are many more red states than blue states, so expect the Senate to be in reactionary hands for the foreseeable future. The Senate approves appointments to the federal courts, so expect their move to the right to continue. Red states have an advantage in electing a President because of the electoral college. I fear for the future because the reactionaries will largely control the Federal government and prevent any forward-thinking ideas even if we should get a Democratic President.

The republican/religious reactionary (MAGA) forces control a large chunk of the media and are very good at propaganda and getting out their talking points. I think of the intellectual forces as the smart guys and the good buys but why are the smart people so poor at getting out their message.

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

I believe that the problem lies with the Left being unable to comprehend that the Reactionary Right was really willing to burn the whole government down to get their fever dream. We blithely went along believing that while we might have our differences, at the end of the day they wanted the same things we did... They did and do not. It is why I have been pondering what partitioning the US might look like.

Expand full comment
Aubrey W Kendrick's avatar

Thanks for that comment. President Obama was elected President in 2008. Then in 2010, the Democrats lost almost a thousand seats in legislatures across the country. Remember that was when we had the rise of the tea party. At any rate, the legislatures in several states flipped from Democratic control to republican control. And many of those lost legislative seats have never been regained. The election of President Obama activated the reactionaries and forces that rely on racial/religious/cultural antagonism, and they have had the upper hand since.

I propose that the West coast (California, Oregon, Washington) and New England down to New York join Canada. But that would not help me because I live in Alabama. But I am accustomed to living in the third world country.

Best wishes.

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

I used to live in Alabama. I'm getting to the point where I'd move my old, cold-sensitive bones up North to be away from them.

Expand full comment
Aubrey W Kendrick's avatar

Racial/cultural/religious antagonism has been used in Southern politics for many, many years. Sometimes it was subtle as used by the "country club republicans" but it was always around. Remember when "law and order" "war on drugs" etc. were used. Those were code words for "lock up lots of Black Men." Race/culture/religion explains just about everything that happens in the South. But what Donald did was take this nationwide with his demonization of immigrants, trans children, etc.

The Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, and so forth, want to take the country back to the gilded age before any reforms by Teddy Roosevelt or FDR.

They essentially want to make the country safe for corporations and the wealthy. They would love to get rid of Social Security, but they are too ignorant to realize that the county and society has changed from the 1870's and 1880's. The reforms of TR and FDR were put in place for reasons.

Without Social Security we would have millions of elderly destitute people and without EPA we would have polluted streams and air.

But at any rate, the Federalists Society and etc. are close to achieving their dreams of a federal judiciary locked in the 1800's but Donald comes along and wants to take everything to a whole new level of insanity. Donald is motivated mostly by self-centered greed and spite.

Sorry to run on so long.

I have thought of leaving Alabama but probably would not because of family.

Believe it or not I have things to do, so this is it for today as far as writing opinions.

With kindest regards,

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

You don't have to tell me - I grew up in a former slave state - KY.

Expand full comment
George Patterson's avatar

I grew up in East Tennessee and spent my twenties in Georgia. I've lived in New Jersey since 1984. Come on up; it's not so bad. And it's getting warmer (slowly). As for the relatives, "Delta is ready when you are."

Expand full comment
Joan Semple's avatar

Aw… You can always move up here.

🇨🇦 💪🇨🇦

Expand full comment
Sam Beam's avatar

No partitioning, it would be an unending nightmare and destroy all chances. No, this has to be finished, and since the Trump authoritarians will never let go of power peacefully, and believe that their best tool is escalating state violence, this only ends in fire and bloodshed.

Expand full comment
Stephen Brady's avatar

I fear you are right. They need us - you know 'those people' to gloat over.

Expand full comment
Pandora’s Box's avatar

It was a terrible failure of imagination but I’m in that group. It was inconceivable to me that destroying a powerhouse was their goal.

Expand full comment
Marliss Desens's avatar

The irony is that the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation are chock-full of Ivy League graduates. The same is true of some members of Trump's cabinet of sycophants, including his Vice President.

Expand full comment
George Patterson's avatar

You can transmit high quality messages all you like, but if the receiver is faulty, they won't get across.

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

You describe us

Expand full comment
David E Lewis's avatar

A chilling but fitting opening photo.

China's Cultural Revolution is a terrifying analog to contemplate but the parallels are there. An old weak autocrat "others" those who teach and the process spirals out of control.

Fortunately Melania is no Jiang Qing and the US isn't emerging from a century of humiliation.

Maybe the better analog is the Ming Emperor's decision to burn Zheng He's fleet at a time when maritime exploration was about to open up world trade. China could have been a leader, instead it went insular.

As Trump would have us do here and now in America.

Expand full comment
Viktor Popovic's avatar

What would happen if instead of a few professors leaving for Canada, Harvard moved the whole university, the endowment and its whole service economy there? Who would be better off? …

Expand full comment
Charles Ryder's avatar

I've had similar thoughts. I'm not sure the country's elite universities need to (or realistically, ever could) move *all* of their operations abroad. But they might want to consider opening up more and largers overseas campuses. Many have done so in the past, of course, but, if Harvard's experience is anything to go by, they may need to consider doing this on a much wider and grander scale. That would be America's loss, but MAGA is fine with that as long as they think they're striking a blow against their political enemies (and they're well aware academics and researchers mostly don't vote GOP).

Expand full comment
Marshall Toburen's avatar

Perhaps they only need to announce that they are moving. How many business leaders have promised to bring manufacturing back into the U.S.? You only need to make the announcement, you don't actually have to do it.

Expand full comment
Cheryl Boone's avatar

The Central European University did move from Hungary to Vienna when Orban, as part of his increasingly auticratic rule, began attacking it.

CEU was newish, though, unlike Harvard, which owns a great deal of land and buildings. I suspect it would be much more difficult, and not all the faculty would follow.

Still, maybe Harvard should consider it. I can't imagine Cambridge without it and its students and faculty. But I also can't imagine this country if Trump, Heritage, & FedSoc succeed in their plans.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

It’s the stupidity, stupid. The damage he’s doing economically, intellectually and socially is all of a piece to make us as stupid as he is. That “performance” at West Point on Saturday, stupid combined with dementia, screams for the 25th Amendment. Wouldn’t surprise me if slimy JD was cooking up a coup to take over. The current situation is simply unsustainable, and we’re in such a weird place right now anything can happen.

Expand full comment
Sean Coley's avatar

Yeah we’d better hope he doesn’t get impeached. That said I don’t think he’s smart enough to think like that. He’s just a pathological narcissist who wants to benefit America and the world to his will, fickle as it may be.

Expand full comment
Sean's avatar

I'm generally not one for conspiracy theories, but absolutely believe Vance and the tech billionaires behind him would love to make Trump a martyr to give President Vance (ick) an early advantage after taking over.

I maintain hope this will all come crashing down with Trump alive and well so he sees his supporters finally recognize him for what it is. Might be too optimistic with that though.

Expand full comment
John's avatar

Me neither, Sean, but I’ve read that some (many?) in the inner sanctum weren’t happy with Saturday. My theory is they will strike to move him aside when they feel sure the base will let them get away with it, i.e. when enough of them are done with him and will accept Vance. There’s no way he’s lasting the full 4 years.

Expand full comment
Harvey Kravetz's avatar

Dictators hate the educated. (tRump did once say he loved the uneducated) Pol Pot of Cambodia targeted the educated professionals for extermination. Why? Dictators need sycophants, not people who can think for themselves, which is what education is supposed to do. Not produce sycophants. Intellectuals are seen as inherently counter to the goals of dictators.

Expand full comment
John Corstvet's avatar

The objective is to replace real education with religious dogma and drive the world back into the dark ages.

Expand full comment
Marcus Debon's avatar

Religion is just a piece of the pie. Whatever can be used will be used to gain control. And data is control. Religion is a mask to allow people to be misogynist, racist and inhumane.

Let me clarify….some religion. I still believe in God. But if someone is asking me for money to buy my way to Heaven, they are full of malarkey!

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Religion that men mold to their desires, and sheep baa

Expand full comment
Jan in VA's avatar

My favorite prof in college told us once "It's my job to teach you how to think." Notice HOW, not WHAT. Trump wants to destroy education because low-info voters adore him, and believe everything he says, and why change that? Works for him, and he is all he cares about.

Expand full comment
Marcus Debon's avatar

I truly think Trump is just driven by money and is nowhere near the power levers.

Between Heritage wanting to rewrite the constitution to make us an autocracy and the tech bros wanting to be mini kings with their own kingdoms….i guess a real life game of thrones where Theil, Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos have little kingdoms, they are seeking CONTROL.

And the best place to start is the brightest youth. We don’t recruit soldiers after a certain age not because they aren’t in shape but because they don’t follow rules as easily. They think about their actions. They may question the why instead of just doing, that’s what tech bros want. That’s what Herotage wants …. An army of lawyers molded in service to THEIR agenda, not the Constitutiin.

Everyone who is visible in this administration. Is either completely empty with no moral compass or very young. Would Big Balls be so eager to do borderline illegal shit if he had a mortgage, wife and kids? People who were fired for stealing intellectual property from their internship/company hired to steal the data on the entire country AFTER it was ordered by a court to be stopped. If and WHEN hopefully, our government is able to do an investigation into who stole and broke laws, it will be the kids fingerprints all over it.

When the DOD goes to MIT looking for a weapon that could annihilate an entire region, do they want adult push back or teenage- grad student brains not questioning it? Will an 18 year old have a team of lawyers on hand when he invents the next AI breakthrough or will it go directly to Bezos?

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Good observations

Expand full comment
Carol Gamm's avatar

The Civil War never ended. Today’s Confederates have come out from under the rocks to try their best to destroy America.

Expand full comment
George Patterson's avatar

I spent my twenties working in Atlanta. They were never under rocks; they were out in the open, just like their Daddies, Granddaddies, and Great-Granddaddies. My mother was very proud of having been descended on her mother's side from a South Carolina plantation owner who was nearly beggared when all of his slaves were freed. She didn't care about her father's side of the family; he was just a car dealer who died young.

Expand full comment
JDinTX's avatar

Simmering undercurrents with hate as the driver

Expand full comment
Cindy Watter's avatar

Yes. Read Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War. And then read Democracy in Chains, which is about the origins of today’s right wing. Two takeaways from that are: 1. Everything is NOT on the Internet and 2. Those people were very patient.

Expand full comment
Frau Katze's avatar

Ordered both books.

Expand full comment
Charles Bryan's avatar

Alabamian here (2 hours west of Atlanta). I wish Sherman and Luncoln had done like the Romans used to do and salted the earth here.

Expand full comment
Carol Gamm's avatar

Sad. Thank you for your comment.

Expand full comment