When it comes to politics, most of us have only two media: voice and vote.
The ballot is at best the most important vote for the state office every two and four years. We all have only one voice, although some of us also have the extra power to amplify the amplification of that voice.
This column is my loudspeaker. It’s not big, but what is it.
Since the Supreme Court declares money as a speech, if you are very wealthy, maybe the CEO of a car company, a space company, a company that tortures monkeys by implanting things and owners of social media platforms in your brain, your voice will indeed become very loud and drown out the voices of others.
Some have real political power. The elected official has political power. People with a loud enough voice can resonate with larger groups, or have enough money to buy government leverage, with political power. It’s a rather narrow class of people and organizations, and one thing that has bothered me lately is the rejection of people with real political power to use this kind of political power to resist something I think is undeniable: the continual attempt to make authoritarian attempts to our democracy.
I learned that there are different ideas about the possibility of success in this attempt to take over and the way it can resist most, but I’m sure if you’re even feeding those who try to take over, they’ll even admit that they’ll admit that that’s the case. They almost already have it.
The sound is by no means meaningless. The recent “King-free” protests have allowed millions of people to be distributed nationwide to oppose this takeover, demonstrating the ability of collective voices to aggregate into political power and the like.
But at this moment, when we are just over a year away from our next national election, the direct force of resistance is elsewhere, which is why threats have been busy damaging and undermining democratic institutions such as free media and higher education.
That’s why they target Harvard. No one should seriously believe that this is a controversy in principle. The Trump administration does not care about real anti-Semitism, nor does it care about foreign students’ records. The cancellation of the NIH grant was conducted on a thoroughly temporary basis – breach of damage, without deliberation.
This is why I declare “We are all Harvard,” a recognition that at this moment we must express complete solidarity in the struggle against authoritarian forces. Harvard has so far fought against it in the courts and in the public opinion world, winning both. Just this week, for example, a judge ruled Harvard’s motion to allow international students to continue enrollment.
But there is reason to worry. one New York Times The article clearly mentions people inside Harvard University and (I guess here) are used as a trial balloon to assess public sentiment – under the title of “Closed Back, Harvard Officials”, a risky truce was debated with Trump. ”
The article constitutes Harvard’s current plight in this way: “Despite a series of legal victories against the administration, Harvard officials have concluded in recent weeks that these victories alone may not be enough to protect the university.”
Obviously, Harvard is suffering from these attacks. It causes damage in various ways, and the damage is real and can last. It must be tempting if you promise to explore what relief you realize might require.
All this is true, I obviously don’t know about Harvard’s internal knowledge, and I still think it’s not a difficult requirement no Conduct any form of reconciliation with Trump.
There are two obvious reasons not to trade:
- Trump will not stick with it. My evidence is Trump’s method of committing the crime for 50 years.
- Public opinion will oppose Harvard, causing lasting reputational damage (see: Columbia University).
But there is a bigger reason: a deal with Trump legalizes the government that uses illegal intimidation to verify authoritarian power. Harvard has long lived in an authoritarian country because independent higher education institutions are not part of an authoritarian country.
Perhaps Harvard’s wealth and status are unfair, and it has become one of the democratic levers that can resist authoritarianism, but this is where we find ourselves. In better times, Harvard can say that benefits from our systems disproportionately. Now, it has been disproportionately hurt. It should be very desirable to return as much as possible to the former status quo, rather than attempting to reach a housing that may put it in a significant reduction in and sustained erosion.
If you only see Trump and Trumpism as temporary phenomena that can be dispatched in the ballot box within three years, this gives Trump a symbolic victory over Harvard (assuming that anything Harvard gives will really have no substantive substance).
How do we determine? We are willing to gamble at Harvard University (and the future of the country)?
Because I still believe we are all Harvard, I hope it can do the right thing and use the power it has to defend our democracy.
