Let’s discuss a theory that the Left learned hard lessons from the election.
Proposed Theory: Academia Is Finally Learning Hard Lessons
Washington Post writer Megan McArdle says Academia Is Finally Learning Hard Lessons. I respond inline in brackets. That is a free link.
The Trump administration is not just trying to get the government under control or save taxpayers money. It is mounting a frontal assault on every center of left-wing institutional power it can reach: academia, the civil service, nonprofits. The object is to break these institutions so badly that the next Democratic administration will not be able to put them back the way they were.
I probably don’t have to tell our readers why this is bad. [Actually you do, but can’t, because it’s a good thing]
Since you know that, [Well, we don’t know that because it’s false] let me make a less obvious and probably less welcome point: The left, not the right, picked this fight. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support. [For starters, it’s completely obvious, not less obvious, and the Left did it on purpose, too. But the following two sentences are things McArdle gets right. It was criminally stupid and politically naive]
It has long been clear that cuts to research funding could be the first step if Republicans were so minded. The student loans and Pell grants that subsidize tuition could be slashed, the tax rules that let elite institutions accumulate massive endowments could be changed, and in red states, government aid to public schools could be reduced. The resulting budget holes would be calamitous in many cases and would filter through the ecosystem even to schools that survived. [Let’s hope so]
Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. [Another correct paragraph]
Even if you think this was a move in the right moral direction, it was dangerous behavior. [No one in their right mind should believe this was the right moral directions. And academia did not only go along for the ride, it embraced and fostered the cancel culture]
Fundamentally, they took their prestige and public support for granted and seemed unable to imagine a world where the word “education” no longer conjured reverent deference among most of the population. [Again correct, but where the hell is proof the Left learned anything from this?]
Like children throwing rocks from an overpass, they felt protected by their elevated position, assuming their targets could do little but yell back. They weren’t expecting one of the drivers to get out of the car and grab a baseball bat from the trunk. [More accurately, the Left welcomed this battle in the foolish belief that Trump could never win again. Now they whine about the result]
None of which justifies what Republicans are doing now. It is crude, destructive and — like a baseball bat — unconscionably disproportionate. [That statement shows how clueless not only McArdle is, but all of the Progressive Left. Dismantling DEI is 100 percent welcome and needed]
But complaining about Republicans, while emotionally satisfying, isn’t very useful. The institutional left can’t control what Republicans do. It can only control its own behavior. And that behavior, however well-intentioned, was reckless in the extreme. [Complaining about DEI dismantling is further proof the Left learned nothing. They should be admitting DEI was a big mistake and apologize for the mistake. Instead they take DEI out of department names hoping to disguise what they are still doing]
What Lesson Was Learned?
Does anyone get a sense the Left learned anything from this?
McArdle mostly blames Trump. She also says the Left picked this fight.
Thank goodness I can freely say “she” without having to ask ridiculous questions about pronouns. But it was the “extreme-Left”, led by academia, that picked this fight, not just “the Left”.
The average center-Left, center-Right, Libertarian, and far-Right person is sick of Black Lives Matter, ridiculous nonbinary sex theories, favoritism for non-whites, praise for Hamas, college application favoritism, men playing female sports, and all the other bullsheet that the radical Left supports.
Progressive Derangement Syndrome
The Wall Street Journal comments on Maine’s Transgender Madness.
If Democrats want to know why so many voters abandoned them in November, they could take a gander at the progressive meltdown in Maine. On Tuesday the Maine House of Representatives voted to censure Republican Rep. Laurel Libby for posting photos of a transgender high school athlete on Facebook.
The teenager, who previously competed in boys’ track and field, switched to compete in the girls’ pole vault this year, winning the class B state championship. “This is outrageous and unfair to the many female athletes who work every day to succeed in their respective sports,” Ms. Libby wrote on Facebook.
Cue full-on progressive derangement. Lawmakers voted 75-70 to formally reprimand Ms. Libby. The censure means she isn’t allowed to speak or vote in the Legislature unless she apologizes. She has said she will not.
I propose a new acronym, PDSTM, for Progressive Derangement Syndrome. A quick search shows the PDSTM is untaken.
AOC Says She’s Fighting President Trump’s “Illusion of Power”
NPR reports Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says She’s Fighting President Trump’s “Illusion of Power”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, says she thinks Republicans have begun making mistakes… and her party is resolved to strike back.
Colleges Cautiously Navigate Trump’s DEI Crackdown
The AP reports Colleges Cautiously Navigate Trump’s DEI Crackdown
In Boston, Northeastern University renamed a program for underrepresented students, emphasizing “belonging” for all.
And around the U.S., colleges are assessing program names and titles that could run afoul of a Trump administration crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
As they figure out how to adapt, some schools are staying quiet out of uncertainty, or fear. President Donald Trump has called for compliance investigations at some schools with endowments over $1 billion.
Others have vowed to stand firm.
The president of Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts school in Massachusetts, said she hopes colleagues in higher education will not capitulate to Trump’s vision for the country. Danielle Holley said she believes Trump’s orders are vulnerable to legal challenges.
“Anything that is done to simply disguise what we’re doing is not helpful,” said Holley, who is Black. “It validates this notion that our values are wrong. And I don’t believe that the value of saying we live in a multiracial democracy is wrong.”
Many colleges have said they are no less committed to recruiting students of color and helping all students succeed, even if strategies change or go by a different name.
Northeastern changed the name of what had been called “The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” to “Belonging in Northeastern,” which it described as a “reimagined approach” that embraces everyone at the school.
Here’s the height of not learning delusion.
California Polytechnic professor Cameron Jones said he is worried whether he would still get a $150,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study the history of African descendants in early California, even though it’s not a DEI grant. He also worries about the ban’s effect on his students, especially students of color.
There is no value in taxpayer-funded studies on the history of African descendants in early California. That idiot and all like him should be fired. But that won’t happen.
So instead, I suggest we shut down the entire National Endowment for the Humanities.
Dear Megan McArdle
Where is there any evidence radical Progressives learned a damn thing from this Trumpian revolt?
But it’s not just Democrats who fail to learn.
Lesson for Republicans
Blacks and young adults did not swing the election to Trump because they suddenly became Conservative.
Rather, it was a protest vote against the extreme-Left who hijacked the Democratic party.
President Biden who campaigned on a platform of being a moderate and a healer morphed into the Progressive’s wet dream candidate.
When Biden was finally forced to drop out over dementia (that the Left hid until it was impossible to hide), the babbling word-salad fool Kamala Harris took over.
Mandate? What Mandate?
Despite winning a huge majority of the electoral college, Republicans barely held the House.
Polls do show Trump has a huge mandate to stamp out DEI nonsense.
However, Trump has no mandate for bombing Mexico, breaking trade deals ratified by Congress 89-10, or destroying small businesses with preposterous tariff experiments.
To believe Trump has a mandate to do those things is no better than Democrats’ belief that Biden had a mandate to overrule the Supreme Court on student loans.
Plight of Small Businesses
On January 31, I noted The BLS Confirms US is Now Losing Jobs in Net Business Creation
The BLS BED report provides further confirmation the BLS Birth/Death jobs model is seriously screwed up.
I also wrote about the plight of small businesses this morning in How One Small Business Owner Is Coping With Trump’s Tariffs
Fifty-four percent of small businesses polled said that tariffs would negatively affect their companies, while just 11 percent said they would benefit.
Please read that if you haven’t already.
Bullying allies like Canada and Mexico, and nonsensical tariff theories will backfire.
And Republicans hypocrites won’t do a thing about massive budget deficits.
Neither party is willing to learn anything. That’s the sad reality.
I don’t even know what DEI is other than a buzzword. I’ve not seen a single instance of it anywhere. You can stamp out DEI but that was never really the problem. At worst it was 1% of the problem. Trump always turns a molehill into a mountain and tricks half the people most of the time.
The bedrock of any Nation is its ability to produce. Wall Street sold the racket of ” Financial Services” as the new American wheel house and promptly packed off Main Stream factory jobs to China. Indeed Wall Street has seen “Boom Times” that make the Roaring 20 ‘s look like a bunch of pikers! Middle America was left in their Dust. No pain, no gain. America needs to push through this transition for the sake of the bedrock of any Civil Society- the restoration of The Family . Yep – those Traders may have to get a real job 😧 Boo Hoo!
.
They will trade crypto. Q.E.D.
Kinda baffles me as to WHY brainwashing and programming is even referred to as academia… 🤔
Academia, and of course most of the federal government apparatus have culturally long ago become what Kruschev said they always would become. We will take over your country and never fire a shot.
I say we should not immediately defund DEI, instead we should export all of it to China, and let the DEI structure attempt to plant its seeds there.
Perhaps George Soros would fund barges of DEI boat people from acadameia landing on the shores of south east asia.
Perhaps Stacey Abrams can get a grant from the great state of California to move this great ideology into the dragon and educate those poor asians deprived of this basic human undestanding, this poison porridge of DEI.
There is a lack of intelligence in Politics now…worse than any other time in History. By “intelligence” – – I do not mean IDEAS, but I mean I.Q.’s.
A lot of what TrumpCo is suggesting, that TARIFFS are wondrous and good for the common American is simply false and irritatingly/ obviously false.
NOW do you understand why voting is so incredibly weak-minded?
Voting is a mechanism, you are confusing voting with candidates you disagree with. If you don’t like the plans proposed. write up alternatives, explain why your ideas are better.
use the mechanism of voting to get the outcomes you desire. you will change little by complaining without offering an alternative.
A white male stating that DEI is not needed is the same as an abled person stating that the disabled need no extra protections. Let’s not opine where we have no perspective.
Regarding the attack on education, we need look no further than the uneducated Red States with their hand out to the Blue State funded federal government. I continue to be puzzled why we would want to mimic policies of Red States.
And, a strong majority of Dems don’t believe biologically born males should compete in women’s sports. This was purposeful election misinformation that I am surprised Mish has failed to recognize.
You are comparing DEI-favored FOLKS as being “disabled.” That is an affront to anyone who has a mind.
I remember when Trump mocked a reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who the Democrats referred to as “disabled”. He was a highly respected journalist who happened to have a bum hand. That doesn’t make him disabled. If you called me disabled for such a minor physical impairment, I would want to punch you in the face. Democrats are condescending jerks that see people as inferior to themselves and therefore in need of their protection. Try showing respect to others.
its never about the idea, its always about the identity of the person having the idea.
This is a very bad way of thinking, you are being biased against information, because you are trained that ideas aren’t important, only the people who are allowed to express ideas are important.
you have painted yourself into a mental cul-de-sac and will keep hitting your head on the wall that you can’t see and wondering why you have a constant headache.
abandon your prejudices, you are a bigot masquerading as liberated thinker, your DEI training has destroyed your abilities to evaluate reality.
If that was the case then they should have held their politicians and media pundits to account. But the “Blue no matter who” that disagreed stayed silent and enabled the divisiveness we have today.
but in any case, there are terms used to describe a person that derides someone’s opinion based on their gender and skin colour. I forget what is though. In the meantime if you won’t listen to Mitch because of his skin colour and gender, you should read Thomas Sowell. He’s discussed such issues at length.
Academia told that idiot to get stuffed.
Have the Republicans learned anything? I don’t think so. I’m betting, for example, that the Rs continue to fund PBS and NPR.
The top 40 or so university endowments will likely soon pay an excise tax on earnings of 20% (up from 1.4% presently). The increase may raise $5B-ish per year for the government. Also there will be massive decreases in allowed overhead charges on grants. The result will be a major curtailment of the flow of federal dollars to “elite” universities or even a reversal of the flow. Keep an eye on the effects of an antagonistic relationship between universities and government, compared to the cozy one enjoyed in recent decades.
DOGE will address student loans that prepare to drive Uber or deliver for Amazon. A good third of the students enroll in those degrees for the parties. The loan pays for spring break in Florida and summer school in Europe. On the flip side USA needs more engineering, technicians, mechanics, robotics, chemists, computer scientists, programmers, accountants, artisans, craftsmen,
You forgot “trades People” or those who are plumbers, Electricians, Cement Workers, HVAC people…etc. There is a massive shortage for such people. I know because I have family and friends running HVAC businesses and a pal of mine – – who is 68 and WANTS to retire – – is pulling in $1,000 a day NET NET doing the SIMPLEST PLUMBING REPAIRS and that income is made before 2pm every week day. He says that he turns down any jobs that would require him to crawl in a crawl space…in other words: SINK leaks and faucet replacements and so on. Some days, he works long and pulls in $2K net net. EVERY DAY!
– Let’s discuss a theory that the Left learned hard lessons from the election.
> I do not see or hear from their overall attitude, demeanor, recoil, responsibility, actions, or anything really. I do not see in any way a lesson having been learned at all. I will admit that some of the longtime trough eaters, they get it as the food runs out quickly for them.
– Since you know that, [Well, we don’t know that because it’s false] let me make a less obvious and probably less welcome point: The left, not the right, picked this fight. This was politically naive and criminally stupid for institutions that rely so heavily on U.S. taxpayer support. [For starters, it’s completely obvious, not less obvious, and the Left did it on purpose, too. But the following two sentences are things McArdle gets right. It was criminally stupid and politically naive]
>> I missed You Mish! Nice to see you calling things out, like you can be really good at when pushed. They finally went to far for you I see. Great and Welcome!!!
– Nonetheless, school administrations began issuing left-wing hot takes on news that played to the culture war, and students agitated, often successfully, to de-platform right-wing speakers and punish students or faculty who deviated from progressive orthodoxy. [Another correct paragraph]
>> TY!
– Even if you think this was a move in the right moral direction, it was dangerous behavior. [No one in their right mind should believe this was the right moral directions. And academia did not only go along for the ride, it embraced and fostered the cancel culture]
>> TY!
– Fundamentally, they took their prestige and public support for granted and seemed unable to imagine a world where the word “education” no longer conjured reverent deference among most of the population. [Again correct, but where the hell is proof the Left learned anything from this?]
>> TY!
– Like children throwing rocks from an overpass, they felt protected by their elevated position, assuming their targets could do little but yell back. They weren’t expecting one of the drivers to get out of the car and grab a baseball bat from the trunk. [More accurately, the Left welcomed this battle in the foolish belief that Trump could never win again. Now they whine about the result]
>> TY!
– None of which justifies what Republicans are doing now. It is crude, destructive and — like a baseball bat — unconscionably disproportionate. [That statement shows how clueless not only McArdle is, but all of the Progressive Left. Dismantling DEI is 100 percent welcome and needed]
>> TY!
– But complaining about Republicans, while emotionally satisfying, isn’t very useful. The institutional left can’t control what Republicans do. It can only control its own behavior. And that behavior, however well-intentioned, was reckless in the extreme. [Complaining about DEI dismantling is further proof the Left learned nothing. They should be admitting DEI was a big mistake and apologize for the mistake. Instead they take DEI out of department names hoping to disguise what they are still doing]
>> TY Once Again Sir!!! Man I have been waiting for one of your well thought out, on point, and left overs to use up later approaches to lunacy Mish!
What Lesson Was Learned? > What NOT to do?
Does anyone get a sense the Left learned anything from this? > Nothing?
McArdle mostly blames Trump. She also says the Left picked this fight. > Speechless would have been better
Thank goodness I can freely say “she” without having to ask ridiculous questions about pronouns. But it was the “extreme-Left”, led by academia, that picked this fight, not just “the Left”. > The ones with the “Most To Lose”?
– Progressive Derangement Syndrome – I propose a new acronym, “PDS” for Progressive Derangement Syndrome.
> Love It!
– Lesson for Republicans
> Absolutely and quickly I might add…
– Blacks and young adults did not swing the election to Trump because they suddenly became Conservative. Rather, it was a protest vote against the extreme-Left who hijacked the Democratic party.
> Many we’re “Pushed”
– President Biden who campaigned on a platform of being a moderate and a healer morphed into the Progressive’s wet dream candidate.
> Did Biden actually do anything more than sign some paperwork, contracts etc. and sleep a lot? Those that “Actually Ran” the Government certainly did!!!
– Mandate? What Mandate?
> The 70+% Majority, knowing His Goals, Dreams, And Aspirations “For America”
– Despite winning a huge majority of the electoral college, Republicans barely held the House.
> Typically in this particular scenario, with the odds at the outset, based upon past events, Point to them “Losing”
– Polls do show Trump has a huge mandate to stamp out DEI nonsense. > Agreed
– However, Trump has no mandate for bombing Mexico, breaking trade deals ratified by Congress 89-10, or destroying small businesses with preposterous tariff experiments. > Also Agreed
– To believe Trump has a mandate to do those things is no better than Democrats’ belief that Biden had a mandate to overrule the Supreme Court on student loans. > Agreed Once Again!
Can you supply a cliff notes version?
I think he does reaction clips on youtube to other people’s content as well.
“PDS” is actually already taken.
Putin Derangement Syndrome.
Title of article ?..’Academia Learned Nothing from Trump’s Revolt Against DEI Nonsense’. But I have read that Academia has learned they have to change their Job titles and get under the radar to sidestep any legislation. Chameleon activity by many of these DEI groups shows they have learned something to now quietly keep functioning. Radicals will always be radicals.
You are a bit more accurate than Mish’s Title. His points are well-taken, though.
‘However, Trump has no mandate for bombing Mexico, breaking trade deals ratified by Congress 89-10, or destroying small businesses with preposterous tariff experiments.’
TDS on display — Notice how taking out terrorists becomes ‘bombing Mexico’, and how ratifying unfair trade practice becomes going against Congress and ‘destroying small businesses’.
I like PDS. Too bad LDS is taken. “Leftist Derangement Syndrome” would be ideal because leftism is certainly like a religion because:
It requires believing Government is all knowing, infallible and the only solution to every “problem”; all other religions are wrong, especially capitalism (Satan); and failures only happen because the heretics and sinners never believe hard enough, meaning they weren’t willing to throw enough of their money at the “problem”.
MAGA cultists will love this slogan, and fail to see the glaring irony:
It will be all right, when nothing is left.
The Trump administration may exclude government spending from GDP, obscuring the impact of DOGE cutshttps://apnews.com/article/trump-gdp-economy-government-spending-lutnick-7414ba1bd441bd4bf64620bfd66923b2
I’ll tell you, I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t go see a US taxpayer funded trans-sexual opera in some foreign country … or where we don’t spend $8M teaching Sri Lankan journalists to use geneder neutral language!!! (this is 2025, so I guess I need to specifically state that the above is sarcasm)
Devoting a column and blaming Academia for DEI will NOT do one iota to solve what has caused the economic, political and societal crisis in the US. It is a canard argument in search of false premise of what is wrong with America. It is a time honored method of the elites and their surrogates to divide and conquer the masses from uniting and educating the masses who runs this country against the majority’s interests and who pulls the strings of the political elites and most important the means to take our republic back.
What ails the US is a waning empire that has attacked its citizens through a grade D- infrastructure, a failing healthcare distribution system, a country practicing genocide in the Middle East of Arabs in Iraq, Syria, West Bank, Gaza, et al., a failing education system long before DEI was spawned, a wealth inequality divide that is so great the US is an oligarchy financed by plutocrats and governed by kleptocrats that has escalated so much out of control the world’s richest unelected oligarch runs the government and the elected billionaire runs the ceremonial state by attending Super Bowls, the Daytona 500, holding photo ops in the Oval Office pretending he is king while the real power is turning the US into techno-feudal oligopoly.
Whenever they want to hide something, they whip out the trannies and DEI, and all the republicans instantly collapse int a froth of rage and suppressed arousal. Every. Time.
China and Qatar infiltrated academia long time ago, Qatar moms in CMU: we want to educate our children for a better future. They financed Mein Kampf. Trump election campaign AI targeted voters in tranches: poor rural elderly hate woke. Gen z hate rent. Suburban women hate inflation and castration. The 100 years uniparti lost.
The dems are addicted to woke and suing Trump. Josh Shapiro as PA AG sued Trump I more two dozen times. He sued Trump II for $2B to pay his obese gov and won.
Not to forget that Susan Rice was an Africa expert, she worked her entire lying, ass kissing career in foreign affairs, and then Biden (errr, ok Barry and his handlers / donors) picks her as Domestic Policy Advisor. As Trump said, they’re not just coming for me, they’re coming for you. Rice was the moment when the American Empire was comprised of subjects, not citizens of the republic.
The enemy has breached our lines! Get your platoon ready. Yes sir, as soon as I pump up my artificial vagina and down some extra estrogen pills. Why must we fight it makes me feel like crying! Etc. George Floyd was a misguided soul who had actually held a gun to a pregnant woman’s belly, long rap sheet, and was high as a kite while struggling to get out of the squad car, which he did, whereupon he was held on the ground. If so called education teaches one that a man is one who says they are a man, as with a woman, and then everyone else must accede to this performance, we aren’t really educating anyone, are we. All paid for by the marvels of modern monetary theory, which is something straight out of a SNL skit back when they were funny.
Credentialism is weaponized.
The Academia cartels are possibly the most diseased and polluted of all the gov/med/edu/media/pharma/insuro/finance cartels. They feed the rest the feeble, infected fodder they need to continue their tyranny.
Your final two sentences are exactly right and why I am so discouraged about the current political scene. “Neither party is willing to learn anything. That’s the sad reality.”
By all means ditch DEI. I’d like to keep scientists and park rangers though.
Trump has kicked men out of women’s sports. Next step, ELIMINATE FEDERAL FUNDING
Hey there,Xe/xer/xers here, the Patriarchy will fall of zirs own rot and the proletariat will rise up to form a new Soviet of United North Conquered Indigenous Continent Republics. You xers have all been warned. Change your ways.
“The Left” is a cult, how can they learn?! They can only be destroyed or destroy themselves, and when that process is complete, then they can start to learn something. Until then, all you will hear is the flashes of flames as the Right’s hose puts out the Left’s destructive fire.
Academia are amongst the most amoral people in modern society. They piously talk about past slavery while riding along on debt slavery from student loans. They spread fraud offering degrees that are nearly worthless in the job market.
100% correct on the post. HOWEVER, it will take more than defunding DEI/CRT in this administration to have any long-term effect. The challenge with any “conservative” policies is they are conservative in action and don’t go far enough. It ends up being 2 steps forward for the progs and one step backward after “reasonable” conservatives take out some policies while half of it ends up becoming established. The rot and its supporters need ripped out by the roots and their intellectual grounds salted. It needs more than DOGE and EO’s can accomplish. A true counter-revolution is in order. I’m not convinced our benefits-corrupted populace has a real stomach for this.
Why bully a close “alley”? (Sic) Trade Maine and Massachusetts for Alberta.
Why stop at Alberta?
Alberta is the only conservative profitable province.