News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
Turning universities into right-wing propaganda factories
The authoritarian parallels
The authoritarian parallels extend beyond Orban’s Hungary. During China’s cultural revolution, professors were forced to wear dunce caps and were shipped off to farms to do grueling manual labor. Some contemporary Chinese professors face punishment for “improper speech,” which seems to be more what MAGA has in mind. Texas has forced institutions to close their diversity offices and to remove words such as “race,” “gender” and “equity” from course names and descriptions. Proposals for similar educational gag orders have been introduced in dozens of states. All this is accompanied by Republican attacks on liberal campuses for allegedly inhibiting free speech.
Maybe it's a good thing that I retired from the academy last spring, if what this excellent Bloomberg commentary (alternate link here) portends comes true for America's best-in-the-world system of higher education. (That said, I still believe the leaders of Arizona State University, where I spent 16 productive years, have the backbones to stand up to Trump, his apparatchiks, and the extremist-run Arizona legislature.)
Higher education in America has been under increasing ideological attack, mostly from the right. But it has remained one of the few places where people are supposed to have open minds and a willingness to engage with others who challenge their biases. The right-wingers curbing liberal speech vastly outnumber the left-wingers who (stupidly, IMO) have tried, and in some cases succeeded, squelching even modestly offensive stuff that designed mostly to push emotional buttons.
Now the reactionaries will run wild to ensure that our institutions of higher learning, especially state schools, become factories for know-nothing or outright fascist propaganda coming from Trump world. Once again, our economic competitors around the world must be rejoicing.
By the way, you should add "Orbán-esque" and "Orbán-ization' (and related words) to your regular vocabulary for the next few years. They are a reference to Hungary's vicious demagogue of a prime minister, whose anti-liberty policies have become the model for Trump world's plans to turn the U.S. into a right-wing dictatorship.
In contrast to Trump, Musk played his hand in a way that made sure that he won his objective, and didn’t mind sacrificing Trump’s. In blessing the revised deal, which passed the House late Friday, 366-34, and the Senate, 85-11, Musk disingenuously praised Congress for drastically shrinking the total spending. This was total bullshit, since the budget numbers of the original deal and final one were almost identical. But shrinking spending wasn’t the goal: keeping the government out of his China business was. In short, Musk outplayed Trump. Musk is not the sort of guy you can take to the woodshed. And the Inaugural is still a month away.
It's astounding (no it isn't) that Big Journalism almost completely missed one if the key sub-plots in Elon Musk's stampeding Congressional Republicans into wrecking one budget resolution and, ultimately, passing another. It now seems clear, as this Prospect commentary explains (with reference to an earlier Prospect scoop) that Musk's purpose was to protect his business interests in China, which Trump supposedly wants to punish for its trade policies, by killing "painstakingly negotiated limits on American tech investment in China." The world's richest person overrode U.S. interests – including ones Trump supposedly believes in – to further enrich himself.
What began as a tech mogul railing against political correctness in the U.S. has evolved into what appears to be a global campaign of support for far-right ideologies, forcing governments on both sides of the Atlantic to reckon with Musk’s growing political and cultural influence.
I'm glad to see that major U.S. news outlets are noticing Elon Musk's expanding field of view in his support of extreme right-wing ideologues who have every plan to take over their nations' governments. The most recent examples, at this NBC story reports, are the U.K. and Germany. The danger this man represents to people is expanding at a rate that is much more than alarming. I hope you keep that in mind if you're thinking about what social networks to use – please stop using "X" (Twitter – or what car you might buy (I would never, under any circumstances, buy a Tesla at this point). Consumer boycotts won't be enough, I realize, but doing nothing doesn't feel acceptable, either.
Check out the latest installment in the Lever's terrific weekly feature, "You Love to See It" – summarizing some of the better news in our troubled world. This one features positive developments for bettering workers' lives; moving to combat climate change; and more. (I'm a paid subscriber to the Lever and hope you'll consider joining me in that.)
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This newsletter is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money. For more details, please read my About page.
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Robert Kuttner
Freddie Clayton
Sam Pollak
