I am 85, and these last years are not only predictably painful and limited physically but, more importantly, bound by a sense of political hopelessness which sees the country heading towards full-blown authoritarianism or, at best, Stalinism-lite. The writer/economist Robert Reich recently catalogued some of Trump’s transgressive acts—most of them undermining what is left of our democracy. In Reich’s words, Trump:
‘detains’ students who have committed no crime but peacefully expressed their negative views about Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza …
Purges career officials and installs political hacks more loyal to him than to the United States. Fires inspectors general. Demotes senior prosecutors.
Threatens law firms that represented people he considers his personal enemies.
Pardons the hoodlums who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Reich may relentlessly list many of Trump/Musk’s horrific acts, but somehow he holds out hope “that future generations will look back on this scourge and see something else — not just what was destroyed but also what was born.” I am grateful that Reich offers some hope, though I have trouble believing that I will see the rebirth of our economic and political democracy in the next few years. The electorate, despite recent bursts of anger during meetings with Republican representatives, just seems too passive, too willing to allow Trump and his cohort to make unconscionable cuts and decisions. I hope my pessimism has meant I am missing signals that the possibilities for change do exist, and I hope I will see some light emerge, some powerful expressions of peaceful resistance taking place within the next year.
Another piece that caught my attention was the Sunday New York Times editorial that stated:
When a political leader wants to move a democracy toward a more authoritarian form of government, he often sets out to undermine independent sources of information and accountability. The leader tries to delegitimize judges, sideline autonomous government agencies and muzzle the media.
The editorial goes on to argue that what Trump has set out to do is weaken higher education, to subvert institutions that don’t mimic his version of truth and reality by making major cuts in federal payments. On the non-financial side, one can see Trump having immigration officers arrest Mahamoud Kahlil, a leader of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia. He is a student who holds a green card and is married to an American citizen. The government has offered no evidence that he broke the law. It is a frightening act, one that Trump wants to use to repress free speech on campuses. It is what authoritarian leaders have always done: undermine and take over the independent press and the media and arrest those people whose brave voices they feel must be stilled.
Of course, universities are not innocent of their own more modest versions of repression. I have powerful memories of the ’60s when my liberal department was dominated by my group of countercultural and leftist academics and could be intolerant of faculty members whose politics and teaching styles differed. We made mistakes in our hiring and firing—evaluating people according to political correctness or deviant behavior and not their capacity to teach or do intellectual work. But it never turned out to be rigid policy, and there was room for differences and critiques of the dominant ideology.
I know self-criticism is as important as criticizing the other side, but Trump and his cohort seem unable to engage in self-criticism or stop operating like a juggernaut that lays waste to its critics and opponents. We could be foolish then, but we never tried to lay waste to critical discourse and censor what could be read. I truly fear this historical moment.
