Friends, Joe Biden has decided that maybe we do have a crisis at the southern border, after all. That is, he's read the polls and realizes that the millions of illegal immigrants streaming into the country have become a political liability, so he's suddenly prepared to give them the heave-ho. Now, it's by no means clear that the border crackdown he announced today will be effective, but it's still strident and tough enough to attract condemnation from "pro-immigrant" activists, and maybe that's the point: to earn Sleepy Joe a little street cred as a defender of our territorial integrity. Will anyone be fooled? I wouldn't rule out that possibility. Democrats are smart enough to massage their least popular policies at the margins to reduce political pressure on their candidates in an election year. That's exactly what's happening here. A handful of independents might be seduced by the mirage -- and a handful of independents may be all that Biden needs to win.
In other news, higher ed is on its back foot these days, feeling the heat from the Republican House and from parents and students who are questioning whether it's worth it to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to receive neo-Marxist indoctrination. A case in point: Harvard not only fired its joke of a president, but it has also reinstated standardized testing (which any progressive will tell you is inherently racist, because it doesn't yield "equitable" outcomes), and now our most elite university is even dispensing with mandatory diversity statements, which had been required of all prospective new hires. In effect, these statements forced aspiring professors and staff to align themselves with policies of reverse discrimination, broad assumptions about "system racism", and obligatory white guilt. You know that something big is happening when elite academic institutions backtrack in their commitment to wokeness. Could it be that they can sense that the political and cultural winds are beginning to blow in a new direction? Advertizers and social media companies seem to be reaching the same conclusion, and they've shelved much of their most obnoxious virtue signaling as a consequence. Let's hope all this adds up to a real civilizational turning point.
https://www.thefp.com/p/harvard-faculty-arts-sciences-dei-statements
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteGlad Harvard is doing what it is doing. Certainly a cheerful piece of news. Anything for a shred of hope these days. However, I suspect, that a great many smaller schools remain woke or are going in that direction. All together, many more students attend these small liberal arts colleges. Anyway, it would certainly be interesting to do a general study of these smaller schools to see exactly what they are teaching, or not teaching.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I know you do not engage in baseless, reckless speculation and so your suggestion that wokeness may be on the wane due to widespread public revulsion to it is very encouraging to me. Of course a win in Nov., especially a decisive one, could put that presumptuous antiamerican left screed on the slippery slope into the maliciously counterintuitive gutter it rose from. I'm convinced that the firm majority of american academics would like to see it continue and prosper but perhaps a sizeable portion of that profession has gone along just to get along and may be encouraged to turn on the incipient totalitarians who have so corrupted our culture in the extensive settings you cited. The terribly debased Ivy League has a long way to go before it once again deserves intellectual and cultural renown and with administrations, faculties and student bodies widely suffused with yet grudging acquiescence to the very tentative revival of common sense on their campuses, that once celebrated society's redemption is still at hazard. It has recently done grave offense to the great Jewish culture and in doing so confirmed its countenance of vicious antipathy toward any who dare to question far leftist "verities", some of them actually murderous.
ReplyDeleteAdvertisers and social media companies perhaps somewhat delivered from their enervating dread of the vindictive antiamerican left and as always closely attentive to how the cultural winds blow, may also emerge from their obsequious vassaldom to those who fully intend to destroy America, including, surely, them.
I think the MSM will do its best to stem this hopeful inclination because they know that if it prevails it means the end of their terribly discredited profession in its present debasement.
This development, should it work a foundation for the reconstruction of our civilization on time proven standards which contradict the endemic subjection of the western mind to pinched antiintellectual doctrinal dictation, gives us ever the more reason to be constant in our resolve to win in November . We must support the guy who can win and who surely would not fail to hold those who savage him and Maga America to account. It would be a staggering blow for them and might drive them to catastrophic distraction.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Its hard to imagine much of anyone actually thinking that Biden's border measure is anything but a cynical, insincere gesture which would be summarily terminated directly after a dem win in November. Sure, there are many who wish him well of the possible electoral benefits he may nonetheless Garner (this presumptuous machine insists on capitalizing that word contrary to my intent; is James Garner that much of an institution!?) and are all for a completely open border. Breitbart reveals many surviving loopholes which objectively put the lie to Biden's deceitful effort to portray himself as responsive to the widespread public outrage his antiamerican border policy has excited. . Should he win in Nov. we should nonetheless expect him to dictate a fully compensatory return to it in accordance with the contempt his antiamerican left handlers have for America.
ReplyDeleteRay, I too am encouraged by these developments at Harvard, some of which are mirrored at other elite colleges, BUT one has to wonder how much this is window dressing designed to ward off conservative scrutiny. Now, if Harvard started hiring actual conservatives to teach classes, and to lead its various divisions, you would know they were serious about intellectual/ideological diversity. Simultaneously, of course, pigs would start to fly, which would be quite a sight to see!
ReplyDeleteJack, I don't doubt that most professors, administrators, and students at elite colleges are leftists, but quite a few of them are also clear-eyed enough to recognize that intolerance and myopia have gotten out of control in higher ed, and that public support for and confidence in academia is under threat. I expect some tactical retreats but little in the way of genuine soul-searching. To meaningfully redirect the ideological orientation of American education, a very thorough purge would be required, probably greatly exceeding the one that occurred in the 40s and 50s during the Red Scare. Could Trump initiate and direct such a purge? I give it a 5% chance of happening, and that's pretty generous.
Jack is absolutely right: Joe Biden does look a lot like James Garner (in his dotage). Garner was also a Democrat, so the resemblance is more than skin deep.
Will anyone be fooled by Biden's sleight of hand at the border? They will if he can actually get the numbers of migrants down temporarily. That's quite doable, with Mexico's assistance. If it doesn't happen, in fact, then Biden and his Mexican counterparts are a lot dumber than I assume.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Bob Dole said he would not propose laws banning abortion but that he would talk graphically about abortion every day. A redeemed Pres. Trump might seek by a similar tactic to exacerbate public outrage over the appalling neomarxist totalitarian capture of many of our erstwhile "universities", especially the directly tax payer funded ones. This could perhaps cut so deeply into their financial support(both from private and legislative sources) that their administrations would, of necessity, grudgingly return their academic standards to some respectability. As brutally frank as DJT can be ,he might succeed in discrediting campus leftists even beyond the extent justifiably suffered by far leftists during the "Red scare" and returning them to the tawdry margins to which they were held in wiser times.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: After what DJT and his family and Maga are going through now, I cannot imagine him not coming out for round 2 armed for bear and "smoking"!
ReplyDeleteBob Dole as President that is. Jack
ReplyDeleteHmm. DJT using the bully pulpit to right the ship in higher ed? I'll believe it when I see it... The only thing that his first term accomplished was emboldening and strengthening wokeness and the Left. We have to keep in mind that, when Trump speaks, most people roll their eyes, at best, and retch, at worst. We've got a long way to go before most Americans, especially powerful and influential Americans, find an argument credible because it comes out of Trump's mouth. Now, they might occasionally give him what he wants out of fear -- but never out of respect. That's my two cents.
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