Trump and Harvard

[Moksha]

From Atlantic magazine: The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard hire additional conservative professors or risk losing even more of its federal funding. (Even as it made that demand, it insisted that Harvard adopt “merit-based admissions policies and cease all preferences based on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof.”) In response, Harvard’s president said that the university is expanding programs to increase intellectual diversity on campus. The era of DEI for conservatives has begun.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... es/682944/

This would be a surefire way to dumb down Harvard.

[Doctor Steuss]

Harvard promotes antisemitism

How easy it is for you to be programmed to repeat ridiculous Trump BS.
; )

*Rosovsky Hall has entered the chat*

[canpakes]

To bolster your claim that Harvard ‘promotes antisemitism’, you posted a link to a program, begun last year at Harvard, to identify and combat antisemitism.

That’s a bold move, Cotton.

Which was spin, and Harvard did not really do much, and it was not until Trump threatened them with funds being taken away did Harvard take it more serious, but again you probably know that. If you did not know, then you have not been following what has been going on there. There is a group of over 60 faculty and staff members, ironically called "Harvard Faculty and Staff Members for Justice in Palestine."

https://www.harvardfsjp.org/statement

You can even join the group and stand behind these Harvard Faculty members in there antisemitism.....just go to the bottom of the page from the link I gave you and click on the membership link and you to can join, real time, "The Harvard Faculty and Staff Members for Justice in Palestine."

Were you aware that this organization exists? It seems to me if they are serious in truly protecting their campus and name they would take legal action against this group and fire them immediately.

Thanks for confirming my earlier statement about how easy it is for you to be programmed to repeat ridiculous Trump BS.

Markk, can you (1) point out the ‘antisemitism’ that is displayed on the page, and then show how (2) Harvard, as an institution on the whole, is promoting antisemitism?

Keep in mind that freedom of speech is a thing, still. I know that you appear to be increasingly willing to throw away your constitutional rights - and mine, and everyone else’s - in deference to letting Papa Trump do whatever he wants, but try to remember that people are still allowed to voice their opinion on things such as the rather large number of women and children killed in a war that increasingly looks more like a plan to complete the removal of an entire group of people from their homes - including noncombatants, and with little regard for who is being killed - as opposed to a strategic response to a military threat.

Likely you now think that my mention of ‘Palestinians’ gives you the chance to try to distract from the questions I’ve asked above. Stay on task. A discussion about the ridiculous decades-long BS going on between Israel and Palestinians is not the subject here. What is the subject is your complete acceptance of Trumpian BS with regard to the claim that Harvard promotes antisemitism, and your willingness to toss another Constitutional right into the MAGA trash bin because Trump told you to obey.

[Doctor Steuss]

Disagreement with a genocide is not antisemitic, and by the way Arabs are semites.

Another one of those "what could have been" moments, if the DNC didn't actively work to torpedo Bernie Sanders.

[canpakes]

Of course, the big lie here is that Trump cares about anti-semitism at all. To him, anti-semitism is just something else he can cynically use as a weapon. His movement has plenty of anti-semites. He really doesn't care. What Trump's use of anti-semitism is about is what he does in any situation, choose whichever lie will give him the leverage to attack the people he has identified as his enemies.

QFT.

"If the administration were serious about countering antisemitism, first and foremost they wouldn't be appointing people with antisemitic and other extremist ties to senior roles within the administration,"…

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/14/nx-s1-53 ... tisemitism

[Doctor Steuss]

Of course, the big lie here is that Trump cares about anti-semitism at all. To him, anti-semitism is just something else he can cynically use as a weapon. His movement has plenty of anti-semites. He really doesn't care. What Trump's use of anti-semitism is about is what he does in any situation, choose whichever lie will give him the leverage to attack the people he has identified as his enemies.

QFT.

"If the administration were serious about countering antisemitism, first and foremost they wouldn't be appointing people with antisemitic and other extremist ties to senior roles within the administration,"…

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/14/nx-s1-53 ... tisemitism

I think one of my favorite moments was when Trump didn't just scapegoat Jews, but did so preemptively.

Remember though, preemptively scapegoating Jews is pro-semitism. Or something.

Hey, remember that one time his Presidential campaign used a Star of David, overtop piles of money, to try to illustrate a rival's corruption? He's the best at antisemitism. A lot of people are saying it. Big, beautiful antisemitism. It's a word not many people use today. Antisemitism. He uses it though. Big, beautiful word.

[Dr Exiled]

Disagreement with a genocide is not antisemitic, and by the way Arabs are semites.

Another one of those "what could have been" moments, if the DNC didn't actively work to torpedo Bernie Sanders.

Yep. No populism for the left and Trump gets elected. This is why I push against posters only wanting to blame Trump and his worshipers. It's why I fought against the russiagate nonsense and the laptop b.s. Trump may be bad but democrats are bad too and seemingly don't like elections, only coronations. The democrats will screw you just in a slightly different fashion. They have their days at the trough just like the Republicans do and wealth continues its march upward.

[Kishkumen]

Yep. No populism for the left and Trump gets elected. This is why I push against posters only wanting to blame Trump and his worshipers. It's why I fought against the russiagate nonsense and the laptop b.s. Trump may be bad but democrats are bad too and seemingly don't like elections, only coronations. The democrats will screw you just in a slightly different fashion. They have their days at the trough just like the Republicans do and wealth continues its march upward.

How a party chooses a candidate is up to the party. I understand the desire to make the process as democratic as possible, but there is no external mandate to force the party to choose its candidate the way we want it to. The Democratic Party would have been better off having a primary this most recent cycle, but they did have one in 2020 and 2015. When we think of why they did what they did in 2024, we have to take into account the Trump factor. Fear of Trump is probably the main reason why Biden hung in too long and then there was no primary when he bowed out. I am not sure how the Democrats could have beaten Trump in 2024. If Biden had kept his word not to run in 2024 and there had been a regular primary, then perhaps they could have beaten Trump. Too bad that did not happen.

None of this really justifies Trump or really explains the "cutting off your nose to spite your face" decision of voting for him. (The second person pronoun here is not a reference to you, Exile.)

[Doctor Steuss]

Harvard, knowing the best way to combat MAGA is by educating the populous, is offering free courses for things like the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Public Policy, Politics in America, Political Institutions, Public Health, Justice, Leadership, etc. There are currently 134 free courses.

I've watched the lectures by Michael Sandel for the Justice course before (it's one that's been available free for a long time), and I learned quite a bit, and really enjoyed it. There's the added bonus of a student being dressed like Spiderman in one of the lectures, lol. I'm tempted to give the "Quantitative Methods for Biology" a try, but I have zero aptitude for programming and raw data analysis.

[canpakes]

Yep. No populism for the left and Trump gets elected.

At this point, I’m pretty convinced that ‘populism’ is nothing more than any number of people voicing whatever selfish need they would like met, and voting for whichever politician lies the best to validate their irrationalities and make them think that they deserve it all, with promises they’ll be awarded once elected.

It may stand for something different in other places, but this seems to be the American flavor.

This is why I push against posters only wanting to blame Trump and his worshipers. It's why I fought against the russiagate nonsense and the laptop b.s. Trump may be bad but democrats are bad too and seemingly don't like elections, only coronations. The democrats will screw you just in a slightly different fashion. They have their days at the trough just like the Republicans do and wealth continues its march upward.

Then angain, the excuse of ‘they all do it’ ends up just being lazy posturing.

If one person steals a pack of Tic Tacs from the corner store while their friend is across the street shooting up a school, both are criminals but they are not the same. Be willing to focus on and appraise the action as opposed to the label. Choose to eschew equivocation.

Besides, I expect my government representatives to notice and be concerned when a presidential candidate’s family members and campaign operatives arrange meetings on the candidate’s property with actual Russians to try to find ‘dirt’ on other candidates. Investigating such a thing is not the equal of running memecoin scams, accepting aircraft as pay-to-play bribes, ignoring court orders and constitutional rights, and making bogus accusations of anti-semitism as a way to shut down opposing viewpoints and muzzle free speech.