BLIND FURY: THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S ATTACK ON ACADEME

       The iconic figure of Blind Fury is a classical god lashing out violently at anyone or anything not to its liking.  Godhood aside, Trump is a blind fury in his ignorance about and violence toward anything which he believes upholds conduct, principles, or values not white, male, and Christian, or positions not in accord with administration policy.  His administration attacks law firms, the courts, the media, and institutions of higher education, the latter for promoting woke and DEI, and, purportedly, permitting antisemitism.  These exercises of blind fury misdirect its violence—various efforts to seize control of or defund academic activities—toward curriculums, instruction, and research having little or nothing to do with woke, DEI, or antisemitism.

The fact is that scientific, technical, and engineering fields have little to do with woke or DEI.  Programs, courses, and research in, say, fusion power, quantum computing, astrophysics, microbiology, immunology, and the like are unrelated to these controversial issues.  Faculty and students in such fields rarely are involved in political demonstrations and rarely make public statements about these issues.  Their expertise and interests are elsewhere.  So, when the Trump administration withholds millions or billions of research dollars from colleges and universities, it withholds them mainly from the fields which give America its technological superiority and much of its economic strength.

 

The fields not much affected by withholding federal research dollars are the social sciences and the humanities: psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, history, philosophy, literature, and the arts.  These fields place humans and their relationships at their core and attract faculty and students interested in them.  They involve issues concerning race, gender, class, and colonialism; offer practical responses like awareness (woke) and amelioration (DEI); and prompt criticisms of disfavored conditions or circumstances.  These issues have become more prominent and political in these fields as well as in society since at least the Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation Movements and the Vietnam War.

 

My field in which I have a PhD is English, but I am no apologist for it.  I was an independent consultant (defense, energy, environment) and, in my spare time and retirement, an independent scholar, now with a dozen refereed articles and a book to my credit.  I kept up with scholarship in my field and with my friends, many of them distinguished professors.  They became increasingly disgruntled and disillusioned over the past five decades by a field corrupted by a misguided quest for relevance defined by political perspectives and approaches.  Some students responded similarly.  My daughter swore off English classes altogether after one literature class at Cornell because the instructor made clear that only some views were acceptable and discouraged others; classroom discussion was thus circumscribed and not in accord with academic freedom.  Not surprisingly, course enrollments and the number of majors have declined for decades.

 

So accusations from the Right about Leftist politics in academe in five recent decades are not without foundation.  The influence of politics in the social sciences and the humanities is similar, though it varies in details and degree.  In the study of literature in the four preceding decades, the prevailing interpretive approach to literature was New Criticism, which viewed a literary work as a self-contained aesthetic object requiring little or no reference to the author, the audience, or the world in which it was written.  The Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation Movements and the Vietnam War ended the detachment of literature from the life which gives it meaning.  The ending came about because graduate school enabled objectors to that conflict to find a refuge from the draft—which means that, for many, the motive for graduate study was politics, not literature.  The texts are literary, but they became the pretexts for interpretations skewed by political rather than literary factors, with the sanction of making literature “relevant” to the times.  With contributions from subsidiary fashions in interpretation, New Historicism—as some have quipped, neither new nor historical—became the prevailing interpretive approach to literature.  Its political concerns continue today.

 

Yet English professors sometimes inadvertently exhibit their arrogance and ignorance when they work from a political perspective or approach.  Consider the pontification of a certain famous professor, once at Columbia, now at Yale.  In discussing Macbeth, he declares that Macbeth had a better claim to the throne than Malcolm, the assassinated king’s son, because he had been duly elected king by the assembled thanes.  This professor’s political cynicism, shared by many, led him to regard an election by thanes ignorant of Macbeth’s force and fraud as valid because of a formal vote.  Only English professors, I think, would make such a claim; today, they would find the slates of alternative electors valid because someone signed and stamped them.

 

This instance of the harmful influence of political thinking on literary interpretation is unusual because it does not address any of the four predominant lenses of New Historicism and prevailing perspectives in the other humanities and the social sciences: race, gender, class, and colonization.  These perspectives are foundations of campus fashions: political correctness, identity groupings, safe zones, trigger warnings, canceling, etc.  Campus demonstrations about the Israeli-Hamas conflict express anti-Israel, pro-Palestine sympathy and support because they reflect an approved anti-occidental perspective which sees Israel as colonizing, West Bank and Gaza as colonized.  By contrast, where Western colonizing cannot be raised as a consideration, protesters have no concern and nothing to say about ethnic cleansing and genocidal wars in sub-Saharan Africa—proof of their extra-literary, political ideology parochial and partisan.

 

So some research and teaching in the humanities and social science have an ideological slant to them.  But their correction or elimination cannot be achieved by coercion or punishment.  Trump’s inappropriate, ill-conceived, misdirected, or indiscriminate interventions or penalties targeting institutions, departments, programs, or courses of higher education intend to destroy, if they cannot control and pervert, them.  Even classroom commissars required by a federal administration could not reform slanted classroom instruction; they could merely reverse an ideological slant in the instruction.

 

Trump’s blind fury cannot achieve his malign purpose.  It cannot obliterate ideas or eradicate institutions; ideas survive, institutions revive.  Academe is not perfect; however, criticism of its imperfections, whether from within or without, can suggest reforms.  But only the slow-acting, self-correcting modalities of academe can reform inappropriate research and teaching.  For best results, academe, best able to understand its distinctive character, must be allowed to reform itself in its mission to serve the truth and, by doing so, its society.

HOW SHOULD DEMOCRATS APPROACH AN ELECTION WHICH MIGHT NOT TAKE PLACE?

 [NOTE: In a previous blog, I mentioned the likelihood that local police would readily fall in line with state and federal guidelines for aggressive conduct toward political dissenters and public marches or protests.  If armed U.S. Marshals obeyed orders to serve a late-night letter warning to fired DOJ attorney Liz Oyer not to testify before a Congressional panel, local police would likely be equally, if not eagerly, compliant with improper or illegal orders.  A pertinent article is “Trump’s Crackdown on Protests is Spreading to Local Law Enforcement.”]

 

After Trump’s 5 November election and his 20 January inauguration, Democrats were in dismay, understandably, and in disarray, unfortunately.  They found fault with Biden, Harris, Schumer, Jeffries, the Democratic National Committee, and the man behind the tree.  They attributed the loss of the election to the losses of voters in some demographic groups, notably, young Black men, young Hispanic men, and white women.  They bewailed their differences about messages or the lack of means to target messages to these groups and the working class.  The Democratic Party united in grief and divided in analyses of its political impotence at all levels of government.  Why?  Mostly tradition.

 

About ninety years ago, Will Rogers quipped, “I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.”  Indeed, the Democratic Party is not organized.  It has operated by political quilt-making, stitching together selected patches (groups) to make a comforter (party).  For decades, it has targeted and won diverse demographic groups, especially Blacks and Jews.  More recently, it has targeted and won over other groups, including Hispanics; white, suburban, college-educated women (formerly, soccer moms); and LGBTQ+ individuals; and tried to win Taylor Swift fans and NFL game-day tailgaters.  It has also been content to win in a few geographic areas, mainly the East Coast, the West Coast, and the upper Midwest.  This approach failed in 2024, when the Party lost votes among these groups and a few of states in these areas, for three reasons.  It failed to appeal to diverse demographic and geographic groups with a cogent philosophy, coherent platform, or compelling talking points.  By emphasizing culture war and identity politics issues, it failed to emphasize issues important to most Americans.

 

To appeal to a broader electorate, the Democratic Party must appeal across the breadth of the electorate without regard for demographic enclaves.  (I use the word “must” throughout as a shorthand for “I strongly recommend.”)  It must unlearn the lessons taught by past successes which no longer lead to present successes.  It must expand its campaign not only to retain blue states, but also to reach red states.  It must no longer divide and conquer by tailoring different messages to different groups of voters and hope to win presidential elections.  It must not make assumptions about voters on the basis of their geographical location, political affiliation, or special interests.  It must think of voters as American citizens who have shared concerns and commitments, and who want a government of, for, and by the people.  AOC and Sanders are doing it right.  Said AOC recently: “I don’t think this is Trump country; I think this is our country.”

 

*      *      *

 

To make this appeal, the Democratic Party must approach the 2026 mid-term elections with two main messages.  First, it has sensible proposals for dealing with voters’ primary concerns: the economy and inflation; employment and unions; health care and abortion; education; Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other safety-net concerns; public safety and immigration; energy; climate change; the environment; international trade; and national defense.  Given the damage being done to federal departments and agencies, it must pledge to undertake their robust recovery and return to effective and efficient operations.  Since most voters favor the Party’s positions on their primary concerns, the Party must emphasize its proposals and de-emphasize, though not avoid, its positions on issues like gun safety, LGBTQ+ , DEI, and “woke.”

 

Second, the Democratic Party will enact legislation to address voters’ primary concerns if, by free and fair elections, its candidates, with “the consent of the governed,” become a majority of their elected representatives.  This linkage is necessary not only to avoid talking vaguely about a Republican threat to democracy, but also to attack Republican efforts to manipulate “consent” by rigging elections of candidates opposed to the positions which most voters favor.  It must stress that national or statewide efforts to limit the franchise or hinder voting are efforts to enable a minority of voters to elect representatives who will reject legislation addressing the majority’s primary concerns.  It must attack anti-democratic proposals, like the SAVE Act or Trump’s 25 March Executive Order, which require proof of citizenship or residency, demand hard-to-obtain or expensive documents like birth certificates or passports; limit the times and places to register or vote; and intervene or interrupt the casting, receipt, or counting of ballots.  (This Executive Order is mostly bluster because the President has no say in how states run their elections.).

 

*      *      *

 

At present, Democrats place their collective hope—not an unreasonable one given the many opportunities which Trump, his Cabinet Secretaries, and Elon Musk and his muskrats provide—in the off-year House and Senatorial elections in 2026.  Those elections might take place—most autocrats need their legitimization—, but, if so, they might be decided by pre-election “fixes” before votes are cast.  Indeed, Trump seems to be inviting foreign—Russian, Iranian, Chinese—penetration of voting systems to manipulate the vote by having DHS disband the Cyber Safety Review Board of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which protects voting systems from hacking.  However, elections might not take place if Trump fears that Republicans might lose control of the House or the Senate, not to mention both.

 

Trump can urge Elon Musk to support House and Senate Republican candidates.  An average House contribution of $2.5 million in half the races (218) and an average Senate contribution of $7.5 million in half the races (17)—total cost, only $672,500,000—might secure super-majorities in both Congressional chambers.  At this rate, less than a half percent of Musk’s wealth, more than compensated by more or larger government contracts, might ensure Republican dominance of the federal government throughout and beyond his lifetime.  The havoc that Republican super-majorities could wreak with Constitutional amendments, the approval of which by the states which Musk can fund, is easy to imagine.  Or Musk can fund state campaigns calling for a constitutional convention to enable drafting a new constitution from scratch.  Trump’s remarks about a third term, not only suggest his unwillingness to be a lame duck, even if only for two years, but also make sense in terms of Republican super-majorities able to quickly amend or re-write the Constitution after the mid-term elections.

 

Aside from the aforementioned ways within the electoral system, Trump has other ways to  advance the election of House and Senate Republican candidates.  As the resistance to Trump’s capricious and destructive executive actions grows, he may become increasingly desperate and reckless, and resort to increasingly desperate and reckless measures.  He can signal domestic terrorist groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, still standing back but standing by, to disrupt urban voting sites and serve as pretexts for intervention by police.  He can direct the Department of Justice to have the FBI assign agents to infiltrate, investigate, and thereby intimidate voting rights groups.  He can invoke the Insurrection Act to use active-duty military or National Guard units to suppress demonstrations or intimidate voters at election sites.

 

Given these possibilities and others which I cannot imagine, I worry that the harder the Democrats try to win the 2026 elections, the more likely Trump and Musk will take more drastic steps to make it harder for them to win.  Yet the Democrats have no choice but to try to make an overwhelming appeal to the electorate.  I repeat: that appeal depends on its vigorous advocacy of widely approved policies in domestic and foreign affairs, and resolute protection of democratic practices to enable enactment of those policies.

 

Democrats can also appeal to the value which Americans place on their independence by framing the choice between candidates as a question: who makes the decisions?  Democrats elected by the entire franchise—“the consent of [all] the governed”—to enact majority positions or Republicans elected by a fraction of the franchise to impose minority positions.  They must stress that, without democratic governance, the majority’s interests (listed above) are not likely to be advanced, as they have been repeatedly thwarted by Republicans for many years.  Thus they connect the general issue of decision-making to the actual decisions which must be made about what serves the interests of the people and the nation, not the interests of oligarchs with an authoritarian leader.

DEFINING ANTISEMITISM IN THE TIME OF TRUMP

     For suspect reasons—the 2022 election fell ten weeks later—, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed “Executive Order 2022-118: Adopting Working Definition of Antisemitism.”  Since there are probably too few Jews concentrated in any voting district, much less in the state, to swing any election one way or the other, scoring political points with New Mexico’s Jews seems an unlikely motive.

My blog at the time (16 Oct 2022) addressed the circumstances and possible motives of this E.O., not its technical merits.  I reserved that analysis until a second blog (29 Nov 2023), which was well received in certain quarters.  My criticisms then are among those now, as the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which the E.O. incorporates by reference, suffers diminishing regard since it was adopted in 2016, when something, almost anything, was needed as antisemitism greatly increased in the second decade of the 21^st century.

 

My first criticism of the IHRA “working definition” concerned its vague language.  I wrote, “imprecise language suggests that criticism of Israel is antisemitic.  However, much depends on the specific nature of that criticism.  Without its specification, some critics of Israel might be improperly and painfully suspected or accused of antisemitism though they are not.  That possibility is intimidating and thus infringes on free speech.”  This criticism points to another and larger failing of the IHRA definition: it is not a definition at all.  Instead, it is a list of “manifestations,” words or deeds labeled as antisemitic.  The problems with such a list are that it includes items which are not antisemitic, excludes items which are antisemitic, and provides no guidance for anything which is not obviously one or the other.

 

Whatever else may be said about my recommended definition—a cluster of beliefs, feelings, and actions which are adverse to Jews as individuals, groups, or the State of Israel because they are Jews or Jewish; which assume or imply the moral or religious imperfection, inferiority, or unworthiness of Jews or Jewish beliefs or practices; which denigrate, distort, or deny the Jewish historical experience; which apply double or differentiating standards in judging or treating Jews or Israel; or which exploit Jews for ulterior motives—, it does not present these problems.

 

However important it is to have a good definition of antisemitism as a guide to ascertaining what is or is not antisemitic, having such a definition is only a necessary starting point.  What matters is how we deal with antisemitic words, deeds, or persons.  After an antisemitic event, public condemnation is always appropriate.  Criminalizing the antisemitic hate which motivates the criminal words and deeds directed at Jews or their institutions—i.e., as “hate crimes”—is, to my way of thinking, never appropriate.  First, in themselves, motives are not crimes.  Second, making the “hate” of antisemitism a crime implicitly treats Jews differently under the law from others who have crimes committed against them because of other kinds of hate; though thought to be “favorable” to Jews, this differential treatment under the law is antisemitic.

 

Under Trump, there has been a resurgence of antisemitic incidents like the attacks on Jews at the Pittsburg Tree of Life synagogue (2018) or the Chabad of Poway synagogue (2019) during his first term.  Public reaction to these and other antisemitic events was their condemnation as “unacceptable.”  Almost everyone, antisemite or not, knows that antisemitism, however expressed, is not publicly acceptable, and tries to avoid the accusation.  Antisemites deny it.  So it takes some work—collecting data and interpreting them as evidence—to make the accusation responsibly.  And this work returns us to a good definition of antisemitism.

 

Meanwhile, accusations of antisemitism from Trump or his staff cannot be regarded as reflecting sincere opposition to it.  I doubt that Trump, his JINO (Jew in name only) policy adviser Stephen Miller, or other staff have any understanding of antisemitism, much less its nuances, or care one way or the other about it.  Case in point: Trump did not object to antisemitic words, symbols, and flags used by the Charlottesville, VA, marchers (2017).

 

Recently, Trump, staff, and others have criticized campus demonstrations opposing Israel’s conduct of the war or sympathizing with or supporting Gazan civilians as antisemitic.  They accept that these positions are antisemitic though, at most, the IHRA “working definition” only verges on suggesting they might be—which is why many reject it.)  First, Congressional Republicans conducted hearings on how Columbia, Pennsylvania, and MIT handled antisemitism on campus generally, in demonstrations particularly.  Then, Trump used antisemitism as a smear of protesters, many, if not most, of whom are not antisemitic, and as a pretext to curtail funding or investigate universities in order to stifle free speech and academic freedom.  In doing so, he singled out Jews by making them the reason for the punishment of protesters and campuses alike.  In the name of fighting antisemitism, he advanced it by abetting resentment at Jews.  In short, Trump weaponized antisemitism, not to oppose antisemitism, but to exploit it for his ulterior political and personal purposes—antisemitism to be expected of Trump.

 

Just as Trump has made and repeated accusations that the 2020 election was stolen because of voter fraud without actually providing any evidence, so he accuses campus demonstrators of being antisemites, disregarding the fact that many of them, professors and students, are Jews.  His and his staff’s accusation that demonstrators opposing Israeli military operations in Gaza or showing sympathy or support for Palestinian civilians support Hamas—admittedly, a few did—shows their disregard of the truth.  When politics is involved, a good definition of antisemitism is no assurance that, in the name of fighting antisemitism, it will not be abused.  But it might help if politicians take care in using it to oppose antisemitism.

 

Regrettably, nothing in the IHRA “working definition” or Governor Grisham’s Executive Order addresses a situation or an antisemite like this one.  Unlike my definition, neither document addresses the existence of institutional or structural antisemitism, or offers guidance for dealing with it.  If Governor Grisham or Attorney General Raúl Torrez mean to respond to, if not also hinder, antisemitism, they should revise Executive Order 2022-118 as a first step not only to handling everyday incidents and agents of antisemitism, but also to preparing for unnoticed or unusual situations and atypical antisemites.

      The practical importance of a sensible understanding and definition of antisemitism became clear in a court ruling Friday.  Louisiana immigration judge Jamee Comans ruled that the government can deport Mahmoud Khalil.  I quote from the NPR account:

 

Khalil, who as a Columbia University graduate student led pro-Palestinian protests there last year, was detained last month after Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Khalil had engaged in "antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which foster a hostile environment for Jewish students in the U.S."

 

In an undated 2-page memo submitted to the court, Rubio detailed that on March 7 he got information about Khalil from the Department of Homeland Security and as a result he determined that allowing Khalil to remain in the country would undermine a U.S. foreign policy goal of combating antisemitism around the world.

 

The focus of the demonstrations at Columbia was on Israeli warmaking and Palestinian suffering, with advocacy of a Palestinian state.  Some of the protesters’ placards and slogans can be interpreted as anti-Israeli and antisemitic.  But anti-Israeli speech is not antisemitic speech, and antisemitic speech is free speech protected by the First Amendment, for citizens and non-citizens alike.  No doubt, protests which are or are perceived to be antisemitic might well alarm and frighten Jews, students and professors alike, at Columbia.  But their reactions constitute a “heckler’s veto,” which is legally ruled out as a reason for suppressing otherwise free speech.

 

Khalil’s participation in the protests—as Rubio represents them, “disruptive activities”—which he led did not result in detention or charges of disorderly conduct or property destruction.  In this context, Rubio’s claim that Khalil’s continued presence in the United States would undermine any aspect of U.S. foreign policy is an absurdity and an exaggeration, which, to be believed, assumes that the policy is a very weak one.  His claim that “a U.S. foreign policy goal [is] combating antisemitism around the world” is simply a lie.  It has nowhere been stated, and it has nowhere been pursued.  If the U.S. enforced such a policy it would have dealt with Elon Musk for his repeated antisemitic tweets on X and his support of Germany’s AfD, a party which denies its known antisemitic pre-dispositions.

 

In short, the Trump administration has no concept of antisemitism; it has only a term of bigotry to use as a political weapon, to wield against its enemies and to set aside for friends.

A RECKONING FOR REPUBLICANS

      Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47^th president of the United States on 20 January 2025.  I congratulate myself that, after about a week, I drafted a blog “After Insurrection, Mercy Is Folly and Forgiveness a Mistake” (31 Jan 2025), which anticipated the current state of affairs and raised an issue which Democrats have not yet addressed.  The gist of the blog is that America faces an administrative/quasi-legal insurrection against its government; that, when the electorate rejects the Trump regime, Republican officeholders will try to obscure their cowardly and collusive support; and Democrats must prepare to hold them accountable for their conduct. 

The Republican commitment to serve Trump and his administration was clearly shown by events in the week ending March and beginning April.  Republicans lost the Wisconsin race for a Supreme Court seat and won two seats in Florida congressional districts by halved margins.  Undaunted, Senate Republicans confirmed, 52-45 (Lisa Murkowski the only Republican opposing) Harmeet Dhillon, an experienced lawyer with a record of attacking voting rights to lead the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.  The implication is that, committed to Trump and his positions, Republicans cannot be persuaded by the political facts on the ground to cast votes reflecting a commitment to democratic ideals, principles or traditions.  The historical precedent is the persistence and spread of the racist belief in the “Lost Cause” of white supremacy and the associated hatred of the federal government—the living legacy of today’s Republican Party.

 

The associated socio-economic stance is Republican neo-plantationism—to coin a term—, or amassing wealth by exploiting the masses (formerly, slaves; now, non-professional workers) and opposing the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the rest.  The Republican wish to “own the libs” is a perfect phrase to reflect the desire to dominate and possess liberals (and all others) as if they be chattel property.

 

Accordingly, Republicans oppose taxes, which they view as takings, that is, seizures of private property for public purposes.  These purposes include “safety net” programs (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP) or other societally beneficial activities under the rubric of discretionary spending.  Trump, with the aid of Elon Musk and the support of Congressional Republicans, is wrecking departments and agencies of the federal government, reducing their budgets, limiting their services, and restricting or terminating their distribution of revenues.  They are doing what Republicans have long wanted to do: shrink government and reduce the need for taxes.  They have no intention of replacing what they are destroying, with a redesigned and reconstructed federal government consisting of much more than a treasury and a Pentagon.  The precedent, though never effected, is the Republican approach to the Affordable Care Act (aka, “Obamacare”); Republicans wanted to eliminate it and claimed to want to replace it with something which—they lied—would be better and less costly.  In a decade, they never designed it because they never meant to replace it.

 

In this context, Trump’s tariff policy is a con job purporting to make up the difference between a government claimed to be bloated and one shrunken to be efficient.  One pretense is that tariff revenues can replace taxes.  If tariffs generate revenues, they will do so as a regressive tax on consumers.  Even so, they will be insufficient to pay for what the public wants.  Moreover, the Trump-shrunken government will lack the departments and agencies to provide services or to distribute funds, and, at best, will support little more than a caretaker government and the Pentagon.  (Tariffs will also enable Trump to manipulate state and foreign governments, and domestic and foreign companies to his financial and political benefit.  They give him enormous power unconstrained by the law or the Constitution.)

 

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans acquiesce in the numerous threats to America, many increased over current deficiencies: poverty, hunger, homelessness, diminished health care, increased vulnerability to disease, unsafe food, and polluted air and water.  The biggest threat to the country is the long-term damage caused by defunding or redefining educational and other research (e.g., NIH) institutions.  Since the end of the Second World War, America’s system of higher education has been the dynamo of its economy, national defense, medicine, and culture.  As such, it has attracted some of the best and the brightest from other countries, many of whom remain, become permanent residents or citizens, and continue to contribute to a robust America.  A good thing, too, because America’s public schools do not provide enough of those needed in relevant fields.  If these institutions lose their academic freedom, institutional stability, and adequate and reliable funding for research, they will become less attractive to foreigners and less innovative.  The economy, national defense, medicine, and culture will suffer, not a temporary set-back under the Trump administration, but a prolonged decline even under succeeding administrations trying to reverse his administration’s policies.

 

In short, Republicans are ending the American century.  They are weakening the country in many and long-term ways.  They are doing so deliberately.  They cannot plead ignorance, only cowardice and self-interest, all of them more interested in remaining in office than in serving their constituents or country.  For example, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a former military office and sexual abuse victim, when threatened with a primary challenger for expressing doubts about Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth because she regarded her survival in office as more important than national defense.  Other Republican senators, fearful of Trump’s power to threaten their political tenure, voted for unqualified, dishonorable, and deceitful nominees; have tolerated his many illegal and impeachable acts in office; and otherwise aided and abetted his unethical or destructive policies.

 

Trump will leave office (my hope is that a cheeseburger helps him along).  Then what?  I believe that today’s Congressional Republicans will hope to restore their reputations in an effort to cling to office by opportunistically bad-mouthing him or pleading for a second chance.  For forswearing their oath of office and trifling with their responsibilities, they deserve incarceration at Guantanamo—I speak figuratively.  But those who survive a more general repudiation of Republicans in the next two elections and take office in a Congress controlled in both chambers by Democrats should be held accountable and disciplined.

 

But, first, if they have the numbers in both chambers, Democrats should immediately impeach Trump.  They should make it clear that they are prepared to impeach down the line—Vance, Johnson, Thune—until they can agree that someone in the line of succession can conduct the office of the presidency within the law.  If Trump preemptively pardons Musk and members of his administration, Democrats should, in the tradition of the Nuremberg trials, establish a category of crimes against the country in order to prosecute those who, even if pardoned, have acted deliberately to the detriment of the country.  Second, they should impeach the deserving members of his cabinet, foremost among them—Bondi, Gabbard, Hegseth, Noem—for lying to the Senate in their confirmation hearings and breaches of the law.  Third, they should impeach two Supreme Court Justices: Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.  Fourth, they should expel those representatives and senators who were involved in planning or supporting the 6 January insurrection or defied subpoenas from the House 6 January Select Committee (e.g., Jim Jordan).  They should discipline those who have repeatedly violated House or Senate decorum (e.g., Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace).  Impeachment, expulsion, and censure are insufficient punishment for the damage done to the country by Republican officials, but it may be enough to discourage others of their ilk from attempting another political insurrection.

 

At the same time, Democrats should propose constitutional amendments to define the president’s status under the law, to qualify the president’s pardon power, to eliminate Executive Orders without the advance unanimous consent of Congressional leadership, to establish the independence of the Department of Justice (and the FBI), to define the right to vote as an inalienable adjunct of citizenship with uniform standards for registration (identification) and access to voting, and to reverse various court rulings inimical to democracy (e.g., Citizens United).  They should also propose legislation to make public threats to officers of the court—judges, prosecutors, staff, and their families—felonies.  They should reconstitute departments and agencies undermined or destroyed by the Trump administration.

 

Without such a reckoning, Republicans cannot be made truly accountable and appropriately punished for their conduct betraying their oaths of office.  Those who want to restore integrity in government should make the rule of law prevail by applying it to Republican malefactors in proportion to the gravity of their crimes.  Democrats should embrace “eternal vigilance” as “the price of freedom” to ensure that Republicans or a party with a different name but similar tendencies does not emerge to repeat this sorry history because Democrats did not learn from it.

LAS CRUCES POLICE – UNDER CONTROL OR IN CONTROL?

       Back in my day, all was not well.  My precocious political antennae were attuned to the threat to democracy posed by Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy, who exploited a widespread fear in the late 40s and early 50s of communism and communists.  ( “A,” not “the,” widespread fear because another was atomic bombs—which meant to us elementary and junior-high students the need to crouch under our desks during air raid drills.)  His abusive investigations targeted many, some prominent, left-wing individuals; tarnished reputations with reckless accusations of being communists or “fellow travelers,” spreading communism, committing espionage, and undermining America; and thus ruined many careers and many lives.  Although McCarthy was only a senator, he managed to erode constitutional rights and damage government institutions.  Loyalty oaths existed before McCarthy, but, at the height of this “Second Red Scare,” even now-liberal California acquired a certain notoriety in requiring public employees at The University of California to swear “loyalty oaths.”  The irony of McCarthyism is that, in his presumptive effort to protect democracy, he undermined it.

In our day, all is also not well, and it takes no precociousness to detect its ailments.  We now have a small-minded, mean-spirited, smut-mouthed president in Donald Trump, who exploits fears of immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, operates like an authoritarian, and lacks any cause except himself, his wealth, and his power.  In addition to golf and groping women, his pleasures derive from humiliating and hurting people and destroying public institutions; name-calling—“radical left lunatic,” “terrorist”—and insults are his specialty.  His conduct based on the resentments of his fragile ego is unbounded by decency or law.  He knows nothing of truth, empathy, or service to others.  He believes in none of the political ideals, principles, or provisions of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.  His enemies are no part of objective reality.  Immigrants are less a criminal threat than citizens; LGBTQ+ people, minorities, and women are no bigger threats than straight, white, males.  “Woke” threatens no one; DEI threatens no one.  Many of his directives are petty and perverse—and potentially dangerous.  He has directed that, until further notice, TSA’s K-9 dogs, who are used to detect drugs and bombs, be withdrawn from service and then not be fed, kenneled, or treated by vets.  Not fed?  Yet he claims to be the man to make America great again.

 

But smash-and-grab tactics are Trump’s latest tactics to deport immigrants regardless of their status, whether or not they have proper credentials or criminal records.  The hundreds recently rounded up for deportation to El Salvador were not all liable for deportation.  The doctor refused re-entry and sent back to Lebanon had nothing to deny her, only some literature about Hezbollah and pictures of a dead Hezbollah leader—materials protected by the First Amendment.

 

Smash-and-grab tactics used on the East Coast have recently been used in New Mexico.  In mid-March, 48 Hispanic men were “disappeared” in Albuquerque, Roswell, and Santa Fe.  In a recent blog, I warned of such police conduct.  “As the federal government moves against targeted groups by infringing on their legal rights, state and local governments follow or are forced to follow its lead.   [Trump] has warned state and local police to obey federal demands or face prosecution for obstruction.  Police are responding with promptitude.  They have begun to violate safe havens like churches and temples, schools, and hospitals.”

 

I did not imagine that police would be targeting school buses and private homes—or so soon.  As reported, Border Patrol agents at the checkpoint near Hatch boarded a Las Cruces school bus and demanded documentation from students on high-school swim teams.  According to a rumor, personnel in uniforms labeled “police” conducted a local raid involving several SWAT vehicles and other police cars.  They seized and “disappeared” three immigrants, status unknown, seized the Las Cruces judge in whose house they were seized, but later released him.  Such is the authoritarian way by which police violate civilians’ civil rights.  I have tried to refute or confirm this rumor; ICE says that it conducts so many raids that it cannot identify this one without more information, and the LCPD says it knows nothing about it—not a denial.  You may take its word.

 

I do not.  I believe the rumor; its details and the fact of raids elsewhere in the state make it credible.  I also believe that the LCPD would know—it certainly should know—whether ICE conducted a raid in the city.  The lack of professional discipline by LCPD officers—their use of profanity, insults, rough handling, and excessive force reflecting escalation, not de-escalation—suggests that they would readily comply with requests for feigned ignorance or silence about a raid involving violations of constitutional rights, including “disappearances” of citizens.  In this context, I note the Department’s request for funding for five SWAT vehicles (and Councilor Cassie McClure’s obliging support simply because Police Chief Jeremy Story asked for them).

 

More than ever, citizens are right to be distrustful of the police, as then-Deputy Police Chief Dominguez testified before Council 5 years ago, and fearful of the police, as I infer them to be. His statement was a remarkable one.  But no one on Council remarked; no one on Council asked the obvious question—why.  Why not?  Because no one on Council wanted to know the answer.  Everyone was afraid of the truth about the LCPD because each was afraid of the police.

 

Thus, Council members and Story oppose a truth-seeking organization under Council auspices.  Which explains why Council has hired a business dedicated to whitewashing police departments.  OIR processes data selected by the LCPD according to OIR’s narrow contractual guidelines, reports bland findings and conclusions, and suggests a few tweaks to improve the Department.  Only those who fear the truth and refuse to believe ill of the LCPD accept OIR reports.  Others are justifiably skeptical.  In the 5 years during which OIR has earned its fee by making Council members feel good about the Department, its officers have crippled or killed about one harmless civilian per year—a rate higher than before OIR began its auditing.

 

Council members incapacitated by fear of the Department thus oppose efforts to reform it.  Their paralysis has cost lives, diminished services, and multi-million-dollar settlements.  These costs will grow if Council does not reform the LCPD; citizens’ distrust and fear of police, who disregard public safety, the law, and the Constitution, will also grow.

 

Council members must overcome their fears and reform the LCPD to bring it under control.  A first step should be to charter a citizens’ commission to solicit information about the police unfiltered by the Department and undistorted by OIR, so that the commission can discern and report the truth.  If, instead, they prefer personal comfort and political safety by avoiding the problem of out-of-control police, they will enable the Department to control Las Cruces in compliance with the wishes of the nation’s first autocratic president.

GUILT WITHOUT EVIDENCE IN AMERICA AND LAS CRUCES

      There are many ways to corrupt and cripple the legal system.  With the emergence of Trump’s autocratic regime in Washington, those many ways are innumerable.  One of the least creative but no less effective is to base police action on the lack of evidence of criminal activity.

The obvious example is a major case about allegations without evidence unfolding in the Washington court of Judge Boasberg.  On 17 March, the Trump administration deported about 250 Venezuelans purported to be members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang to El Salvador.  The administration is refusing to disclose the identities of those deported and the evidence of their membership in a violent gang.  Indeed, it has no evidence:

 

In a sworn declaration, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”  (ABC News, 18 Mar)

 

In other words, the absence of evidence of mutual affiliation or criminal conduct by individuals is evidence that they are risks to society because they are “terrorists.”  The administration’s spurious reasons—the president’s exclusive authority in matters of foreign policy and national security—cannot conceal the obvious facts of deportation unjustified by an inapplicable law and violating various Constitutional rights.

 

There are more parallels, notably allegations against colleges and university students for exercising their rights to associate freely, protest freely, and speak freely on certain subjects.  The Trump administration is investigating them on the presumption of supporting terrorism—a word meaning whatever Trump says it means—if they oppose Israeli attacks or support Palestinians attacked in Gaza, free speech notwithstanding.  But the untethered Trump will oppose dissenters outside academe marching to protest his administration’s policies on domestic and foreign issues: cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; shutting the Department of Education and USAid; weakening or leaving NATO and abandoning or trading Ukraine; and acquiring Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Gaza.  Marchers on 5 April might face police or troops, arrest, charges of terrorism, and jail despite the First Amendment.  The administration’s operating principle is guilty without evidence and until proven innocent, with Constitutional rights flouted or refused.

 

Such absurd illogic of guilt without evidence is not original with the Trump administration or confined to the federal level.  Similar corrupt legal thinking pervades the LCPD.  To justify five false allegations of code violations, Chief Codes Administrator James Chavez reported in a 11 Sep 2019 memorandum to Police Chief Patrick Gallagher that the warning notice reflected “the possibility [my emphasis]” of those violations.  (Later in his memorandum, Chavez wrote that one allegation was wrong.)  LCPD officers do not understand that the purpose of their site visits is to ascertain the actuality, not the possibility, of allegations.  Just think of how many tickets the LCPD could issue on the basis of mere possibilities.

 

To conclude his investigations of the allegations, Sean Mullins, IA investigator, reported in his 5 February 2020 memorandum to Gallagher that Juan Valles, Animal Control Officer, justified one allegation by claiming that, though “he was unable to completely view the entire backyard….he was unsure if there was any animal waste in the parts he couldn’t view/access.”  Again, just think how many code violations LCPD could allege in the absence of evidence.

 

Valles also reported that, at the direction of supervisors for 10 years, officers must allege two violations even if the citizen is unavailable to discuss the violations.  Just think about allegations justified because of a doctor’s appointment or a bridge game at the senior center.  Valles implied that such legal thinking is widespread in the LCDP; he said that any officer would have ticked off all five allegations although Mullins found all unsupported by evidence.  The critical issue involved in these instances is defiance of a fundamental principle of American jurisprudence: the LCPD presumes citizens to be guilty and ignores their innocence even after proof of it.

 

For proof of innocence has not been good enough for the LCPD to expunge unsupported allegations.  When I met with Police Chief Jeremy Story in his office in December 2023, I asked that he clear my file, as no prior police chief would, because of false allegations.  As I reviewed the few basic documents, he muttered that he saw things in them which he did not like, but he did nothing.  When I met him at a public meeting in June 2024, I asked him about my file.  I did not call out his lie when he said there was no file.  I insisted that I had a file and could prove it; he invited me to do so.  I sent him the proof: the warning notice itself and email from a former city manager saying that he had found it.  Story emailed me that he would check into it and get back to me.  He never did, despite my reminders.  Why not?  First, Story, like police chiefs before him, is not a man, or man enough, to admit mistakes..  Second, he is irritated at me for criticizing the LCPD and some of its personnel.  Third, he wants the file for future use (“Judge, we have had trouble with Mr. Hays before.”).  Fourth, he keeps it to weaponize his antisemitism, both personal and departmental.  I invite anyone who doubts my analysis to call Story to ask him why he lied about the existence of the file, did not admit its existence, and did not expunge it.

 

Both of these examples of guilt without evidence at the federal and local level mean that, without the rule of law, anyone is liable to authoritarian abuse.  Anyone can be accused of anything and hauled off without warning to anyplace out of the way—disappeared.  The Trump administration’s strategy is to use and “mediafy” these abuses to accustom the public to them.  Characterizing people as “terrorists” or “criminals” or “lunatics” or “deviants” dehumanizes them so that they are alienated from respect, compassion, and support through the legal system.

 

What the Trump administration is doing on a large scale Las Cruces has already been doing on a small scale as practice for doing it on a larger scale.  Story’s SWAT vehicles will come in handy.  So all of the lofty promises of members of City Council and pledges from the city’s police chiefs will be worth nothing when the time comes—or should I say now that the time has come?  The LCPD handling of my case is just an omen which the “it can’t happen here” crowd, including Council members, has chosen to ignore, at every citizen’s peril.

TRUMP’S DISREGARD OF ALLIES IS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO THE U.S.

     The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 scared almost everyone that World War III was imminent.  The Soviet Union had been discovered to be building missile-launch facilities in Cuba and shipping missiles there.  At the time, I was a commissioned officer not yet trained for active duty; instead, I had a temporary deferment while earning a master’s degree in education and doing my student teaching in central New York state.

Late Friday, 19 October, I returned to my temporary motel quarters to make my dinner and listen to the news.  The midterm election campaigns were in full swing, but Kennedy, who had been in Chicago that day, unexpectedly flew back to Washington for treatment of a severe cold, so it was reported.  Thinks I, who in their right mind would think that Kennedy could not get treatment for a bad cold in Chicago?  Who in their right mind would not think that Kennedy flew back to Washington to confer with his advisers and take action?  I lay on the couch after dinner, stared at the ceiling, and pondered what that action would be.  It took me only a few minutes to figure out that he would impose a blockade of Cuba, one option among many being proposed at the time, and force the Soviet Union to decide what to do in case of a confrontation nearly ten thousand miles from the Kremlin.  I slept soundly that night.

 

In all of my Monday classes, the students were anxious and fearful.  They wanted to know whether I thought there would be a war.  In the morning, I said that I was sure that there would be no war; in the afternoon, I said that I was certain there would be none.  The difference was the news which I got at lunchtime on my car radio (the school did not have a radio!).  As I recall, votes of support for the US were lopsided in the UN General Assembly (like 120 to 15) and the Organization of American States (19 to 0, with an abstention for lack of instructions).  In short, in both organizations, all US allies and an overwhelming number of other countries, supported the US against the USSR.  Results: the USSR backed down, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from his political positions two years later.

 

*       *       *

 

This instance is only one of many.  Britain supported the US throughout the Berlin Airlift.  Several countries supported the US in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  The countries in NATO, OAS, and ANZUS fulfilled their treaty obligations after 9/11 as the US fought against terrorist groups.  Whatever judgment we make about these wars, in all of them, the US had allies who supported its efforts and made the efforts stronger than they would have been if the US had fought alone.

 

Since at least the First World War, the US has been the dominant political and military leader in the world.  Its record is blemished because it has invaded countries, installed or overthrown governments, and meddled in civil wars.  With the exception of Vietnam, most of these actions are peripheral blemishes.  The US record in opposing aggression by major powers (Germany, Japan) or proxies supported by major powers (North Korea) is a distinguished one.  US military forces were the difference between victory and defeat in the First World War, the Second World War, and Korea.  Again, the US did not win those wars alone; it had allies contributing to victory.

For the past eighty years since the end of the Second World War, the international order has been predicated on the strength and stability of the US throughout the world and of NATO in Europe.  NATO’s coherence depends on a beneficial mutuality of interests shared by the US and its European allies.  In the past twenty years, the US has joined with other democratic countries to form military alliances in the Pacific.  In short, the US has long recognized the value of allies with similar political systems.

 

*       *       *

Times have changed, America has changed, presidents have changed.  Under the direction of President Trump, the US is limiting its participation in or withdrawing from  these democratic alliances; even offending, threatening, and betraying long-standing allies; and thereby causing allies to question the reliability of the US as their leader.  His display of favoritism toward Russia has created widespread distrust in NATO countries as well as in other countries around the world which have relied on US commitments and treaties for their protection.  Despite the novelty and magnitude of these departures from US foreign policy, Trump has not provided any coherent, much less cogent or convincing, rationale for these reversals of direction in international relationships.  At best, he expresses a sense of national victimhood, as if the US has long been duped in providing military support to allies not paying what he thinks is their fair share for defense.  At worst, some reasons appear personal and petty, like his responses to foreign leaders; others appear political, like his disdain for democracy and admiration for dictators.

 

Whatever his reasons, Trump is acting on the dubious, dangerous, damaging assumption that the US can go it alone and yet be militarily strong enough to repel or defeat, say, Russia or China in the event of a major confrontation.  Current US military assessments suggest otherwise.  Without the additional military and associated political support of allies, US strength alone is unlikely to be sufficient to ensure the attainment of its objectives.  Obviously, the risk of defeat is inversely proportional to the aggregate strength of US and allied forces.

 

Going it alone in the area of intelligence is particularly risky.  If the US undertakes actions which harm its allies, they are likely to take counter-actions to protect their interests even at the expense of the US.  Threats to the security of intelligence prompt concern, if not distrust, and restrictions on sharing.  Trump’s secretly sequestering, insecurely storing, and casually showing off highly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago alarmed US allies, especially the other members of the Five Eyes (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).  Although the US provides most of technical intelligence (e.g., SIGINT), other nations also provide much.  They also provide more, and more varied, intelligence from agents (i.e., HUMINT) and others.  They need what the US provides, but, in turn, the US needs what they provide.  As the mutual trust which enables the sharing of intelligence is eroded, the US is deprived of important intelligence.  Without it, the US is less able to know what its enemies can do, are doing, or plan to do—creating a vulnerability in defense and a handicap on offense.

 

Trump is also assuming that US allies will ignore sudden shifts in positions or policies, broken promises, and unfulfilled commitments, not to mention breaches of treaty obligations.  Ukraine, an ally, is not a member of NATO, but it desires NATO membership and is supported by many NATO countries in its fight against Russian aggression.  Biden provided Ukraine with support, too little, too slowly, but Trump has suddenly reversed the US position and switched sides.  Trump accepts and repeats Russia’s lie that Ukraine started the war.  He halted, then, after a period, promised to resume providing military equipment, supplies, and intelligence on his terms.  But by interrupting this support even if for only a few though unknown number of days, the US is materially aiding a traditional enemy and an enemy of its allies by making it more difficult for Ukraine to defend both its military forces and its civilian population, which Russia, having committed any number of war crimes, is attacking with even greater intensity.  Lacking intelligence, Ukraine has not been able to adequately defend civilians and infrastructure; as a result, many were killed and much damage done.  These losses were deliberate.  Trump wished death and destruction to punish Ukraine for not promptly submitting to his demands for access to its “raw earth” [sic: rare earths] and to advance Russian interests, a negotiated settlement of the conflict on Russian terms—cynically, in the name of peace—amounting to Ukraine’s surrender.  Because of Trump’s betrayal of an ally and support of an enemy, blood is on America’s hands.

 

The European response is anger at the US and re-assessment of its role in Western affairs.  At the personal and corporate level, this anger and reassessment are expressed in a growing boycott of American products by retailers and customers, and a refusal of some companies to re-fuel US Navy ships.  Since Trump will double-down, more European retaliation is sure to follow.

 

Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote for the Centre for European Policy Analysis this week: “Nobody – nobody – would have thought that western businesses or consumers would use such tools against America.

 

“The United States is, after all, the leader of the free world. Or was: its vote with Russia, against Ukraine, at the United Nations last month, combined with Trump’s and Vance’s verbal attack on Zelenskyy, along with Trump’s denunciation of Zelenskyy as a dictator and a refusal to use similar language about the Russian despot, suggests to many that America is no longer an instinctive member of what we term the west.”  (Peter Beaumont, “‘I feel utter anger’: From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading,” The Guardian [12 March 2025])

 

“Or was”—a turn of phrase which calls into question whether Trump’s dream to “make America great again” is not a nightmare, not only for Americans and America, but also for America’s allies, partners, and friends around the world.

 

In less than two months, Trump has undermined the Pax Americana of recent history; his means of doing so make it most improbable, if not nearly impossible, that he can restore it.  If America is to avoid a modern version of the Dark Ages, its citizens must rise to the occasion, rouse themselves from their indolent ignorance, take informed political action to replace Republicans who have enabled Trump, Musk, other oligarchic troglodytes; and disempower corrupt institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society which besmirch American ideals and pervert the Constitution and the rule of law.  At the same time, to avoid a repetition of authoritarian rule, they must plan for a restoration which reforms the vulnerabilities of America’s political system.  And, yes, they should plan punishment for malefactors who have committed crimes against the state and crimes against humanity.