I have many, many criticisms of the neoliberal university. But every effort they have is going into lobbying right now. Plugging these holes will take every resource. And attorney generals in blue states are in the best position to fight this.

And trust me, I have been gaming this out for months since I am directly in the line of fire, given my position. This is what I get for not reading all 1000 pages of 2025. I didn’t predict they would even go after people trying to cure cancer. They think this will just eliminate the rest of us.

But if I was a university president trying to figure out how to ward off extinction-level attacks, knowing that the administration celebrates retaliation, I might be driven to a lawsuit but know that ultimately that could kill you too. You could “win” and they just stop funding you.

And I don’t think people get how endowments work, as this new NIH attack, and the other funding to follow, will eat up entire endowment payouts. And still won’t plug it. These people hate universities so much they are willing to bring down the entire research infrastructure of the country.

One thing that has become clear to me from across the political spectrum is that people don’t get how universities work, and it is going to be their demise. Palestine shook universities, in that suddenly the leaders of the biggest universities in the world could be brought down.

This is it just about “good messaging.” It is about a media strategy. The most successful movement of the 20th century—the CRM—had a media tragedy that was unparalleled. This very moment we are in is heavily shaped conservative, multi-pronged media strategy. It was not luck or an accident.

The big issue is that our history, libraries, and museums are filled with horrible people. We register judgement with how we spend our money and give attention and how we remember them. But making important creative works unavailable would bury much history. Too many “great” thinkers suck.

I think there is a big gap between putting people on pedestals and being upset about serial sexual abusers, no?

Do you feel like this rose up with the rise of comics adaptations and other IP with longer histories, and has been expanded to lose meaning? Marvel movies had material for non-comics readers and older fans, and people would post about references viewers would not know without comics knowledge.