Perhaps the most frustrating thing about being a conservative critic of Trumpism is that you often start by agreeing with Trumpworld about ends while disagreeing about means.
This pleases nobody. The left, broadly speaking, considers the ends as illegitimate as the means, and the pro-Trump right thinks that if you’re against the means you really don’t desire the ends. I’m against the abuse of power, even for my own “side.”
For instance, I’ve argued for decades that liberal media bias is real and a problem. I think you can exaggerate the problem, particularly these days (Fox has dominated cable news for decades). But, yes, the MAGA crowd is right that much of the “legacy” media is often reflexively hostile to Republicans. But that doesn’t mean I support the way Trump’s Federal Communications Commission is bullying various media organizations for being critical of Trump, or that I applaud Trump’s jihad against the Associated Press for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
Or consider Harvard. If you read its own report on antisemitism at the university, it’s hard to disagree with many of the administration’s criticisms. Harvard has been intolerant of internal dissent, and its educational philosophy has been absurdly left-wing. For instance, a mandatory class for students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education deployed a grotesque chart (Page 150 of the antisemitism report), “The Pyramid of White Supremacy,” (no longer in use) equating free trade agreements with “slavery,” and “colorblindness” with “racial profiling.” It suggests that the Anti-Defamation League is engaging in “coded” rhetoric for “genocide.” Meanwhile, the Harvard Law Review seems to be practicing flat-out racial discrimination.
But as Charles Lane of The Free Press recently put it, “Harvard had it coming. That doesn’t mean Trump is right.” The Trump administration has frozen funding and ended new research grants to Harvard unless it adopts recommended reforms, and the president wants to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status. These are draconian “remedies,” raising a host of different ethical, prudential, legal, policy, and constitutional issues. Suffice it to say, I think defunding cancer research to own the libs seems like overkill. Removing Harvard’s tax-exempt status is probably illegal. But even if it’s not, it’s insane to do it via executive order and would set a precedent conservatives will rue.
I could make similar arguments about everything from Trump’s threats to law firms to his attacks on NATO. Heck, I’ve been in favor of annexing Greenland—peacefully!— for a long time. But I think threatening military force (as he did again this weekend) is grotesque.
But these examples are also a good basis for making a point beyond “Trump is awful.” The old story of liberal media bias has gotten worse, for a number of structural reasons. Back in the days when big newspapers, a few newsmagazines and three broadcast networks defined the mainstream media, audiences were broad and diverse. This encouraged news outlets to play it more down the middle. They didn’t always succeed, but there were institutional safeguards and incentives to prevent straying too far left or right. For instance, advertisers for baby formula did not want to sponsor content that might offend one or another swath of the market.
Cable and the internet balkanized the media landscape. The incentive structure changed with it. Instead of seeking to appeal to a broad audience, outlets switched to a strategy of appealing to a “sticky” narrow slice that was more ideological. Liberals can see this plain as day with Fox News but strain to see the dynamic with MSNBC.
As journalism became more ideological, so did journalists. Many news organizations drew their talent from elite schools of the sort that taught “The Pyramid of White Supremacy.” It should be no surprise that their coverage of, say, the George Floyd protests was informed by their educational experience, often defending or downplaying the violent destruction of property. In the same way that fish don’t know they’re wet, a lot of journalists couldn’t see how far left their institutions had drifted. But conservatives could—and dreamed of punishing them for it.
The story of the universities is different, but a similar dynamic has been at play. Groupthink around a slew of ideological commitments festered. They lost sight of their own obligation to be institutions for all Americans. Much like the media, Harvard and others exploited their traditional status to advance ideological agendas. And much like the media, they invoke their traditional status as a kind of forcefield against outside pressure or criticism. Harvard—and higher ed generally—abused its positions and invited an inevitable correction. That the form of the Trump correction is as lamentable as the need for one is true.
Again, this view annoys people who see American politics as an endless war between heroes and villains. But it is that view that got us here.
