Trump’s March Backward

The United States is witnessing an alarming shift in the balance of power. Recent actions by the Supreme Court and Congress have effectively cleared the way for President Donald Trump to exercise authority in ways critics say resemble authoritarian rule.

Central to this shift is the Supreme Court’s decision on July 8, 2025, to allow Trump’s mass federal layoffs to proceed. This ruling overturned a lower court’s injunction that had temporarily blocked the president’s executive order to slash tens of thousands of federal jobs. The layoffs target agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services, critical players in addressing climate change, public health, and education.

The court’s decision was unsigned and passed 8–1, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting. Her dissent warned that the ruling emboldens the president to exceed constitutional limits without proper checks.

Just weeks earlier, Congress passed what supporters called the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping budget package that enshrined Trump-era tax cuts, eliminated taxes on tips and Social Security income, and drastically reduced funding for social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP. The bill also increased Pentagon spending by $125 billion. The legislation passed strictly along party lines, with no Democratic votes.

The atmosphere of intensifying executive authority was underscored on June 14, 2025, when Trump staged a large-scale military parade in Washington, D.C., reminiscent of displays typically seen in authoritarian regimes. The parade featured tanks, fighter jets, and thousands of troops marching through the capital, a spectacle widely criticized as an exercise in pageantry and a troubling signal of militarism. In response, spontaneous “No Kings” protests erupted nationwide, with demonstrators rejecting what they saw as the cultivation of a personality cult and warning against the erosion of democratic norms.

These domestic developments unfold against a backdrop of escalating global crises and geopolitical realignments. The Trump administration has maintained a confrontational stance toward China, imposing new tariffs that have intensified a growing economic cold war. This friction comes as the BRICS coalition — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — gains strength, seeking alternatives to the U.S.-dominated financial and diplomatic order.

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to supply arms and financial support to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, while simultaneously imposing inconsistent policies that weaken its international credibility, especially regarding the unresolved Palestinian conflict.

At home, the Trump administration’s deregulation of the cryptocurrency market has raised alarms. With minimal oversight, the growing crypto economy faces increased risks of fraud and instability, a symptom of the broader laissez-faire approach that favors corporate interests over public protections.

Adding to domestic turmoil, Trump has controversially pardoned dozens of individuals convicted for their roles in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, framing them as “political prisoners.” Many have ties to extremist groups, and Trump has proposed hiring preferences for them within the federal government’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency, which is leading the controversial federal workforce layoffs.

Legal experts and civil rights organizations argue these actions collectively undermine the constitutional principle of separation of powers. They say the administration’s use of executive orders and politically motivated pardons bypasses Congress and the courts, weakening democratic oversight.

Congress’s role has also been questioned. By passing the partisan budget bill without bipartisan support, critics argue lawmakers have effectively rubber-stamped an agenda that dismantles government functions, cuts vital social programs, and expands military spending.

The Supreme Court’s emergency ruling to lift the injunction against the layoffs further signals the judiciary’s retreat from its role as a check on executive power. By acting swiftly and without a full hearing, the court has allowed a significant reshaping of the federal workforce without thorough judicial review.

Together, these developments mark a troubling trend toward the concentration of power in the executive branch. Observers warn that if left unchecked, these actions could erode the foundations of American democracy and weaken its position in an increasingly multipolar world.

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Sources

San Francisco Chronicle, “Supreme Court clears way for Trump to resume mass federal layoffs” (July 8, 2025)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/trump-mass-firings-20761715.php

Associated Press, “Trump signs sweeping tax, spending bill on July 4” (July 4, 2025)
https://apnews.com/article/3804df732e461a626fd8c2b43413c3f0

Politico, “House Republicans pass ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ after weeks of division” (May 22, 2025)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/22/house-republicans-pass-big-beautiful-bill-00364691

Business Insider, “Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump’s federal layoffs” (July 8, 2025)
https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-ruling-trump-firings-federal-agencies-2025-7

Washington Post, “Trump begins mass commutations for Jan. 6 rioters, defends actions as ‘justice reform’” (March 1, 2025)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/01/trump-jan-6-pardons

Medicare Rights Center, “Final House vote looms on devastating health and food assistance cuts” (July 3, 2025)
https://www.medicarerights.org/medicare-watch/2025/07/03/final-house-vote-looms-on-devastating-health-and-food-assistance-cuts

Journalist Karen Hao on Sam Altman, OpenAI & the "Quasi-Religious" Push for Artificial Intelligence (Democracy Now!)

 

July 4th in the Face of Fascism: Moral resources for Americans who know we’ve been betrayed (William Barber & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove)

Civil Rights Movement and Wayside Theatre photographs, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

On America’s 249^th anniversary of declaring freedom from tyranny, a would-be king will celebrate Independence Day by signing a budget bill that Americans oppose 2 to 1.

This Big Ugly Bill that was passed by Republicans in Congress this week will make the largest cuts to healthcare and nutrition assistance in our nation’s history to pay for tax cuts for people who do not need them and an assault on our communities by masked men who are disappearing our neighbors to concentration camps. The dystopian scene is enough to make any true believer in liberty and equality question whether they can celebrate Independence Day at all. But it would be a betrayal of our moral inheritance to not remember the true champions of American freedom on this day. Indeed, to forget them would mean losing the moral resources we need to revive American democracy.

As bad as things are, we cannot forget that others faced worse with less resources than we have. We are not the first Americans to face a power-drunk minority in public office, determined to hold onto power at any cost. This was the everyday reality of Black Americans in the Mississippi Delta for nearly a century after the Klan and white conservatives carried out the Mississippi Plan in the 1870s, erasing the gains of Reconstruction and enshrining white supremacy in law.

When Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer decided to join the freedom movement in Sunflower County, Mississippi, she knew two things: the majority of people in Sunflower County despised the policies of Senator James O. Eastland and Eastland’s party had the votes to get whatever they wanted written into law. The day she dared attempt to register to vote, Ms. Hamer lost her home. When she attended a training to learn how to build a movement that could vote, she was thrown into the Winona Jail and nearly beaten to death. Still, Ms. Hamer did not bow.

Instead, she leaned into the gospel blues tradition that had grown out of the Delta, spreading the good news that God is on the side of those who do not look away from this world’s troubles but trust that a force more powerful than tyrants is on the side of the oppressed and can make a way out of no way to redeem the soul of America. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” she sang, and a generation of college student volunteers came to sing with her during Freedom Summer. Their mission was to register voters and teach the promises of democracy to Mississippi’s Black children in Freedom Schools.

On July 4, 1964, Ms. Hamer hosted a picnic for Black and white volunteers who’d dedicated their summer to nonviolently facing down fascism on American soil. They celebrated the promise that all are created equal even as they faced death for living as if it were true. Those same young people who were at Hamer’s July 4th picnic went on to launch the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and take their challenge all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City that August. “I question America,” Ms. Hamer said in her testimony that aired on the national news during coverage of the convention. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?”

Hamer and the MFDP didn’t win the seats they demanded at the 1964 convention, but Atlantic City would be the last convention to seat an all-white delegation from Mississippi. Just a year later, as part of the War on Poverty, Congress passed the Medicare and Medicaid Act, expanding access to healthcare to elderly and low-income Americans – an expansion that Trump is rolling back half a century later in an immoral betrayal of the very people he promised to champion in his fake populist appeal to poor and working people.

There’s nothing un-American about questioning a fascism that defies the will of the people to terrorize American communities and assert total control. It has been the moral responsibility of moral leaders from Frederick Douglass, who asked, “what to the slave is the 4^th of July?” to those who are asking today how Americans are supposed to celebrate when their elected leaders sell them out to billionaires and send masked men to assault their communities. Ms. Hamer is a vivid reminder of the moral wisdom that grows out of the Mississippi Delta. It teaches us that those who question America when we allow fascists to rule are not un-American. They are, in fact, the people who have helped America become more of what she claims to be.

So this 4^th of July, may we all gather with Fannie Lou Hamer and the moral fusion family closest to us – both the living and the dead – to recommit ourselves to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Yes, America’s fascists have the power today. They will throw a party at our House and desecrate the memory of so many who’ve worked to push us toward a more perfect union. But they will not own our Independence Day. As long as we remember the moral tradition that allowed Fannie Lou Hamer to host a July 4^th picnic while she battled the fascism of Jim Crow, we have access to the moral resources we need to reconstruct American democracy today.

This is why today, as all American’s celebrate our nation’s declaration of liberty and equality, we are announcing that the Moral Monday campaign we’ve been organizing in Washington, DC, to challenge the policy violence of this Big Ugly Bill is going to the Delta July 14^th for Moral Monday in Memphis. As we rally moral witnesses in the city of Graceland and the Delta blues – the place where Dr. King insisted in 1968 that the movement “begins and ends” – delegations of moral leaders and directly impacted people will visit Congressional offices across the South to tell the stories of the people who will be harmed by the Big, Ugly, and Deadly bill that Donald Trump is signing today.

Yes, this bill will kill. But we are determined to organize a resurrection of people from every race, religion, and region of this country who know that, when we come together in the power of our best moral traditions, we can reconstruct American democracy and become the nation we’ve never yet been.

Today’s neo-fascists have passed their Big Ugly Bill, but they have also sparked a new Freedom Summer. We will organize those this bill harms. We will mobilize a new coalition of Americans who see beyond the narrow divisions of left and right. We will lean into the wisdom of Ms. Hamer and Delta’s freedom struggle, and we will build a moral fusion movement to save America from this madness.

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Selling Armageddon

In an age defined by manufactured crises, weaponized ignorance, and the commodification of fear, a disturbing coalition has emerged—one that profits not from progress, but from collapse. This coalition spans billionaires and bomb makers, Ivy League technocrats and evangelical foot soldiers, data miners and doomsday preachers. They aren't just predicting the end of the world. They're selling it.

The title Selling Armageddon captures a disturbing trend within American society—and particularly within the intersection of higher education, technology, and political ideology—where fear, fatalism, and anti-intellectualism have become not just cultural phenomena but profit centers.

The Profiteers of the Apocalypse

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a vocal critic of democracy and champion of techno-libertarianism, is emblematic of this ethos. Thiel's investments in surveillance, biotech, and defense contractors like Palantir are not just financial bets—they are ideological declarations. He has publicly said that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. Instead, Thiel supports strongmen, deregulated markets, and technological sovereignty for elites.

Thiel has also funneled money into right-wing institutions and figures that sow distrust in public institutions, especially higher education. Simultaneously, he and other members of the "techno-elite" invest in private learning incubators, surveillance infrastructure, and seasteading projects that imagine life after democracy—or after the planet.

These billionaires are preparing for Armageddon not by preventing it, but by monetizing it: funding bunkers in New Zealand, buying private islands, or investing in orbital real estate. As The Guardian once asked, “What happens when the people who make our futures no longer believe in the future?”

Enter Elon Musk, who brings to the Armageddon marketplace a particularly seductive brand of techno-messianism. Musk has built an empire not just on electric cars and space rockets, but on a narrative that humanity is doomed unless it follows his vision: Mars colonization, AI supremacy, and deregulated everything. His companies depend on government contracts, foreign labor, non-unionized workplaces, and public subsidies—all while he rails against the very institutions that enabled his rise.

Musk’s appeal lies in his ability to market collapse as innovation. Colonizing Mars is framed not as escapism for the rich, but as salvation for the species. Neuralink’s experiments on animals and humans are marketed as “progress.” Buying and gutting Twitter—now X—is portrayed as “free speech absolutism,” even as it becomes a haven for far-right propaganda and anti-intellectual conspiracy theories. Musk does not offer solutions for Earth. He sells a lifeboat for elites—and a live stream of the ship sinking for the rest.

The War on Higher Education: Enter Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, is one of the most visible faces of the new anti-intellectual populism. Kirk, who has no college degree himself, built a political empire by demonizing higher education and promoting a gospel of grievance. Funded in part by the same billionaire class that bankrolls tech libertarians like Thiel and lionizes Elon Musk, Kirk has launched aggressive campaigns to surveil, blacklist, and harass professors and students who challenge conservative orthodoxy.

His Turning Point “Professor Watchlist” is not just an attack on individuals—it is an assault on the very notion of critical inquiry. In Kirk’s universe, universities are not flawed institutions to be reformed but radical breeding grounds to be destroyed. He promotes a worldview in which faith is pure, facts are suspect, and feelings of persecution are monetized.

While Kirk claims to be fighting “Marxism” and “wokeness,” what he is actually selling is obedience—particularly to corporate power, Christian nationalism, and militarized borders. His audience is taught that the future is a war, and they must choose sides: us vs. them, believers vs. traitors, patriots vs. professors.

Naomi Klein and the Shock Doctrine of Now

Naomi Klein’s work, especially The Shock Doctrine, offers a crucial lens for understanding how crises—real or manufactured—are used to erode public institutions and consolidate wealth. The COVID-19 pandemic, mass shootings, climate catastrophes, and political chaos have each served as moments of opportunity for privatizers, war profiteers, and ideological extremists.

In her more recent writings, Klein explores how conspiracy culture and fascist-adjacent movements have merged with wellness grifts and anti-science ideologies to create a new reactionary consumer base. Higher education has been both target and tool in this ecosystem—either accused of being too “woke,” or silently complicit in the march toward corporate authoritarianism.

Musk, like Thiel and Kirk, has leveraged this blend of libertarianism and grievance politics—tapping into populist rage while making his wealth on the back of public resources. Together, they represent a new ruling class that doesn’t just tolerate ignorance—they capitalize on it.

“Freedom Cities”: Privatized Utopia, Public Disaster

A key component of the Armageddon economy is the “Freedom City” project—a concept championed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and now embraced by Trump Republicans. On the surface, these cities promise deregulation, innovation, and technological advancement. But beneath the buzzwords is a vision of society in which public governance is replaced by corporate fiefdoms.

In Freedom Cities, there are no public universities—only credential mills optimized for employer branding. There are no town halls—only shareholder meetings. Laws are written by venture capitalists, not legislatures. These cities are not democratic experiments—they are controlled environments designed to ensure elite survival and labor discipline. Education is not about knowledge; it’s about code bootcamps, ideological training, and loyalty to corporate overlords.

Some Freedom City backers go so far as to frame these cities as escapes from the “decay” of American democracy. In this vision, the United States itself becomes disposable—its lands and labor extracted, its public institutions hollowed out, its higher education system replaced with behavioral conditioning and biometric surveillance.

Freedom Cities are the spatial manifestation of fatalistic capitalism—a place to survive the collapse that capitalism itself caused.

The Israel Factor

Nowhere is this more visible than in the militarization of university discourse around Israel and Palestine. Pro-Israel lobbying groups, sometimes in collaboration with groups like Turning Point USA and tech influencers on X, have used massive funding and public pressure to silence academic dissent, criminalize protest, and reshape curricula. Many elite universities have openly collaborated with defense contractors, some of whom profit from technologies tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is not merely about Israel—it is about the normalization of permanent war as a condition of life. It is about desensitizing the public to state violence, turning morality into a partisan debate, and monetizing surveillance and repression. These policies, developed in the name of “security,” are later imported back into the United States—on campuses, in classrooms, and across the border.

Selling the End of Knowledge

The university was once imagined as a refuge from the chaos of the world—a place to build better futures. But in this dystopian moment, education is being stripped for parts. Faculty are adjunctified and silenced. Student debt is an albatross. Basic humanities departments are being gutted, while programs in cybersecurity, defense studies, and corporate law are growing.

We are educating people to manage collapse, not prevent it.

Instead of cultivating critical thinkers, institutions churn out bureaucrats for empire and engineers for oligarchs. The architects of Armageddon do not fear higher education—they co-opt it, fund it, rebrand it, and turn it against its original purpose.

Preventing Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

To resist the forces selling Armageddon, we must reclaim higher education as a public good—one grounded in ethics, truth-seeking, and planetary survival. We must refuse the logic of fatalism and reject the grifters who profit from despair. And we must name the forces—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, the boosters of Freedom Cities, defense contractors, and neoliberal university presidents—that see crisis not as a call for solidarity, but as a sales pitch.

Because if we don’t, the end of the world won’t come with fire or flood.
It will come with a branded dome, a loyalty app, biometric gates—and a tuition bill.

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The Higher Education Inquirer is committed to investigative journalism that challenges elite narratives and exposes structural injustices in academia and beyond.

Volcano Rumbles: Higher Education and the Unfolding Crisis of American Democracy

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

—Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom

On this Independence Day in 2025, the air is heavy with foreboding. Across the United States, fireworks burst into the sky as if nothing has changed. But below the spectacle lies a country teetering between democracy and authoritarian rule. The institutions tasked with preserving truth, freedom, and critical thought—most notably higher education—are caught in the crossfire of what Erich Fromm warned of nearly a century ago: the rise of modern fascism, not as a dramatic coup, but as a creeping normalization of authoritarian values under the guise of "freedom."

The Rumbles Before the Eruption

In hindsight, the signs were glaring. Corporate capture of the public good. The erosion of academic freedom. The transformation of universities from spaces of inquiry to credential factories and financial instruments. A growing surveillance infrastructure built not only by Big Tech but in concert with university IT departments, data brokers, and online program managers. The rise of so-called “free speech zones” and legislative gag orders that redefined political speech while silencing dissent.

What we are witnessing is not merely political turbulence—it is a full-scale epistemic breakdown, a national forgetting of what education is supposed to be.

The Trump Spending Bill and Project 2025

The reemergence of Donald Trump on the national stage—and his allies' vision through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—has laid bare the authoritarian designs of a political movement bent on reshaping the federal government into a weapon against its own people. Under the new Trump Spending Bill, long-standing environmental protections, civil rights enforcement, and funding for critical education and research have been gutted. Student aid programs like Pell Grants are under siege, while massive giveaways to corporate polluters and military contractors accelerate.

The Department of Education itself is on life support, with Executive Order 14242 outlining a road map for its dissolution. Academic accreditation is being refashioned into a tool of ideological enforcement. DEI initiatives are being replaced with patriotic education mandates, while campuses are encouraged to police faculty and curricula for "anti-Americanism."

Higher Education: Complicit, Crippled, and Co-opted

Higher education did not arrive at this moment innocently. Elite institutions embraced neoliberalism decades ago, relying increasingly on corporate donations, defense contracts, and hedge fund returns. Many public universities, once proud bastions of working-class mobility, became tuition-dependent and debt-financed enterprises.

For years, scholars warned of growing authoritarian trends in American politics. But those voices—often contingent faculty, graduate students, and independent researchers—were sidelined, their jobs precarious, their influence limited. Meanwhile, college presidents and boards of trustees courted billionaires and politicians, hoping to remain above the fray.

The result is a sector fractured and weakened, unable to mount a coherent defense of democracy. In many places, it has become part of the problem—administered by opportunists, managed by AI-powered surveillance, and staffed by an underclass of overworked adjuncts who barely make a living.

The Yearning for Submission

Fromm’s insight—his warning that many people want to submit—rings especially true today. The cult of personality, the vilification of expertise, and the rise of conspiracy over fact have flourished in a vacuum of meaning and solidarity. Higher education once promised both, but its commodification has left millions alienated, indebted, and skeptical.

The myth of meritocracy—long propped up by institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Phoenix—has collapsed under the weight of its contradictions. People now look elsewhere for answers: to strongmen, to influencers, to AI chatbots, and to nostalgic visions of a past that never truly existed.

What Comes Next?

This is not a call for despair, but for resistance. If there is hope for American democracy, it lies in reclaiming the public mission of education—not just in words, but in practice.

That means supporting independent and investigative journalism. It means dismantling the corporate stranglehold on curriculum, research, and governance. It means honoring the work of teachers, librarians, and adjuncts who continue to hold the line in the face of overwhelming odds. And it means building alliances with those outside the academy—working families, community organizers, students—who understand that education is not a luxury, but a battleground.

On this Fourth of July, let us not retreat into comfortable myths or cynical fatalism. The volcano is still rumbling. But so too is the conscience of those who refuse to be silenced.

Let us remember: freedom is not inherited—it is practiced, defended, and reimagined in every generation.

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Sources

• Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom (1941)

• Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Project 2025)

• U.S. House of Representatives, 2025 Appropriations Bill

• The Century Foundation, “The Future of Higher Ed in an Age of Authoritarianism” (2024)

• Chronicle of Higher Education, “Colleges Under Siege” (2025)

• Higher Education Inquirer archives

Project 1775, Project 2025, and the Promise of Project 2026: A Call for Revolutionary Hope in American Higher Education

In a fiery and prophetic address, the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries invoked the memory of America’s original struggle for freedom, branding the tyranny of King George III in the years before the American Revolution as “Project 1775.” With bold clarity, he drew a straight line from that era of oppression to today’s rising authoritarianism—what he identified as “Donald Trump’s Project 2025” and the accompanying Trump Spending Bill. But rather than ending in despair, his speech was a call to courage and hope: just as Project 1775 gave birth to the Revolution of 1776, we are called to give birth to a new movement—Project 2026, a revolutionary vision of democracy, justice, and renewal.

His message resonates beyond politics—it speaks deeply to the state of American higher education, which now stands at a crossroads. Under siege from authoritarian impulses, stripped of funding, and commodified by corporate greed, our colleges and universities reflect a nation in spiritual crisis. But as the Minority Leader reminded us, this moment is also one of great opportunity.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

Project 2026 is not merely a reaction to tyranny—it is a faith-driven declaration of agency. It is a call to restore education as a public good, not a private racket. It is a rejection of robocolleges, shadowy online program managers, and predatory lenders that have turned learning into a means of lifelong debt. And it is a stand against those who weaponize ignorance and rewrite history for their own gain.

We are reminded in the New Testament that resistance is righteous, and that reform must be rooted in love, justice, and truth.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

This truth must guide the next phase of the American experiment—a truth that recognizes students not as consumers but as citizens; that sees teachers not as disposable labor but as bearers of light; and that understands education as liberation, not subjugation.

Project 2026 can become our modern Sermon on the Mount, a blueprint for building a nation where colleges nurture both critical thinking and spiritual compassion, where public funding is a covenant—not a weapon—and where we "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God" (Micah 6:8).

For decades, institutions of higher learning have drifted toward elitism, exclusion, and exploitation. Many have served as tools of empire, not vessels of enlightenment. Project 2026 offers a rebirth—a Great Awakening that opens the doors of education wide to the poor, the marginalized, and the weary. It speaks to the tired adjunct, the indebted graduate, the first-generation student, and the worker seeking dignity.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

This is the moment to stand together. Project 2026 must not be left to chance or left in the hands of the powerful alone. It is a grassroots revolution of the mind and spirit—a multiracial, multigenerational, moral movement that calls upon students, faculty, parents, and communities to say: No more.

No more austerity cloaked as fiscal responsibility.
No more censorship masquerading as patriotism.
No more debt for a degree that leads to precarious work and empty promises.

Instead, let us build an education system worthy of democracy—a system animated by the values that once inspired a ragtag group of rebels in 1776. Let us be the generation that reclaims education as the soul of the Republic.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

The struggle ahead will not be easy. But neither was 1776. And yet from that fire emerged a new nation. With faith and fierce love, Project 2026 can become a new declaration—not just of independence, but of interdependence. A declaration of solidarity with the forgotten, the silenced, and the struggling.

Let the tyrants tremble. Let the profiteers beware.
A revolution is stirring in our hearts.

And as Scripture reminds us:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

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Sources:

• The Holy Bible, New Testament

• House Minority Leader remarks, July 3, 2025

• Trump-aligned Project 2025 blueprint (Heritage Foundation)

• Trump Budget and Spending Bill (2025)

• The Higher Education Inquirer archives on privatization, debt peonage, and adjunct labor in U.S. higher education

WATCH LIVE: House Minority Leader Jeffries giving marathon speech criticizing GOP tax cut bill (PBS News Hour)

US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gives a marathon speech, calling out the destructive path that House Republicans are going down. This is a Bill that undermines the United States of America and its national security.  It is also a threat to democracy.  Folks should listen to every minute of this historical speech. 

University of Virginia President is Latest Casualty of Trump's War Against Higher Education

In a political environment increasingly hostile to independent academic thought, University of Virginia President James E. Ryan has become the latest victim of a broader right-wing campaign to reshape American higher education. On June 26, 2025, President Ryan announced he would step down in 2026 amid escalating political pressure from Governor Glenn Youngkin and conservative donors aligned with former President Donald Trump’s ideological movement.

Ryan’s departure signals a new phase in what many scholars, faculty advocates, and civil liberties organizations describe as a calculated “war on higher education.” This campaign—led by Trump-aligned political figures and well-funded conservative think tanks—seeks to silence dissent, reshape curricula, and exert direct control over public universities once considered bastions of academic freedom.

From Jefferson's Dream to a Political Battleground

Founded by Thomas Jefferson as an Enlightenment-era experiment in self-governance and inquiry, the University of Virginia (UVA) has long held symbolic and practical importance in debates over the role of public higher education. But in the Trump era—and its aftermath—UVA has become a target for ideologues determined to transform universities into instruments of state-aligned conservatism.

Under Governor Youngkin, a UVA alumnus with close ties to Trump’s network of political operatives and donors, the Board of Visitors has seen a rightward shift. Youngkin has appointed multiple trustees who are openly critical of so-called “woke ideology,” DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs, and what they describe as the “leftist capture” of the academy.

Behind the scenes, donors aligned with conservative power brokers—some of whom also back organizations like the Manhattan Institute and the Heritage Foundation—have pushed for greater oversight of faculty hiring, curriculum design, and student programming. These efforts have been coupled with demands for ideological “balance,” often interpreted as enforced conservatism within departments historically committed to independent research and peer-reviewed scholarship.

The Pressure Mounts

President Ryan, who took office in 2018, initially enjoyed broad support. A legal scholar and former dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, he worked to increase access for low-income students, build partnerships across ideological lines, and maintain UVA’s national reputation as a top-tier research institution.

But in the polarized landscape of post-2020 politics, Ryan found himself increasingly isolated. His support for DEI initiatives and resistance to political interference in hiring practices drew fire from right-wing media and activists who accused him of promoting “Marxism” and “anti-American” values. Conservative lawmakers in Virginia began threatening funding, while pressure from the Board of Visitors grew more intense and public.

By spring 2025, insiders say, it became clear that Ryan was being pushed toward the door. His announcement on June 26 came just months after similar resignations or removals of university leaders in Florida, Texas, and North Carolina—all states where Republican governors and legislatures have tightened their grip on higher education institutions.

Part of a Broader Campaign

Ryan’s resignation is not an isolated incident. It is the latest in a national trend of politically motivated purges of university leadership. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis oversaw the forced transformation of New College into a conservative stronghold, appointing culture warriors to the board and replacing leadership. In Texas, universities have seen crackdowns on DEI offices, faculty tenure protections, and academic freedom under the guise of “protecting free speech.”

Former President Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly framed colleges and universities as enemies of the people, accusing them of indoctrinating youth and undermining national unity. Trump-aligned media outlets have amplified attacks on liberal arts programs, gender studies departments, and student activism, framing higher education as a battleground in the culture war.

Meanwhile, dark money groups such as the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) and the Federalist Society continue to shape governance reforms that reduce faculty power and increase donor and political influence. Some universities have faced legislation requiring loyalty pledges or mandating ideological reporting, tactics reminiscent of Cold War-era McCarthyism.

The Stakes for the Future

The forced resignation of James Ryan represents more than the loss of a single university president—it is a bellwether of a changing higher education landscape. The public university, once envisioned as a bulwark of democratic inquiry and upward mobility, is being redefined by those who see knowledge not as a public good but as a political threat.

For faculty, staff, and students at UVA and beyond, the message is chilling: conform or be replaced. The right’s war on higher education shows no signs of slowing. With the 2026 midterm elections on the horizon and the Trump faction consolidating control over multiple states, more university leaders may soon face the same fate as President Ryan.

In this struggle, what is at stake is not only academic freedom, but the future of American democracy.

Harvard, Russia, and the Quiet Complicity of American Higher Education

In the fog of elite diplomacy and global finance, some of the United States' most prestigious universities—chief among them, Harvard—have long had entangled and often opaque relationships with authoritarian regimes. While recent headlines focus on China’s influence in higher education, far less attention has been paid to the role elite U.S. institutions have played in legitimizing, enabling, and profiting from post-Soviet Russia’s slide into oligarchy and repression.

The Harvard-Russia Nexus

Harvard University, through its now-infamous Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), was a key player in Russia's economic transition following the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s, HIID, backed by millions of dollars in U.S. government aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), provided advice on privatization and market reforms in Russia. This effort, touted as a cornerstone of democracy promotion, instead helped consolidate power among a small class of oligarchs, fueling the economic inequality and corruption that ultimately laid the foundation for Vladimir Putin's authoritarian rule.

Harvard’s involvement reached scandalous proportions. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Harvard, economist Andrei Shleifer (a professor in Harvard's Economics Department), and others for self-dealing and conflict of interest. Shleifer and his associates were found to have used their insider access to enrich themselves and their families through Russian investments, all while supposedly advising the Russian government on behalf of the American taxpayer. Harvard eventually paid $26.5 million to settle the case.

Though the scandal damaged HIID's reputation and led to its closure, the broader complicity of the academic and financial elite in exploiting Russia’s vulnerability during the 1990s has received little sustained scrutiny.

Lawrence Summers and the Russian Connection

At the center of this story sits Lawrence Summers—a former Harvard president, U.S. Treasury Secretary, and one of the most powerful figures in the transatlantic economic order. Summers was both mentor and close associate of Andrei Shleifer. During the critical years of Russian privatization, Summers served as Undersecretary and later Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, while Shleifer operated HIID’s Russia project.

Despite the blatant conflict of interest, Summers never publicly disavowed Shleifer's actions. After returning to Harvard, he brought Shleifer back into the university’s good graces, protecting his tenured position and helping him avoid serious institutional consequences. This protection underscored the tight-knit nature of elite networks where accountability is rare and reputations are guarded like intellectual property.

Summers himself has invested in Russia through various vehicles over the years, and has held lucrative advisory roles with financial firms deeply enmeshed in post-Soviet economies. He also played an advisory role for Russian tech giant Yandex and has appeared at events sponsored by firms with deep Russian connections. While Summers has since criticized the Putin regime, his earlier role in enabling the very conditions that empowered it is seldom discussed in polite academic company.

A Broader Pattern of Complicity

Harvard is not alone. Institutions like Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and the University of Chicago have produced scholars, consultants, and think tanks that helped construct the framework of neoliberal transition in Russia and Eastern Europe. These universities not only trained many of the Russian technocrats who later served in Putin’s government, but also quietly benefited from international partnerships, fellowships, and endowments tied to post-Soviet wealth.

Endowments at elite institutions remain shrouded in secrecy, and it is not always possible to trace the sources of foreign gifts or investments. But it’s clear that Russian oligarchs—many of whom owe their fortunes to the very privatization schemes U.S. economists championed—have made donations to elite Western universities or served on their advisory boards. Some sponsored academic centers and fellowships designed to burnish their reputations or reframe narratives about Russia’s transformation.

The Death of a Dissident

The failure of Western academic institutions to reckon with their role in Russia’s descent into authoritarianism became all the more glaring with the death of Alexei Navalny in February 2024. Navalny, a fierce critic of corruption and Putin’s regime, was imprisoned and ultimately killed for challenging the very system that U.S. advisers like those from Harvard helped engineer. While universities issued public statements condemning his death, few acknowledged the deeper complicity of their faculty, programs, and funders in building the oligarchic structures Navalny spent his life trying to dismantle.

Navalny repeatedly exposed how Russian wealth was funneled into offshore accounts and Western real estate, often aided by a global network of enablers—including lawyers, bankers, and academics in the West. His death is not just a symbol of Putin’s brutality—it is also a damning indictment of the institutions, both in Russia and abroad, that failed to stop it and, in many cases, profited along the way.

Where is the Accountability?

Despite the Shleifer scandal and Russia’s authoritarian consolidation, there has been no independent reckoning from Harvard or its peer institutions about their role in the failures of the 1990s or the long-term consequences of their economic evangelism. The neoliberal ideology that fueled these efforts—steeped in faith in free markets, minimal regulation, and elite technocracy—remains dominant in elite policy circles, even as it faces growing critique from both left and right.

Meanwhile, institutions like Harvard continue to influence global policy through their academic prestige, think tanks, and alumni networks. They remain powerful arbiters of truth—shaping how the public understands foreign policy, democracy, and capitalism—while rarely acknowledging their own entanglement in the darker chapters of globalization.

Elite Academia and Oligarchy

The story of Harvard and Russia is not just a tale of one institution’s failure; it is emblematic of the broader failure of elite American academia to confront its own role in the spread of oligarchy, inequality, and authoritarianism under the banner of liberal democracy. In an age when higher education is under increased scrutiny for its political and financial entanglements, the need for critical journalism and public accountability has never been greater.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to investigate these complex relationships—and demand transparency from the institutions that claim to serve the public good, while operating behind a veil of privilege and power. Navalny’s sacrifice deserves more than hollow statements. It requires a full accounting of how the system he died fighting was built—with help from the most powerful university in the world.

Remembering Bill Moyers (1934-2025)

In a media landscape often dominated by soundbites, spin, and sensationalism, Bill Moyers was a rare voice of clarity, compassion, and conscience. With his passing, America has lost not only a gifted journalist and public intellectual but also one of its most courageous truth-tellers.

For more than half a century, Moyers stood at the intersection of journalism, politics, and public education—unyielding in his pursuit of justice and understanding. From his early days as White House Press Secretary under President Lyndon Johnson to his groundbreaking work with PBS, Moyers embodied the spirit of democratic inquiry: probing deeply, listening intently, and speaking boldly. He held the powerful to account, but always with the dignity and decency that defined his Texan roots and Baptist upbringing.

Bill Moyers never saw journalism as a career; he saw it as a calling. His programs—Now with Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, and Moyers & Company—were sanctuaries for critical thought and inconvenient truths. He gave voice to the voiceless: whistleblowers, teachers, laborers, poets, and prophets. In a time when the corporate capture of media narrowed the spectrum of acceptable opinion, Moyers stretched it wide—amplifying progressive theologians, investigative reporters, civil rights leaders, and scholars ignored by commercial networks.

His love of learning, and his belief in public education as a democratic cornerstone, made him a champion of educators and lifelong learners. He understood that education is not merely about credentials or career preparation, but about cultivating the moral imagination. That insight animated his long relationship with public broadcasting, where he insisted that television could—and should—educate, illuminate, and elevate.

Bill Moyers also saw through the fog of power. He knew how elite institutions—government, media, universities, and corporations—could align to manufacture consent and mystify the public. And yet he maintained hope. Not a naive optimism, but a deep belief in people’s capacity to awaken, organize, and transform society. As he once said, “Democracy is not a lie, it is a leap of faith. But you need to keep leaping.”

In a moment when American higher education faces crises of affordability, access, and meaning—when trust in journalism is frayed, and when truth itself feels embattled—Bill Moyers’ legacy reminds us that integrity matters. So does context, complexity, and compassion.

His loss is personal for those of us at the Higher Education Inquirer. Many of us were shaped by his work, inspired by his commitment to investigative rigor and human dignity. His interviews with thinkers like Howard Zinn, Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Joseph Campbell helped expand the public's moral and intellectual horizons—precisely what higher education should strive to do.

In remembering Bill Moyers, we are called to do more than mourn. We are called to follow his example: to ask harder questions, to listen more deeply, to speak more clearly, and to stand, always, with the people who are too often ignored or maligned.

Rest in power, Bill Moyers. Your words lit candles in the darkness. May we carry that light forward.

The Supreme Court's Medicaid Ruling and the Manufactured War on Reproductive Health: A Response to Liberty University's “Freedom Center”

On June 26, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, allowing South Carolina to remove Planned Parenthood from its list of Medicaid providers. While the decision raises serious legal and ethical concerns, it is the celebratory response from Liberty University's Standing for Freedom Center that warrants deeper scrutiny. Their framing of this decision as a moral and policy victory is not only misleading—it is a dangerous piece of religious nationalism masquerading as public policy commentary.

The Freedom Center’s narrative—couched in biblical justification, political triumphalism, and ideological fervor—ignores the very real, lived consequences for working-class women and college students across South Carolina and beyond. It presents a sanitized vision of “Christian governance” while masking the cruelty of stripping access to basic healthcare from the most vulnerable populations. This is not “standing for freedom”—this is the strategic consolidation of patriarchal, classist, and theocratic power.

A Direct Attack on Low-Income Women and Families

Let’s be clear: this ruling does not merely "redirect funding." It restricts access to cancer screenings, contraception, STI testing, and other non-abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics—especially to Medicaid recipients, many of whom are low-income women, students, and working mothers. In South Carolina, two Planned Parenthood clinics served thousands of such patients. The claim that these women can simply go elsewhere is glib and unsubstantiated.

The Freedom Center boasts that over 140 “federally qualified community centers and pregnancy centers” exist to fill the gap. But these centers are notoriously inconsistent in the quality and availability of care, especially for reproductive health. Many so-called “pregnancy crisis centers” provide no medical care at all and are known to mislead and shame patients. Access to meaningful, comprehensive reproductive care is not about the number of buildings—it’s about the quality, scope, and inclusiveness of services. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous at best.

Medicaid Recipients Silenced

At the heart of Medina is a deeply troubling precedent: individuals who depend on Medicaid can no longer sue the state if their access to providers is unilaterally restricted. The decision hinges on the argument that the Medicaid Act doesn’t explicitly allow private citizens to sue—a reversal of decades of precedent that protected patient choice.

This decision silences not just providers but patients. It strips legal recourse from low-income Americans and hands unchecked discretion to governors like South Carolina’s Henry McMaster, who has made no secret of his desire to eliminate abortion access altogether. If these actions are now unchallengeable in court, states can act with near impunity—denying healthcare access in the name of ideology.

Religious Rhetoric Masquerading as Law

The Freedom Center frames this decision in stark theological terms. According to their article, the ruling is not just a legal victory—it is a “Christian” one. They cite Scripture, claim to act in the name of Jesus, and assert that governments are “tasked by God to restrain evil.” This is a vision of governance not rooted in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but in a theocratic reinterpretation of American democracy.

This is especially chilling when one considers that Liberty University is not merely a religious institution but a political machine—one with deep ties to the Republican Party and far-right policy networks. Through this lens, Medina is not about “protecting life,” but about using state power to enforce a specific religious worldview, regardless of the collateral damage to women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and poor families.

The Broader Agenda: Criminalizing Reproductive Autonomy

Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, we’ve seen a steady escalation of attacks not just on abortion rights, but on reproductive autonomy more broadly—including access to contraception, gender-affirming care, and maternal health services. The Medina decision emboldens state-level campaigns to further criminalize, defund, and stigmatize reproductive healthcare. Liberty University’s Freedom Center doesn’t shy away from this broader agenda—they celebrate it.

They claim that Planned Parenthood “profits off abortion” and “distributes dangerous gender-transition drugs to minors”—a set of dog-whistle phrases designed to provoke fear and reinforce transphobic, misogynistic tropes. These claims lack evidence, but they serve a strategic function: demonizing reproductive healthcare providers and setting the stage for more sweeping restrictions and persecutions.

The Real Cost: Educated Underclass and the Erosion of Public Health

This ruling and the rhetoric around it disproportionately affect working-class women, students, and Black and brown communities. As colleges increasingly serve nontraditional, low-income, and first-generation students, many of whom rely on Medicaid, these policies create new barriers to health, education, and economic mobility.

We must ask: who benefits from the creation of an underclass without access to healthcare or legal recourse? Who profits from forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies while cutting funding for childcare, education, and public health? The answer isn’t God—it’s a political and economic elite that thrives on disempowerment, all while hiding behind the cross.

Orwellian Freedom

The Supreme Court’s Medina decision is not a victory for “freedom” but a blow to democratic rights and healthcare access. Liberty University’s Freedom Center celebrates it not as a legal analysis, but as a religious crusade. Their euphemistic language about “protecting life” and “comprehensive care” distracts from the real consequences: more suffering, fewer options, and deepening inequality.

The Higher Education Inquirer stands in opposition to this dystopian vision. We support the rights of students, workers, and families to access comprehensive, evidence-based healthcare—free from political and religious coercion. This fight is not just about abortion—it is about the right to bodily autonomy, the right to sue the government when it harms you, and the right to live free from imposed theological rule.

Cybersecurity Threats, Fascism, and Higher Education

American higher education stands at a dangerous crossroads—caught between the encroachment of authoritarian surveillance at home and the very real cybersecurity threats from adversarial states abroad. On one side, we see the growth of data collection and domestic monitoring that risks silencing dissent and undermining academic freedom. On the other, sophisticated cyberattacks from nation-states like Russia, China, Iran, Israel, and North Korea present significant threats to intellectual property, national security, and the safety of digital infrastructure on campus.

This double-edged sword raises urgent questions about the role of higher education in a time of rising fascism, geopolitical instability, and digital vulnerability.

In recent years, colleges and universities have become sites of intensified digital monitoring. Student protesters, faculty activists, and visiting scholars find themselves increasingly under surveillance by both state agencies and private contractors. Under the guise of “safety” and “cybersecurity,” dissident voices—especially those speaking out on issues like Palestine, racial justice, climate collapse, and labor rights—are monitored, flagged, and at times disciplined.

Campus security partnerships with local police and federal agencies like the FBI, DHS, and ICE have created a new surveillance architecture that chills free speech and suppresses organizing. Social media is mined. Emails are monitored. Student groups that once flourished in the open now meet with the paranoia of being watched or labeled as threats. This chilling effect is especially acute for international students and scholars from the Global South, who face disproportionate scrutiny, travel restrictions, and visa denials. These policies don’t just protect against threats—they enforce a top-down political orthodoxy. In some cases, administrators have even turned over data to law enforcement in response to political pressure, lawsuits, or fear of reputational harm. The dream of the university as a bastion of free inquiry is fading in the fog of surveillance capitalism and political fear.

Particularly concerning is the growing role of powerful tech firms like Palantir Technologies in higher education's security infrastructure. Originally developed with backing from the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, Palantir’s software is designed for mass data aggregation, predictive policing, and counterinsurgency-style surveillance. While marketed as tools for campus safety and data management, Palantir’s platforms can also be used to monitor student behavior, track political activism, and identify so-called “threats” that align more with ideological dissent than legitimate security concerns. The company has existing contracts with numerous universities and research institutions, embedding itself in the heart of higher ed’s decision-making and information systems with little public accountability.

At the same time, the threat from foreign actors is not imaginary. Russian disinformation campaigns have targeted U.S. universities, attempting to sow discord through social media and exploit political divisions on campus. Iranian state-sponsored hackers have stolen research from American institutions, targeting fields like nuclear science, engineering, and public health. Chinese entities have been accused of both cyberespionage and aggressive recruitment of U.S.-trained researchers through programs like the Thousand Talents Plan, sparking controversy and xenophobic backlash. While some fears have been overstated or politically weaponized, evidence shows that intellectual property theft and cyber intrusion are persistent issues.

Meanwhile, Israel’s cyber industry—including firms founded by former Israeli intelligence operatives—has sold spyware and surveillance tools to governments and corporations worldwide. NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, for instance, has reportedly been used to target academics, journalists, and activists. American campuses are not exempt from these tools’ reach—particularly when it comes to Palestine advocacy and international collaborations.

The paradox is clear: The same institutions that should be defending democratic ideals and global collaboration are being co-opted into both authoritarian domestic surveillance and militarized cyberdefense. There is an alarming convergence of corporate cybersecurity contractors, intelligence agencies, and university bureaucracies—often with little transparency or oversight. Federal funding tied to defense and homeland security has made some universities complicit in this surveillance regime. Others have turned to private cybersecurity vendors like Palantir, which quietly build intrusive systems that blur the lines between threat detection and political policing. In this environment, real cybersecurity is essential—but it must not become a tool for repression.

What is needed is a dual approach that protects against foreign and criminal cyberthreats without succumbing to the authoritarian logic of mass surveillance. Universities must protect academic freedom by enforcing strict policies against political monitoring and reaffirming the rights of students and faculty to speak, organize, and dissent. They must ensure transparency and oversight over cybersecurity operations and external partnerships, particularly those involving military and intelligence-linked firms. They must support digital security for activists and marginalized groups, not just administrative systems. And they must strengthen internal cyberdefenses through open-source tools, decentralized networks, and ethical cybersecurity education—not just corporate solutions that prioritize control over community.

We cannot allow the logic of the Cold War to be reborn in the form of digital McCarthyism. Higher education must be a firewall against fascism—not a pipeline for it. As we confront 21st-century cyberconflicts and political extremism, universities must ask themselves: Are we defending truth and inquiry—or enabling the very systems that undermine them? The answer will shape the future of higher education—and democracy itself.

Trump, Hegseth, and the Bombing of Iran: Taking the Bait at America’s Peril

The sudden arrival of the U.S. Air Force's E-4B “Doomsday Plane” at Joint Base Andrews this week has reignited fears of impending military escalation in the Middle East. As speculation swirls online and among defense analysts, President Donald Trump and his Fox News consigliere Pete Hegseth appear to be inching dangerously close to embracing a war plan that plays into the hands of both their domestic political ambitions and the geopolitical strategies of their adversaries.

The E-4B, also known as “Nightwatch,” is no ordinary aircraft. Built to survive a nuclear attack, maintain satellite command and control in the event of total ground disruption, and oversee the execution of emergency war orders, its presence near Washington, D.C. signals something far more than routine military procedure. The use of a rare callsign—"ORDER01"—instead of the standard "ORDER6" only stokes the sense that we are on the brink of another catastrophic foreign policy decision.

This show of force comes amid rising tensions with Iran, exacerbated by ongoing Israeli aggression and increased Iranian defiance. But rather than de-escalate or seek diplomatic offramps, Trump and Hegseth—cheered on by neoconservative holdovers and MAGA populists—seem eager to provoke or retaliate with military might.

Political Theater with Global Consequences

The specter of bombing Iran isn’t just about foreign policy—it’s political theater. In the lead-up to a contentious election cycle, Trump is once again playing the wartime president, wielding fear and nationalism to consolidate support. For Hegseth, a veteran turned right-wing media figure, the promise of patriotic glory and "restoring American strength" makes for good ratings and even better branding. Both men are using the possibility of war as a campaign tool—recklessly gambling with global stability.

Yet the U.S. has nothing to gain from an expanded conflict with Iran. If anything, such an act plays directly into the strategic interests of hardliners in Tehran and Tel Aviv alike. For Iran’s theocratic regime, American aggression would bolster internal solidarity and justify further authoritarian crackdowns. For Israel’s leadership, it would secure unwavering U.S. allegiance in their own campaign of regional dominance. For both, American bombs would mean the end of diplomatic ambiguity.

Higher Education and the Fog of War

War is also profitable—for defense contractors, media networks, and privatized universities that specialize in churning out online degrees in homeland security and intelligence studies. Institutions like the Liberty University, whose ads routinely appear alongside war reporting, are the educational arm of the war economy, training an underpaid, precariously employed labor force in service of endless conflict. These for-profit institutions have long aligned themselves with militarism, offering “education benefits” that function as recruitment tools for the armed forces.

Meanwhile, real intellectual inquiry is under siege. Faculty who question U.S. foreign policy—particularly in the Middle East—face surveillance, harassment, and cancellation. Dissenting students are monitored. Grants for critical research dry up, while think tanks funded by the arms industry flourish. Universities become staging grounds for ideological conformity, not bastions of free thought.

Taking the Bait

Trump and Hegseth are being lured into a trap—one that benefits the very global elites they claim to oppose. Escalating with Iran serves the military-industrial complex, shores up Israeli hardliners, and consolidates state power under the guise of national emergency. At home, it means more surveillance, more censorship, and more austerity for working families already reeling from inflation and housing insecurity.

In the end, the cost of war will not be borne by Trump or Hegseth. It will be borne by low-income soldiers, the people of Iran, and the students who forgo education for military service. It will be paid for by cutting healthcare, housing, and higher education. And it will hollow out American democracy, all while propping up the illusion of strength.

This is not leadership. This is entrapment. And it’s time we said so—loudly, before the next bombs drop.

Parental Pushback: Liberal Resistance to Right-Wing Indoctrination in Oklahoma Schools

In the heart of red-state America, a quiet rebellion is taking shape—led not by liberal politicians or university activists, but by parents of K-12 students. In Oklahoma, a growing number of families are fighting back against what they see as an aggressive ideological campaign by far-right leaders to insert misinformation, religious doctrine, and partisan propaganda into public school classrooms.

This resistance is not coming through marches or lawsuits alone, but through the very legal tools that conservatives once championed: parental rights. Families across the state are opting their children out of controversial new social studies standards that they claim distort U.S. history, undermine democratic institutions, and promote Christian nationalism.

Tulsa parent Lauren Parker is among the voices leading this countercharge. “Now that it’s being codified and now that it’s being brought more into the public eye, the liberals have realized that those are our rights too,” she said.

Her main concern: language recently added to Oklahoma’s social studies curriculum that questions the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. The standards require students to "identify discrepancies" in the results, echoing discredited claims advanced by Donald Trump and his supporters. These include references to “sudden halting of ballot-counting,” “sudden batch dumps,” and “security risks of mail-in balloting”—all without factual basis, and all now embedded in state-mandated education.

These standards were quietly introduced by State Superintendent Ryan Walters and passed by the Oklahoma State Board of Education, some of whom now claim they were unaware of the changes at the time of the vote. A legal challenge is pending in Oklahoma County District Court, questioning the procedures used to approve the new standards.

The opt-out movement has been fueled by organizations like We’re Oklahoma Education—WOKE—formed as a progressive response to right-wing parent groups like Moms for Liberty. WOKE provides parents with templated letters to exempt their children from lessons that include election misinformation, Biblical teachings, and content produced by conservative media outlets like PragerU and ideologically driven institutions like Hillsdale College and Turning Point USA.

“If you believe parents know best, then that applies to all parents,” said WOKE director Erica Watkins, a mother of two public school students in Jenks. Watkins, who describes her family as non-religious, said she won’t allow her children to be taught about Christian scripture in a public school classroom.

Walters has defended the addition of Biblical content as a way to provide historical context, arguing that the teachings of Jesus and the Bible shaped the country’s founding values. But parents like Parker see it differently: “This isn’t about history and facts. It’s about pushing their faith on us, and that’s unacceptable. It’s un-American.”

WOKE members are extending their efforts beyond classrooms. Their opt-out letters also reject any “interaction” with Walters and reject the use of content linked to partisan or religious agendas. In some districts, including Stillwater and Tulsa, school officials have indicated a willingness to honor these requests while awaiting clearer guidance on how to implement the new standards.

Ironically, the legal protections that parents are now invoking stem from Republican-led legislation designed to protect children from what conservatives labeled as “woke indoctrination.” Now, the same legal framework is being used to resist the imposition of a narrow, ideologically driven curriculum. As Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt noted, “If we have separate schools for everybody who has different beliefs, we’re going to have some real challenges.”

That challenge isn't just philosophical. The battle for K-12 curriculum is already shaping higher education outcomes. Students trained in a politically skewed version of American history may enter college unprepared for academic rigor, especially in disciplines like political science, history, and journalism. Public universities in red states could increasingly find themselves in conflict with the ideological pressures shaping their incoming student populations. Faculty, already under scrutiny in places like Florida and Texas, may have to navigate a new wave of cultural and political tension on campus.

Meanwhile, the polarization of public education is reinforcing broader national divides—between those who see schools as places of civic development and democratic inquiry, and those who view them as battlegrounds in a culture war.

The resistance in Oklahoma marks a new chapter in that war. It's a reminder that parental rights are not the sole property of any political party—and that misinformation, no matter how it’s packaged, won’t go unchallenged. The pushback from parents like Parker and Watkins reflects a broader struggle for control over public education, truth, and the future of American democracy.

And in this fight, the line between K-12 and higher education grows thinner every day.

How Right-Wing Ideology is Reshaping K–12 Education in Conservative States

In red states across the country, conservative ideology is reshaping K–12 education. Legislatures and governors have used their political power to exert greater control over what children learn in public schools. These changes reflect a broader cultural war playing out in classrooms, as political leaders seek to influence the future of American identity, history, and morality—often at the expense of marginalized students and professional educators.

In Texas, lawmakers have pushed for sweeping restrictions on how race, gender, and history are taught. Laws such as HB 3979 and Senate Bill 3 prohibit teachers from discussing so-called “divisive concepts,” including systemic racism and white privilege. These laws also mandate that educators present controversial historical topics in a “neutral” manner, which critics argue whitewashes the truth and undermines historical accuracy. Meanwhile, efforts by the Texas State Board of Education have promoted materials with religious overtones, such as the optional Bluebonnet Learning curriculum, which includes biblical references and is seen by many as a step toward religious indoctrination in public schools.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has led an aggressive campaign to root out what he calls “woke ideology” in public education. Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” prohibits instruction that could make students feel discomfort based on their race or sex, effectively chilling honest discussions about American history and inequality. The state has also expanded the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law to restrict classroom discussion on gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through high school. At the same time, Florida has approved conservative content from groups like PragerU, a media organization criticized for promoting historical revisionism and partisan propaganda. Book bans and library censorship have surged under the pretext of parental rights, with thousands of titles—often involving LGBTQ characters or themes of racial justice—removed from shelves across the state.

In Oklahoma, State Superintendent Ryan Walters has become a national symbol of Christian nationalist education policy. Under his leadership, Oklahoma has moved to require Bible instruction in classrooms and to place physical copies of the Bible in every public school, a decision halted by the courts but still championed by Walters. The state’s curriculum standards now include directives for students to examine supposed discrepancies in the 2020 presidential election, encouraging distrust in democratic institutions. Walters has also made inflammatory public statements against teachers who discuss racism or gender identity, creating a hostile climate for educators and students alike.

Similar measures have taken hold in other Republican-led states. Arizona, Tennessee, Idaho, and Iowa have passed legislation banning instruction on critical race theory, even in schools where CRT was never part of the curriculum. These laws are often written vaguely, leading to confusion and fear among educators about what is permissible in the classroom. Across these states, teacher resignations are rising, and lawsuits are mounting, as educators refuse to remain silent in the face of increasing state surveillance and ideological control.

The rise of privatization further complicates the picture. Voucher programs and education savings accounts are being promoted under the banner of “school choice,” which critics argue undermines public education by redirecting taxpayer dollars to private and religious schools. In Florida and Texas especially, these efforts coincide with the ideological push to dismantle public trust in public education.

Christian nationalism has become an undercurrent of the new educational movement, with politicians and advocacy groups pushing for prayer in schools, Bible-based curricula, and faith-oriented discipline policies. In some cases, this aligns with efforts to incorporate conservative Christian morality into science education, including the promotion of abstinence-only sex education and skepticism about evolution.

The cumulative effect of these actions is the erosion of academic freedom, the marginalization of LGBTQ and nonwhite students, and the politicization of what should be a fact-based and inclusive educational system. Teachers are under pressure to self-censor. Students are being taught a sanitized, sometimes distorted version of American history. School libraries are being stripped of diverse perspectives. And voters are often unaware of the long-term damage being done in the name of “parental rights” and “traditional values.”

These changes are not merely symbolic. They reflect a fundamental struggle over who controls the narrative of American identity. As right-wing politicians in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and other red states reshape K–12 education, they are laying the groundwork for a future electorate steeped in selective memory, limited exposure to diversity, and an education system more responsive to political power than to pedagogy.

This ideological restructuring of K–12 education carries deep and lasting consequences for higher education. Students emerging from these red-state school systems may come to college with significant gaps in knowledge, diminished critical thinking skills, and exposure to misinformation presented as fact. A student who has never been taught about systemic racism, who has been told to question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, or who has grown up fearing open conversations about gender and sexuality, may find the university classroom bewildering—or threatening.

As a result, colleges and universities, particularly public institutions, are seeing increasing polarization in their student bodies. Some students enter ready for open discourse and academic exploration, while others arrive suspicious of professors, defensive about their beliefs, or wholly unprepared for the demands of college-level coursework. Faculty, in turn, face the difficult task of correcting misinformation without triggering political backlash or student grievances rooted in the ideological conditioning of their high school years.

There are broader administrative and cultural consequences. As universities work to build inclusive campuses that serve diverse student populations, they are being accused by conservative lawmakers and media outlets of promoting “woke indoctrination.” Funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs is being cut in states like Florida and Texas, as political leaders seek to exert greater control over what happens on college campuses. The message is clear: challenge the narrative, and you risk losing public support and state money.

Meanwhile, teacher shortages—already critical in many parts of the country—are worsening as qualified educators flee repressive school environments. The erosion of K–12 education quality leads to declining college readiness, which in turn affects admissions, retention, and graduation rates. Colleges may have to invest more in remedial programs and rethink traditional academic benchmarks to accommodate students whose schooling was stunted by political interference.

Higher education is also at risk of becoming a battlefield in the next phase of the culture war. As red states seek to bring public universities “in line” with state-approved ideologies, academic freedom and institutional autonomy are increasingly under threat. What begins in elementary classrooms does not stay there—it eventually shapes the electorate, the labor force, and the national discourse.

The right-wing assault on public education is not only a challenge to teachers and students—it is a challenge to democracy and the free exchange of ideas. As the K–12 system becomes a proving ground for ideological control, the mission of higher education as a space for critical inquiry and social mobility is being steadily undermined. What’s at stake is not just what children learn—but whether future generations will be allowed to think freely at all.