Another day, another institution surrenders to Trump

Despite all my moaning since a slim majority of Americans decided it was safer to carry on with their lives walking a tightrope without any safety nets, than it was to stay grounded, and together against the billionaires who have proved over and over again they want to eat us all, I have been mighty proud of the good and righteous people on the Left.Too many Americans don’t deserve us, but the idea of America does, dammit. Despite being knocked down and staying down on that gray November day, we picked ourselves up and braved the fascist winds that are blowing at a gale off the Potomac right now.This was no easy thing. Watching our country double-down on a repulsive madman, and a party that provably means us harm was like a knife to the heart. Even today, it defies anything rational or decent. We have hit town halls, and rallied in the freezing cold at our Capitals. We have canvassed, made phone calls and written our congresspeople. We are showing up everywhere to fight against the same terrible things better people than us did while sacrificing their lives on the battlefield.You know, in the painful hours that followed the most consequential election in our nation’s history November 5th, I typed a piece through defiance and tears that ended up getting a lot of read: DO NOT SUBMIT. I remember it being about the easiest thing I have ever written, because if you are reading this you almost certainly know that the only way to beat evil is to never give into it.Except that is exactly what too many institutions, including the Democratic Party, have been doing. And while the party is finally showing some signs of life, all thanks to us, these institutions are caving into the orange, American-attacking felon exactly like he does every time he’s in a room with Vladimir Putin. It is just disgusting to watch, it really is. On Thursday afternoon, the University of Michigan became the latest institution of “higher learning” to bow down to Trump, when they offered up a public sacrifice of their once proud, state-of-the-art Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program because the grifter was threatening to pull OUR money from the university. Up until Thursday, Michigan had been at the forefront of helping to lead America out of the darkness, into the light, and toward a better place where our children were “not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”You won’t find a more noble or necessary cause. In the story I linked to above in the Detroit Free Press, Rebekah Modrak, the chair of the faculty senate hit a home run with this beauty:“The federal government is determined to dismantle and control higher education and to make our institutions more uniform, more inequitable, and more exclusive. They are using the power of the government to engineer a sweeping culture change towards white supremacy. Unfortunately, University of Michigan leaders seem determined to comply and to collaborate in our own destruction.”Michigan’s surrender follows similar gross actions from scores of other places that should know better. Places like museums, libraries, and department stores, are all tearing up their DEI initiatives faster than Trump can devour three Big Macs. Makes you wonder how important DEI really was at these places if they are now ready to turn on a dime a run like the dickens from ‘em.Law firms are falling at Trump’s fat, little feet, because apparently it’s become just too damn expensive to stand on the right side of the law. Even ABC-News disgraced itself when it settled with the American-attacker for $15 million in a defamation suit they win 999 out of 1000 times. This is one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen as journalist, and lately I’ve seen more than enough. But really, just when in the hell is even one of these places going to say, “You know what, pal? Take your racist ass on out of here. We’ll get along just fine without you, or we’ll see you in court. Up to you, sport.”In fact, the first place that says that will get a big, fat donation from me. And I’ll bet you I’m not alone.It is brutal watching all this. When in the hell are these places going to learn what you and I already know: Silver-spoon fed punks like the draft-dodging Trump see capitulation and submission as a weakness. Once you do it once, he’ll be harrumphing back again demanding more. It’s all about the humiliation with this insecure baby, who never did get over being dumped in some military boarding school, because his parents found him impossible to be around.As for the diversity aspect of all this, it’s taken this complete mess of an administration but four months to prove that we have never needed it more in this country.Take a look at the so-called cabinet that this orange bigot who sees “fine people” on both sides of a KKK rally has assembled. It is not only stuffed with more white males than any cabinet since — no surprise — Ronald Reagan’s, but has more clowns in it than the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Project 2025’s Russell Vought just to name a few … Then there are the three white women who have gleefully lowered themselves into that despicable cabinet headlined by a puppy-killer. Consider the big news this week, when we found out a group of geniuses led by Hegseth, the stone-cold drunk who is somehow leading our Defense Department, came within inches of getting our best, brightest, and bravest killed when they treated the launch of a strategic airstrike in Yemen with all the secrecy and regard they’d give some fantasy football draft at a topless bar.Great job there, fellas. The only reason you still have your damn jobs is precisely because you are white. So let’s save all this handwringing over the harm DEI initiatives are having on America, you incompetent nitwits. You are precisely the reason they were needed in the first place. Any university that goes along with that and these guys, isn’t worth a dollar of tuition. Any university that is too stupid to see what is going on in America right now, and the parallels to what happened in Germany in the 1930s and ‘40s should just get out of the education business altogether.Look, I have long been a supporter of our universities, even if I never attended one. I fancied these places as institutions of higher learning that educated our young people, and prepared them for life’s long, hard road ahead — and the odious sins of our past.My only real gripe with ‘em has been their price tag. Who the hell can afford to send their kids to these places?Actually, never mind, I know the answer …D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.

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