TILTING LEFT

On June 4th, a NY Times news analysis was headlined “Denouncing

Antisemitism, Trump Also Fans Its Flames.” On April 18th, in a blog post,

we wrote in part:

“The psychopath in the White House, and his psychophants, are not

doing anything good for the Jews. Using antisemitism as a cudgel to

beat wokeness out of America’s elite universities and into sedated

submission is just another way to scapegoat us. Nothing subtle,

nothing new about it.”

His reprehensible attack on higher education has nothing to do with

campus antisemitism, though that no doubt exists. His obsession with the

deep state, his outer-borough myopia and abject fear of leftist-leaning

higher education drives him nuts. He is right: higher education tilts left.

As it should.

Jews stir the pot by daring

to apply to the country’s best colleges and

universities -- the same ones

that kept us out or restricted

our numbers.

Discrimination against us in higher education admission policies has a long and ugly history. Still, Trump’s real and only purpose in ganging up on the Ivies has zip to do with antisemitism. It is not just to satisfy the knuckle walkers around him

though that’s some of it. The bottom line is autocracy, with himself as

Autocrat-in-Chief for a third term or life!

Waking to the NY Times every morning is probably bad for our health.

Each day brings a new threat or a new assault from Trump or one of his

lickspittles. In the early days of Trump2, the prevailing thought was how

terrible all this is but as mother always said “this too shall pass.” Now, with

1,327 days to go in Trump’s second go (as of June 5th) this too may not pass. And if this reign of horror does not pass, we will not have a country.

As Benjamin Franklin said we are a republic only “if we can keep it.”

The entire United States is projected to become majority-minority

sometime between 2041 and 2046 (depending on the amount of net

immigration into the U.S., birth/death rates, and intermarriage rates over

the preceding years). This is not reversible. What JD Vance and the pro-

natalist movement want is to get the birth rate up. What they actually mean

is the white birth rate. Won’t happen. His own kids are white and Indian.

Plus, women and men now marry later. A study by Bowling Green

University reports that since 2008, the age at first marriage for males has

increased by 2.5 years, and in 2022 was 30.5. Among females the median

age at first marriage has increased by 2.4 years since 2008 and in 2022

was 28.6 years of age.

The displacement of entry opportunities for many people coming of age now has been under way for some time and is exacerbated by the looming threat of increased automation and by AI killing off more and more base level jobs — not only

among the college educated. The idea that a four-year degree may be two years wasted is one concern.

The other is that vo-tech education may not be the driver it once was because so many of those well paid repetitive assembly line jobs are now automated. Robots build cars. Unions are increasingly redundant and union membership in the United States has experienced a steady decline since the 1980s, reaching historic lows in recent years. In 1983, 20.1% of American workers were union members, while in 2023, that figure had dropped to 10.0% according to the Pew Research Center.

-<>-

To be silent now is to be complicit. Our democracy, with all its virtues and all its faults, is at risk. Speaking out for decency ; and for diversity, equity and inclusion throughout our society is a must for all of us.