Furious that they’re losing in the marketplace of ideas

The speakers for the second night of the Democratic National Convention look like a good lineup, including Barack and Michelle Obama, but I haven’t listened yet (not even to excerpts). Instead I’ll go to my accumulated tabs about the opposition. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that Indiana enacted an “intellectual diversity” law and a federal judge threw out a lawsuit seeking to block it. The law went into effect July 1. It says getting tenure is based in part on whether the professor fosters “a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity” and whether students get a “variety of political or ideological frameworks.”

Using the term “intellectual diversity” is the giveaway. It’s a favorite term of the right when they want to complain about how conservative viewpoints aren’t insufficiently coddled by higher education. It’s also the only kind of diversity conservatives really like.

Some of the terms in the law are not defined, so professors don’t have guidance on how to avoid violating the law. Must Holocaust studies include Holocaust denial? Do chapters on slavery have to include the debunked claim that slavery was a benefit to the enslaved? The case was thrown out because professors have not yet been harmed and that is because Universities haven’t spelled out their policies yet. The law is based on the notion that since professors are employees of the government what they say isn’t “free speech” but “government speech” and that can be controlled by the university. All existing court decisions on academic freedom have declared that speech related to teaching or scholarship is free speech. These kinds of games with university professors are also being played out in Florida, Ohio, and Texas. Four states have already restrict tenure at community colleges. Over the last ten years six states have proposed (but not passed) complete tenure bans.

Conservatives will keep doing this because their war against higher education is part of their overall war on modernization and multiculturalism. They’re furious that they’re losing in the marketplace of ideas, and they will keep attacking their own universities until they break under the strain.

Andy Kroll for ProPublica and Nick Surgey for Documented, in an article posted on Kos, reported that Project 2025 has a “plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration.” For that training there are videos, 23 of them, which is 14 hours of content.

The Project 2025 videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.

Some of the topics show how to attack specific parts of the government. They explain how to weed out and counter all the government language on climate change. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) reviews the regulations proposed by the government, so controlling it can control regulations that are approved. Viewers are told Washington is hostile to conservative values (“basic traditional values” – yup, racism is “traditional”) and how to deal with that. There is a section on how to keep career bureaucrats from derailing their efforts. They’re directed to talk to conservative media because that’s what conservative voters trust. They are advised how to avoid leaving a paper trail – talk to other people in person. The nasty guy may be trying to distance himself from Project 2025, but... Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Russell Vought, the architect of the plan, is delighted that JD Vance is the VP pick. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the financial disclosure forms the nasty guy was required to file to comply with election campaign laws. They’re not as detailed as tax forms, but they are still enlightening. His income comes from peddling Bibles, trading cards, hefty fees at his golf facilities, and various other grifts. He also still owes a lot because of legal settlements he is in no hurry to pay.

What can be seen from even a casual glance is that, while Trump might not be as wealthy as he claims, he has more than enough income to pay his legal bills, donate to his campaign, and keep up even the most lavish lifestyle. In other words, all the begging he did to get other people to fund his legal expenses was a flat-out scam. ... He just doesn’t want to pay. And why should he, so long as there is a stream of suckers and losers who will sign up to cover his bills?

Sumner wrote about the continuing ways nasty guy supporters are trying to legally disrupt the election. Attempts to disqualify Harris. More attempts to suppress the vote. Attempts in Georgia to challenge the status of voters. I had mentioned that some election officials are ready to block certification. Sumner quoted Rachel Maddow’s opinion piece for the New York Times that considers the possibility that swing states are split and the outcome is up to Georgia:

The point of these certification refusals may not be to falsify or flip a result, but simply to prevent the emergence of one. If one or more states fail to produce official results, blocking any candidate from reaching 270 electoral votes, the 12th Amendment prescribes Gerald L.K. Smith’s dream scenario: a vote in the newly elected House of Representatives to determine the presidency. Each state delegation would get one vote; today, Republicans control 26 state delegations; Democrats control 22; and two are evenly divided.

Sumner added:

Republicans are engaged in a multi-layered approach to destroying democracy. They want to block Democratic voters from voting in the first place. If that doesn’t work, they have election boards ready to block certifications. And if that isn’t enough, they have a plan to simply generate as much confusion as possible, and then take advantage of that confusion. Republicans have put years into building these systems. Democrats aren’t going to remove them between now and November. But we need to be alert, aware, and informed if we hope to minimize the damage.

This afternoon Ari Shapiro of NPR talked to Stacey Abrams, an expert on voting rights and Georgia. They covered many of the same things. The audio is seven minutes and the transcript wasn’t ready when I posted.