Somehow, Trump figured out there are more willfully ignorant people in America than truth seekers, and taught them how to organize and vote for their own stupidity.
Trump has never won a majority in any popular vote.
He was only appointed to the Presidency by the "Electoral" "College," a body which at minimum was constructed for the mollification of slave-holding plantation owners.
Hillary Clinton whipped him by millions of votes.
"The ignorant" are probably 50% on the nose, by convention. The willfully anything-at-all are always minorities.
And I wouldn't be surprised if your strutting self-regard hasn't convinced more peole than there are voters in your family to vote against whatever they think you're voting for.
Nina, you’re a(nother) national treasure, like Joyce Vance and Heather Cox Richardson. I always enjoy your erudite scribblings (said very intentionally, as I have no idea how you can produce so much worthwhile and sometimes dense material in such short order).
I’m particularly interested in the intersection of attacks on (public, free, dare I say CLASSICALLY liberal) education and usurpation of the mainstream organized-religious institutions as foundational to autocratic movements. Not to oversimplify, but the NAZI Party in 1930’s Germany had the same goals both in education, as you describe here, and the Christian church. On the religious front, Hitler demanded a pledge of fealty from Protestant church leaders in the early 1930’s, and many of them complied. A few, however, dissented, including prominent scholars and theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth. Barth was the primary author, with Bonhoeffer’s support and co-authorship, of the Barmen Declaration in 1934 that rejected Hitler’s attempts to subsume German Protestantism. Barth was native Swiss, and was forced to leave Germany and went on to teach (and write prolifically) at the University of Basel up until his death in 1968. His co-author and friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer stayed in German and was arrested and then put to death by the Nazis.
Fast forward to 2024. Ninety years later, the Barmen Declaration is equally applicable to American religion and politics (for they are one and the same to many Americans) as it was to German in 1934. That is a rather sobering realization.
My father was an educator—university professor, then college administration culminating in University president—and studied with Karl Barth in Basel in 1956-7. I am my father’s son.
Yes, it most definitely can happen here. It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen, just like Bonhoeffer and Barth did 90 years ago. We’ve been warned.
J.D.Vance is spot on, no one should be considered an educator who has taught I'm, taught John Eastman, taught Clarence Alito (one uneducated mind,.) Yeah, we need to purge the system of whatever rot entails these "brilliantly uneducated" minds from being labeled educated.
That probably means starting way back....I recommend every one reading an article by Ms. Faye Reid simply titled "education" from a month or two ago on how to individualize education. Or gp back to John Dewey's writing in the early twentieth century that suggests there is a vast difference in having knowledge to pass tests (becoming educated) and teaching people how to learn (becoming intelligent)..
I don't wish to point out any particular "professors"; I am suggesting we might want to reframe our perspective of what being educated means.
Re Vance, who is crazier than I thought, was the subject on Maddow tonight (Monday). She showed one of his influencers. He either suggested this to Vance, or agreed that universities are the troublemakers and THE REAL ESTATE the great universities (i.e., Harvard!!!!!) should be knocked down and SOLD TO DEVELOPERS.
It is very obvious that Maga does need education because they are looking like they are so stupid that not only are they being laughed at here in America but by the rest of the world
Exceptional piece Nina, having read Projects 2025 once upon a NYT 1619 magazine a few years back I’m about to start reading your Zero Visibility Possible novel that I was hoping to purchase in a nearby book store. However living too far away from the cities I finally broke down and ordered on…Amazon
Somehow, Trump figured out there are more willfully ignorant people in America than truth seekers, and taught them how to organize and vote for their own stupidity.
Yes. But I don’t it’s a mystery. He learned it while starring in “The Apprentice”. Thanks NBC. You have lots to make up for
That is incorrect, Al.
Trump has never won a majority in any popular vote.
He was only appointed to the Presidency by the "Electoral" "College," a body which at minimum was constructed for the mollification of slave-holding plantation owners.
Hillary Clinton whipped him by millions of votes.
"The ignorant" are probably 50% on the nose, by convention. The willfully anything-at-all are always minorities.
And I wouldn't be surprised if your strutting self-regard hasn't convinced more peole than there are voters in your family to vote against whatever they think you're voting for.
So true and frightening. See: Donald Trump's visual politics are reshaping America by Peter H Schwartz, August 29, Chicago Tribune.
Nina, you’re a(nother) national treasure, like Joyce Vance and Heather Cox Richardson. I always enjoy your erudite scribblings (said very intentionally, as I have no idea how you can produce so much worthwhile and sometimes dense material in such short order).
I’m particularly interested in the intersection of attacks on (public, free, dare I say CLASSICALLY liberal) education and usurpation of the mainstream organized-religious institutions as foundational to autocratic movements. Not to oversimplify, but the NAZI Party in 1930’s Germany had the same goals both in education, as you describe here, and the Christian church. On the religious front, Hitler demanded a pledge of fealty from Protestant church leaders in the early 1930’s, and many of them complied. A few, however, dissented, including prominent scholars and theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth. Barth was the primary author, with Bonhoeffer’s support and co-authorship, of the Barmen Declaration in 1934 that rejected Hitler’s attempts to subsume German Protestantism. Barth was native Swiss, and was forced to leave Germany and went on to teach (and write prolifically) at the University of Basel up until his death in 1968. His co-author and friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer stayed in German and was arrested and then put to death by the Nazis.
Fast forward to 2024. Ninety years later, the Barmen Declaration is equally applicable to American religion and politics (for they are one and the same to many Americans) as it was to German in 1934. That is a rather sobering realization.
My father was an educator—university professor, then college administration culminating in University president—and studied with Karl Barth in Basel in 1956-7. I am my father’s son.
Yes, it most definitely can happen here. It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen, just like Bonhoeffer and Barth did 90 years ago. We’ve been warned.
Nina, pls write me re Ed’s memorial. Claudiaglenndowling@yahoo.com
J.D.Vance is spot on, no one should be considered an educator who has taught I'm, taught John Eastman, taught Clarence Alito (one uneducated mind,.) Yeah, we need to purge the system of whatever rot entails these "brilliantly uneducated" minds from being labeled educated.
That probably means starting way back....I recommend every one reading an article by Ms. Faye Reid simply titled "education" from a month or two ago on how to individualize education. Or gp back to John Dewey's writing in the early twentieth century that suggests there is a vast difference in having knowledge to pass tests (becoming educated) and teaching people how to learn (becoming intelligent)..
I don't wish to point out any particular "professors"; I am suggesting we might want to reframe our perspective of what being educated means.
Re Vance, who is crazier than I thought, was the subject on Maddow tonight (Monday). She showed one of his influencers. He either suggested this to Vance, or agreed that universities are the troublemakers and THE REAL ESTATE the great universities (i.e., Harvard!!!!!) should be knocked down and SOLD TO DEVELOPERS.
It is very obvious that Maga does need education because they are looking like they are so stupid that not only are they being laughed at here in America but by the rest of the world
Exceptional piece Nina, having read Projects 2025 once upon a NYT 1619 magazine a few years back I’m about to start reading your Zero Visibility Possible novel that I was hoping to purchase in a nearby book store. However living too far away from the cities I finally broke down and ordered on…Amazon
Brilliant. “The heart of the beast is Universities” !