- About the conservative agenda concerning colleges, and education;
- Charlie Kirk thinks you don’t need college; just watch YouTube videos, especially his own online courses;
- Education Secretary Linda McMahon admits her political motivations for dismantling her department;
- Brief items about a TN school district that wants kids in school even if they’re sick; how migrant farm worker should be replace by children; and how Trump wants to discredit mainstream media.
So what is the conservative agenda concerning colleges?
Vox, Sean Illing, 26 Jul 2025: What the right’s war on college is really about, subtitled “Wesleyan President Michael Roth details the conservative agenda targeting American universities.”
Project 2025 laid out the battle plan pretty clearly: Get rid of the Department of Education, shut off federal funding, take control of the accreditation system, and take down diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. And, in the end, change what students are encouraged to study and what professors are allowed to teach.
So why is this happening? And is it working?
This is the standard totalitarian agenda. Most of the interview is about the purpose of education and whatnot; the question implied by the title is answered in the first few paragraphs of the interview proper.
I think it’s extraordinarily clear that the Trump administration is hell-bent on destroying civil society — that arena of our culture and our polity that has sources of legitimacy independent of the ideology of the person in the White House. You see that in the attack on law firms. You see it in the attack on the press.
The war on universities is similar. They’re not really going after universities that have egregious issues of civil rights violations. They’re going after the high-profile, high-legitimacy institutions like Harvard, like UVA, like the other Ivy League schools, with the exception of Dartmouth. They’re doing that because these schools have a claim on our allegiance or our respect that is not founded in the ideology of those currently in the White House.
So it’s all about reducing diversity in favor of the views of the current administration.
And Roth makes the point that most students at these universities are not radical thinkers.
I think that at UVA, the fastest-growing major is computer science and the fastest-growing minor is data science. Hardly the stuff of “woke” lunatics. At Harvard, the most popular majors are the ones that lead to Wall Street. Again, this notion that Harvard or UVA is filled with people with extreme views who are unrepresentative of America — they’re unrepresentative of America because they’re really smart.
People at these universities are unrepresentative of America (especially the MAGA crowd) because they’re really smart.
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JMG, 27 Jul 2025: Kirk: Kids Don’t Need College, They Have YouTube
“You could be autodidactic, which is to be self-taught. You can also get the same wisdom and the same teaching free and accessible online, listening to podcasts, listening to long YouTube form videos….”
Yes, maybe, if you know where to look. That’s the problem with being an autodidact. And oh by the way, does Kirk have a college degree? No; “He briefly attended Harper College before dropping out to pursue political activism full-time…”
JMG notes that after the above quote, Kirk went “on to plug online courses offered by Christian nationalist Hillsdale College, with whom Kirk has a business relationship.”
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Here’s Linda McMahon, current Education Secretary, whose education credentials are that she is a former professional wrestling promoter, and who is currently dismantling her department.
MSNBC, MaddowBlog, Steve Benen, 24 Jul 2025: After Columbia agrees to a deal, McMahon acknowledges larger political motivations.
Subtitled : Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands. Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it “a monumental victory for conservatives.”
Conservatives know they don’t have any leg to stand on in academic circles. In the “market place of ideas,” they’ve lost the discussion. So they need to strongarm their way into the academy. I think conservatives are upset they aren’t respected by people they claim to hate. The only way to get any traction is to censor their way to respectability.
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More bits from aggregate site JMG today.
JMG, 27 Jul 2025: Tennessee School District To Teach “Work Ethic” By Refusing To Accept Doctor’s Notes To Excuse Absences
Be tough! Work through it! Do they not understand that coming to school while you’re sick might pass your disease along to others? And that everyone’s productivity will be decreased? Sometimes I think you have to spell these things out to them, like they’re children.
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JMG, 27 Jul 2025: Fox Host: Let Children Replace Migrant Farm Workers
The abolition of child labor, only in the past century or so, has been widely regarded as a social advance. Because children are not miniature adults; they need time to mature and develop adult faculties. Conservatives apparently don’t care about those.
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JMG, 27 Jul 2025: Trump: Revoke Licenses Of “Fake News” ABC And NBC
Yet again, an item from the authoritarian playbook. Discredit the media. Only Fearless Leader can be trusted for the truth. Of course, he’s bluffing. He says things like this many times, and never actually follows through.
