It goes much deeper than Biden and Gay.
Claudine Gay is now the former president of Harvard. Reaction to her catastrophically bad testimony before the House Committee on Education following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel had the catalytic effect of revealing her serial plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia. It was the plagiarism that got her.
Joe Biden is still the President of the United States. But his catastrophically low poll numbers suggest that he won’t be come January 20 of next year. Biden’s poor approval numbers are driven by voter concerns about declining personal economic well-being, growing fear that the U.S. will become embroiled in a foreign conflict, rising crime and a self-inflicted illegal immigration crisis.
Harvard will be better off without Claudine Gay. The United States will be better off without Joe Biden.
But it’s not that simple. Getting rid of Claudine Gay won’t fix Harvard. Getting rid of Joe Biden won’t fix the United States. In both cases, the ineptitude, malfeasance, ideological blindness and moral rot will remain when new administrations take over.
The problems at Harvard go well beyond Harvard. Harvard is emblematic of what’s wrong throughout academia. Today in America it is largely the case that the higher the tuition and the higher the perceived prestige of a university, the higher the likelihood that leftist indoctrination – that includes a near pathological fixation on race and gender – has crowded out academic rigor and the passing down of beneficial knowledge and appreciation of the culture to the next generation.
The problems of the country go well beyond Joe Biden. As we have repeatedly said in this space, we the people of a nominally democratic republic have been thoroughly misgoverned by politicians from both parties for more than 30 years.
The nation is $34 trillion in debt. Trust in once respected government departments and agencies – such as the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control – has been forfeited by leaders of those institutions who were inept at best and corrupt (more likely) at worst.
Power-addicted politicians in league with power-addicted bureaucrats are incrementally crowding out even the pretense of government of the people, by the people and for the people.
All these things have happened and continue to happen because we – the people – have let them happen.
Even as universities have shifted ever more left while lowering academic standards, we have been unquestioningly accepting the premise that every kid needs to go to college. We then let our kids borrow ruinously to cover tuition that goes up at three times the rate of inflation.
Even as government becomes more bloated and less responsive to the will of the people who pay for it, we continue to simply shrug our shoulders at every misspent dollar and every encroachment on personal liberty.
Vote for whomever you wish in 2024. But know that your vote will be largely meaningless absent the stomach, the spine and the attention span needed for the long hard slog of putting the country back on the footings of its founding principles.
Your best column yet and so painfully true but as I have instilled in my daughters, NEVER depend on the government to make your life better, it’s up to you.
I said this before but it is worth repeating: Took my then 88 year old father to the drivers license office just before 1pm, so the office was closed. There were 16 people other than us waiting. I took the opportunity to ask them, “How many of you all have ever contacted your State Representative or State Senator?” Out of the 16, only two bothered. This group of 16 were from beginners to Senior citizens; PATHETIC! Most said, “Why bother, they don’t listen, or we don’t mean anything to them.” OMG!!!!
Our State Senator was in our town! Now fast forward to the invasion of the Left Coasters to my now neighborhood. We had a community meeting about our roads so most were there. Took the opportunity to tell them; not ask, to contact our State Representatives and Federal because an election year was only two months away. Their answer, “Oh our voice does not matter.”
THIS IS THE MIND SET OF THESE IDOITS!!!! MY VOICE DOES NOT MATTER. What? To quote John McEnroe, “Are YOU SERIOUS?!?!!!!”
Every vote counts and every voice matters. We all have to realize that and act. NOW!!!! PLEASE EDUCATE YOUR IGNORANT NAIVE NEIGHBORS QUICKLY. THEIR VOTES COUNT IN TEXAS AND IN THE USA! IT IS YOUR OBLIGATION TO VOTE. THAT IS WHAT MAKES US FREE.
God Please help us in 2024.
Pray….
Great article Paul. Like a Tee Shirt my daughter and son in-law gave me a couple of years ago said, “Ineptocracy: “A system of government where the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are reworded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.” I’m afraid we are there and it’s going to take more than just our votes, think we have to pray that most of the people who fall in the definition above stay home to cover all the cheating that will surely occur.
Excellent column.
Biden Administration looking for more ways to pay for votes by using our tax dollars to pay for college debt. Of course DEI and electing a Democommie to the Presidency is Job One. Educate your friends to the incredible blitz coming down the train track against whomever is the Republican nominee. Does not matter if it is Trump or not. Democommies are hell bent to win at all costs.
Don’t get me wrong on the RINO’s in the Republican Party. There are many who go along to get along. Congress is not for the People. They are for feathering their own nest eggs and screwing us in the process.