A Convenient Lie

So many red-herrings, you'd think you're living an Agatha Christy novel.

The administration says that antisemitism at Harvard is what’s fueling the order to remove international students. But antisemitism has little to do with that, or the executive order to defund research at Harvard, one of the preeminent research institutions in the world.

Antisemitism is a ruse. It is a convenient lie. The tell was that when Sarah Milgrim, a quiet woman who was trying to bring Palestinians and Jews together, and her soon-to-be fiancé, Yaron Lischinsky, both Israeli Embassy employees, were murdered by a gunman as they left an event at the Capitol Jewish Museum in D.C., the President made no mention of antisemitism. The President failed to characterize the cold-blooded, actually antisemitic hate crime that way because it didn’t serve his larger agenda of defunding Harvard and the other elite universities he needs to control. Nor did he mention antisemitism when an Egyptian national went on a fire-bombing rampage in Boulder, Colorado, injuring Jews who were marching to secure the release of hostages from Gaza. It’s pretty clear that antisemitism is not Trump’s motivating factor.

What he and his administration, led by Stephen Miller, Russell Vought and Vought’s Project 2025, are attempting to do, is to de-secularize our great institutions of learning in favor of a very conservative Christian nationalism that is Vought’s self-proclaimed identity.

What they want is to chase away the best and the brightest who populate these highly credible institutions in favor of ideologues who toe the MAGA line. This has been a conservative wet dream for decades. They want to dismantle the liberal and progressive college communities, while at the same time dismantling the science and medical research that’s happening on those campuses. I guess they consider that a small price to pay for getting their ideology in play.

(Worth noting: dozens of scientists at the National Institutes of Health, our world-leading medical research facility, are begging the White House not to cancel their research.)

Perhaps they’ll get one of these colleges to enroll Linda McMahon, the pro wrestling billionaire Secretary of Education, who mistakenly thought that “AI” is “A1,” trading artificial intelligence for a steak sauce. She would obviously benefit from some more schooling.

The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is changing the names of bases and Naval vessels currently named after women, blacks, Hispanics, and gays, leaving only straight white men-named ships. He kicked off Pride Month by stripping the USN ship, Harvey Milk, of its name. Milk, of course, was a gay civil rights leader and the assassinated mayor of San Francisco. Navy ships Harriet Tubman, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Thurgood Marshall, and Ceasar Chavez are all slated for name changes. These blatantly and unapologetically homophobic, misogynistic, and racist stunts leave me wondering what kind of impact they will have on morale. The armed forces have led the way in integration for 5 decades. That’s all over for now.

Three recent transgender Air Force Academy grads spent the last four years anticipating graduating with a commission, but none will become officers in the USAF.

The takeover of the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian, both previously nonpartisan gems in the crown of our country, represents yet another unacceptable power grab that the Republican Congress seems okay with. A president whose White House has never hosted the traditional array of musicians, poets, and artists, is now our art critic-in-chief on top of everything else. Workers are already busy gold-leafing the Kennedy Center.

In case you missed it—and who could blame you for either being overwhelmed by the pace of events (they hope to move so fast no one has a chance to respond), or simply tuning out (that’s as good as being overwhelmed as far as they’re concerned)—this president has lowered the presidential pardon standard to new depths, and that’s saying something, considering the pardon rampage he went on at the end of his first term, and how he began his second term by pardoning the cop-beating insurgents he sent to the Capitol on January 6th 2021. Now the pardons are flowing to anyone who has an extra million bucks to fork over. Mercy has its price.

The dream for the Russell Voughts of the world has been a so-called “unitary executive,” but Donald Trump is a one man band. The Narcissist-in-Chief thoroughly believes he alone can fix it, and so instead of relying on staff and subject matter experts, he goes it alone, dismissing half of the National Security Council staff, trying to fire the Librarian of Congress, and now the head of the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.

The decimation of FEMA (and the hiring of its new director, a guy who didn’t know America has a hurricane season), and the huge reduction in force of our National Park Rangers, means we could be in for a rough summer.

The lies won’t stop. Not even after they’ve gotten their way.

©2025 Jon Sinton