Since I’m today seeing some reasons for not being completely depressed about the future, locally and globally, some comments on the latest news.
The Columbia trustees announced today the appointment of Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as the next president of Columbia. Given the past behavior of the trustees I had been pessimistic about who would want this job and who they would pick, but from all indications, Mnookin seems like a good choice (there’s a statement from her here). I’m cautiously optimistic that she’s coming in with an agenda of turning away from the trustee’s policy over the last year of caving in to dictatorial illegality, repressing dissent and promoting bogus accusations of antisemitism in order to placate the Trump administration.
It will take quite a while to overcome the shameful reputation that Columbia has acquired due to the actions of the trustees. One early thing to watch for is whether Mnookin will maintain the current locked gate policy supposedly keeping us “safe”, or return to an open campus.
Less locally, more people are starting to realize that Yes, It’s Fascism. The people of Minneapolis are providing an inspirational example of what effective resistance to Fascism looks like. When you effectively challenge Fascists they start shooting you. Renee Good and Alex Pretti paid with their lives for their willingness to resist.
So far, it seems that these outrageous murders and the obvious lies about them in the face of overwhelming video evidence are having an effect. Even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and New York Post have editorials criticizing ICE and the Trump administration. Stephen Miller and the other Fascists now in control of the government are facing a decision: back down or keep going. If they continue what they are doing or double down, the resistance movement in Minneapolis will hopefully keep up the fight. Everyone should help with this in any way they can.
The situation has gotten so extreme that even Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have issued condemnatory statements. The only valid criticism that Trump and his people have been able to make about their latest murder victim is that he was guilty of bringing a gun to a protest, but this is just going to split their base in which gun fanatics are heavily represented.
The question now in the US is not whether we have a Fascist regime, but that of how successful it will be in burying democracy and defeating any opposition. One ongoing problem is that many influential groups in the US have found that they can get what they want by going along with Trump. Two examples are our new class of collaborationist oligarchs and those intensely devoted to the genocide in Gaza (Scott Aaronson explains here that Trump is still valuable and necessary to stop people from calling him “genocidal”).
The trustees of Columbia last year decided that the right thing to do when confronted by Fascist power and those collaborating with it was to give in and leave resistance to others (e.g. Harvard). All institutions in the US and elsewhere need to step up now and resist Fascism as much as they can. Perhaps naively, I’m hoping that my institution is now turning towards that path.
That you could read an entire post I wrote devoted to condemning Trump’s recent thuggery in Minneapolis, and take away as your sole summary that I find Trump “still valuable and necessary,” shows that you’ve fully descended to being a propagandist and a hack, if you were ever in life anything more than that. An honest takeaway would be that I’m still perfectly able to condemn fascist thugs for their thuggery, indeed to call for those thugs to be disempowered, prosecuted, and imprisoned—to call for this more publicly and vehemently than the vast majority of my colleagues, and at some risk to myself—even when the thugs in question are nearly the only ones standing between me and the other thugs who chant for my family to be killed. For you to see how far out on a limb I’ve gone for my principles here, would take a leap of moral imagination beyond what you’re capable of.
Scott,
I’m an optimist that the Columbia trustees might be starting to realize what a mistake they made last March, maybe someday you’ll realize that promoting and defending the Fascist assault that they caved in to was a mistake. Sorry to see that today is not that day.
Your idea that Trump’s Fascist thugs are the only thing standing between you and people who want your family killed is, quite literally, insane. Again, you really should seek mental health counseling about this.
perhaps not completely off-topic?
French Mathematical Society (SMF) decides to not attend the ICM 2026 at Philadelphia:
https://smf.emath.fr/actualites-smf/icm-2026-motion-du-ca
Peter,
I hope the situation at Columbia, and everywhere else in the US, improves. Realistically, though, I am pessimistic. Let’s hope that when this administration leaves, it won’t be too late, that the damage done to US democracy won’t be so severe that it can’t be repaired.
Even Trump having a heart attack would not solve anything, as I don’t think anyone knows what would happen to the world in the somber alternate reality where JD Vance is president.
The murder of Good and Pretti demonstrates that anyone can be murdered under this administration.
Matthias,
See next blog posting, soon to appear…
Bernhard,
I’m also mostly pessimistic. I don’t think the Fascists who have taken over this country (and the oligarchs who back them) will give up power while I’m still alive. I hope that I’m wrong.
Europeans still enjoying democracy should be thinking hard about what they can do to avoid being next. From what I can see oligarchs are taking over your media and turning it into the kind of Fox News/Fascist propaganda operations needed to bring a Trump-type to power and keep him there.
At this point though in the US you’re only going to get murdered by Trump’s thugs if you take effective action to confront the dictatorship. If you keep quiet, you should be fine.
Mnookin seems to be a popular choice with the Board of Trustees that brought us the coup d’état of 2024, perhaps because she participated in similar authoritarian activities in Madison. She will therefore be eagerly welcomed by our overlords at Mar a Lago and in Tel Aviv. This appointment will serve to reinforce the deep divisions at Columbia.
Concerned Scientist,
I prefer to try and be optimistic for now and see what happens. Some people very much not fans of the trustees who know Mnookin say they have a high opinion of her. She’s not implicated in nor has done anything I know of comparable to the awfulness of what the trustees and Shipman have done. To recap
1. Bogus accusations of antisemitism against their own institution and community.
2. Refusal to support students dragged off the streets to prison because of their opposition to Israeli genocide.
4. Cave-in to Trump and inside forces demanding new pro-Israel faculty appointments, etc.
5. Cave-in to Trump illegality, refusal to join Harvard in court, actual public defense of this illegality as legal.
6. Firing of Armstrong for insufficient devotion to the cave-in.
7. Turning the student disciplinary process into a kangaroo court under the direct control of the president and trustees.
8. A coup against the Senate, now governing by just changing the university statutes to say whatever they want, without telling anyone.
9. Atrocious and intrusive massive new security apparatus and lockdown of the campus.
Etc, etc….
Seems to me she can’t be any worse than what we’ve got now, so we should hope for the best and see what happens…