For the past decade, the US press has fueled a moral panic over leftists on campus while failing to report on the right’s assault
US universities are facing the Trump regime’s fury. The justification given by the regime is that universities are run by leftist ideologues, who have indoctrinated students to adopt supposedly leftist ideological orientations, as well as hostility to Israel, anti-whiteness and trans inclusivity. Donald Trump and his allies believe the election gave them the mandate to crush America’s system of higher education. But what may be less clear is that it is the mainstream media’s obsession with leftists on campus that has led to the current moment.
The US mainstream media has waged a decade-long propaganda campaign against American universities, culminating in the systematic misrepresentation of last year’s campus anti-war protests. This campaign has been the normalizing force behind the Trump administration’s attack on universities, as well as a primary cause of his multiple electoral successes. Unless the media recognizes the central role it has played, we cannot expect the attack to relent.
Jason Stanley is Jacob Urowsky professor of philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future