Trump's culture war: "They've created an atmosphere of obedience"

WashingtonWhat seemed impossible is now plausible in the United States, just 12 weeks into Donald Trump's tenure in the White House. A suffocating atmosphere of surveillance state has taken hold on university campuses, museums, research centers, and cultural institutions as a result of the government's persecution of all ideas and issues that run counter to the president's agenda. "He's managed to create an atmosphere of anticipated obedience. Not only in the cultural sphere, but everywhere. I have students who are considering abandoning their theses because they don't know if they'll be singled out or persecuted for the topics they cover," explains Megan Clark, a Columbia professor who asks to use a fictitious name to avoid being identified by the new administration.

At dinners and informal meetings in Washington between employees of institutions such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, people talk about orders to keep a "low profile" on projects related to climate change or diversity issues. On college campuses under Donald Trump's pressure campaign, suspicion has become part of everyday life. References to Harriet Tubman, a historical figure in the fight against slavery, have been removed from one of the National Park Service's websites, while the president has already ordered the Smithsonian Institution to remove "inappropriate, divisive, and anti-American ideology" from museums.

The professor confesses that since the organizers of pro-Palestinian protests at universities were arrested and subjected to deportation proceedings, she only sets foot on campus to teach. "Since Mahmoud Khalil was arrested, I've only been on campus to teach. I try to do all the rest of my work from home because I don't feel safe. It's paranoid; having a green card [work permit] It no longer protects you from anything if you have a profile that could be susceptible to being shut down," Clark says. Khalil was the first student and activist arrested for his involvement in last spring's sit-ins. Since then, immigration agents have arrested three international students and a foreign professor from Georgetown University for their anti-war stances.

Those who can speak and those who cannot

The Trump administration's targeting and persecution is creating a dividing line between those who can still speak out and those who must be careful with what they say. "When the philosophy department drafted a letter—which is posted on our website— against the arrest of Mohsen Mahdawi, we decided that we would not include the names of the professors who signed it. We did so on behalf of the department because some of our members still have the green card, but we didn't think it was safe," Columbia philosophy professor Christia Mercer tells ARA.

Mercer notes that as a U.S. citizen, she can afford to be more critical of Trump's policies. Still, she acknowledges that last fall, when the Republican-led campus began monitoring her classwork, "I was afraid of being singled out; It had already happened to other professors." In her classes, she says, it is common to talk about feminism and anti-racism.

She is one of the academics who wrote the letter asking Columbia not to give in to Trump's pressure. The university was the first center to suffer government harassment with the cancellation sufficient – according to the administration – to combat "anti-Semitism" on campus. Initially, the center gave in and accepted the government's demands, which included assigning a person to review the content of classes taught by the Near East department. coinciding with Harvard's resistanceColumbia has modified its stance and decided to reject any agreement that would erode its academic independence.

"An attack by land, sea, and air"

"No one expected things would get as bad in terms of cultural and intellectual violence as what Trump's people have been doing so far. We could have been more prepared. But now, after the coup, we're on our feet and we know how far he's willing to go. We've also seen that we need to maintain a united front," Mercer explains.

Harvard has become the first university to take a stand in a similar situation to Columbia, with the threat of a funding freeze on the condition that it allow government intervention. "It's an attack by land, sea, and air," explains Harvard economics professor Pol Antras, who describes how the Trump administration has continued to pressure the university after its stand. On the table is the threat of eliminating the university's tax exemption and of not granting visas to foreign students who want to study at the school.

"Denying visas is very serious and very stupid. It's the thing where universities really need to take a stand, because if they do this, they are putting the essence of higher education in the United States at risk," warns Antras. So far, Harvard has received symbolic support from other universities like Stanford, "but the one who stood in front of them is the first one they shoot at." Even so, Antras is convinced that "this is not the end of Harvard": he acknowledges that the suspension of funding will bring problems but that there is room to endure. "It will also be interesting to see what happens to the donors in the face of such a specific and direct attack."

Antras had already indicated on Friday that he believed Harvard's reaction had been the result of a breakdown in closed-door negotiations between the center and the government. On the afternoon of that same Friday, the New York Times revealed that a government official said the letter demanding oversight of the university's hiring processes and other measures had been sent in error and "without authorization."

Rewrite History

Just as the new administration is trying to intervene in the discourse of universities, it also wants to implement its own revisionism of history. Hence, federal museums and conservation centers have now also fallen under the government's inquisitorial control. On March 27, the president signed an executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." In the document, Trump accused the world's largest educational and research museum complex of attempting to rewrite history on issues related to race or gender and ordered the Smithsonian to eliminate "inappropriate, divisive, or anti-American ideology."

"This is an emergency-level alarm for public history, science, and education," warns Samuel Redman, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, who asserts that he would never have expected "such a detailed and absurd executive order on the types of stories they should tell—or not tell. At its core, it's a broader attack on experience and the intellectual world." Redman, who has analyzed the country's museum policies throughout his career, highlights how the museum complex, although a federal institution, has always had "a system of operation separate from the government." Although some governments have indirectly tried to influence its way of doing things, it had always been a bipartisan project. "And that's why what Trump wants to do is so surprising and disturbing."

"Historians and conservators are certainly thinking—and should be thinking—about how we can prepare and resist. And sometimes this means doing things like documenting historical material in government databases on personal computers and hard drives," Redman explains. He acknowledges that this is something he himself has considered doing. The removal of a federal website from references to Harriet Tubman, a historical figure in the fight against slavery, is symptomatic of what Redman is talking about. In a more recent case, this Friday the Trump administration also changed federal websites on COVID-19. If you search for covid.gov, you'll find a page titled "Lab Leak, the True Origin of Covid," claiming the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory.

Pressure on media and lawyers

Under this premise of "restoring the truth," the president is also attacking the traditional media, which he calls legacy media [old media]. In their appearances, both Trump and his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, have had no problem openly attacking journalists from these outlets. The passive-aggressive comments to media questions that the government considers fabricated fake news are a constant.

This Friday morning, the official White House account published a screenshot of the headline of the New York Times about the meeting with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, with the man mistakenly deported in El Salvador's prison, Kilmar Abrego García. The headline reads: "Senator meets with Maryland man mistakenly deported in El Salvador." With a few changes in red, the headline is amended to read: "Senator meets with MS-13 illegal immigrant in El Salvador who won't be returning." It added: "I fixed it for you, New York Times".

In more direct actions, Trump excluded the Associated Press from the group of journalists who follow the president daily to ask him questions and pass on information to the rest of the media. to accept the AP.

Direct and personal attacks are also being applied to large law firms that have filed cases against government policies, at a time when the courts are the first line of defense against the president's extradited attempt in which eight have reached an agreement to avoid retaliation, while others have taken the case to trial.