Trump’s inevitable loss to Harvard might just save America?
The President picked a fight that he can’t walk away from, that could destroy what’s left of his presidency.
The Trump administration recently escalated its preposterous fight with Harvard University. Yesterday, news outlets reported that the all federal agencies were told to cancel their contracts with Harvard. In the weeks prior, Trump canceled $2 billion worth of federal funding for Harvard and revoked the university’s certification to admit foreign students.
Harvard is currently suing the government for the funding and foreign student restrictions. It will surly sue Trump at any moment for new contract cancellations. It will also win all of those cases.
Of course, this whole episode is stupid. Before any of this nonsense transpired credible reporting suggested that Harvard was actively negotiating, in good faith, with the Trump administration. Both parties were quite close to an agreement. Harvard surely assumed that it was going to have to give in to some of Donald’s asinine, faux-antisemitism-busting demands. Only then would the intrusive, nothing-better-to-do busy bodies from Trump’s pretend antisemitism task force would leave them alone.
I’m sure Harvard was hoping that the malcontented serpents would just slither away and go bother some other undeserving university.
Unfortunately for Harvard, and for the Trump Administration, an unqualified, uninformed lackey fired off a nasty-mail-gram, threatening Harvard with all sorts of stupid shit…if it didn’t immediately acquiesce to every one of the village idiot’s draconian demands.
In the never-take-responsibly-for-your-own-fuck-ups Trump administration cooler heads were silenced while the most delusional prevailed. Instead of simply admitting that someone sent the letter by mistake they made up two conflicting stories and then proceeded to escalate the situation exponentially. And, well, here we are.
The Upside
If there’s an upside to this harebrained, authoritarian stupidity it’s that Harvard will win in the court of legalities and Donald will lose in the court of public opinion.
Harvard has a $50 billion endowment, an expansive war room of legal talent and very wealthy alumni. The university seems to have the high ground and it's legal eagles will shred Trump’s dimwitted lawyers in court. Harvard seems disinterested in capitulation and they likely have more than half the nation rooting for them.
Trump’s combined approval ratings are already in the toilet. Americans, at least those not fully indoctrinated into the MAGA cult, are disgusted with his antics. Voters who already knew that he was an incompetent sociopath are still scratching their heads, trying to figure out if and when the mad king will finally hit rock bottom. Those price-of-egg constituents who chose the lesser of two evils on November 5, 2024, and hoped against hope that Trump was not really going to be horrible again, are actively recovering from severe buyer’s remorse. Recent special and general elections seem to suggest that Donald and his chicken-shit Republican enablers are deeply unpopular.
The Harvard debacle isn’t helping and I don’t think Trump will be able to stop. He’s mentally ill and he has to win. His toxic, neurotic need to get his ass kicked over and over by Harvard may help him achieve an astonishing low bar that might just save us in 2028; a 25% approval rating.