Two of the Trump administration's latest investigations—aka state-sanctioned mob demands—highlight exactly how far it will go to dig up someone to threaten.
No amount of perceived defiance from an institution is too little, and no perceived slight of an aggrieved conservative is too petty. The Trump administration is ready to spring into action whenever it needs to force compliance with its racist visions.
That’s why, when Education Secretary Linda McMahon rushed to the defense of the seven Native American students who attend Massapequa High School in New York, red flags went up. In another administration, that might sound great. But McMahon’s take is that, to protect the heritage of Native American students, she needs to force New York to let Massapequa High School keep the racist moniker of “Chiefs” for its high school mascot.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon
We’re talking about one high school, which has 1,439 students enrolled in grades 10-12, in a town of 21,355, 19,214 of whom are white. This isn’t exactly the kind of school that would typically draw attention from the Trump administration.
But the genesis is easy to trace, with President Donald Trump complaining on Truth Social that “forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population.”
Because if there’s one thing that Native Americans consistently ask for, it’s the continued use of racist tropes and mascots at predominantly white high schools.
And if New York won’t bend the knee and roll back the State Board of Regents' 2023 policy that banned the use of Native American team names and mascots? The Trump administration will yank education funds from the entire state.
While the Department of Justice may have set its sights on a much bigger target than Massapequa High School, its latest investigation is just as small-bore and partisan. In a desperate attempt to find anything that will help crush Harvard University, the DOJ is now going after the Harvard Law Review over an allegation that it discriminates against white men.
Unsurprisingly, Stephen Miller is pulling the strings on this one, working double-duty as White House deputy chief of staff and the man behind America First Legal, a law firm dedicated to the protection of white people, particularly men.
Buckle up, because it’s about to get even more bizarre.
Despite its name, Harvard Law Review is not actually run by Harvard. It’s an independent nonprofit that doesn’t receive any federal funding. But for years it’s been the subject of concerted attacks from indignant conservatives, certain that the only reason the Harvard Law Review isn’t 100% white men is that minorities get special treatment. A 2018 lawsuit against it flopped, but now aggrieved racist conservatives have their very own champion in the White House to try again.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller
Daniel Wasserman is a white man who just graduated from Harvard Law School. When he was still a student and on the Harvard Law Review, he was offered a job with the Trump administration on April 25—the same day that the Free Beacon published its breathless story about discrimination at the Harvard Law Review, relying on internal documents that appear to have been leaked.
The Trump administration then sent letters to the Harvard Law Review on May 13, May 21, and May 23, all of which said that the government had a “cooperating witness” who was a whistleblower. So Wasserman lands a gig in the White House—working directly for Miller—though Miller claims he never even met Wasserman until he started work.
Miller then masterminded an investigation into Harvard Law Review that appears to be based only on Wasserman’s allegations. Oh, and it demands that the Harvard Law Review remove the disciplinary action from Wasserman’s file—which he got for leaking internal documents.
Even though the Harvard Law Review removed the disciplinary action and even stopped asking Wasserman to stop leaking documents, that still is not enough for the Trump administration to stop haranguing the publication.
The Trump administration keeps ratcheting up the pressure, turning the government into a surveillance and punishment machine. Harvard has thus far stood strong against these myriad attacks, but the Trump team will continue to drill down, hoping to find a softer, smaller target that will force the whole university to buckle.
It’s definitely what the Founding Fathers intended as the role of the federal government.
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