Thugs, Threats, and Repression

Posted on October 10, 2025 by David S. Meyer

Rutgers University historian Mark Bray has fled the country, relocating with his family to Spain this week. Bray hasn’t been arrested, indicted, or placed on one of Donald Trump’s enemies list; his health and welfare–and that of his family–have been threatened with enough menace and credibility for him to leave a good job, disappointing students who thought they benefitted from his classes. What happened?

Bray wrote a book on Antifa, a marginal and diffuse network that Trump has designated a “domestic terrorism threat.” It’s a pretty good book, which provides a good overview of how activists think of themselves and their goals. In a televised interview after the United the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Bray also said that sometimes violence is justified. It’s very clear that the Trump Administration, which has been blowing up small boats and sending National Guardsmen to big cities, agrees. It’s also very clear that no one around Trump has actually read Bray’s book, because they won’t find the leaders administrators promised to arrest and the headquarters they’ve promised to raid. Antifa is a very loose grouping of committed individuals who pop up occasionally. If the Trump Administration follows the time-honored strategy of following the money, they’ll never pick up a scent.

But don’t we want professors writing books about all kinds of movements and campaigns? I’ve read books on the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis and abortion-rights and anti-abortion crusaders and all sorts of other movements without joining. I’ve written (and read) about some movements I like and others they don’t, and I keep trying to learn new things and get smarter. I tell students that learning about things you don’t know is a big part of what should happen in college, and that you don’t have to agree with everything you read. I still think getting smarter is good.

Although the Trump Administration has been trying to change what happens on college campuses, there’s no indication that Bray ever appeared on its radar. Rather, Bray was targeted by Turning Point USA, which published a petition calling for him to be fired. Yes, that’s the organization Charlie Kirk founded. But several organizations have posted professor watchlists, identifying dangerous radicals; disclosure: I’ve been told I’m on one of them. Someone found Bray’s home address and contact information, and published them; this is called doxxing. Death threats followed.

Were these threats “credible”? I’m sure most threats don’t lead to anything aside from terror. Imagine looking at your children and trying to figure out whether you should really be scared about an anonymous promise to attack your family?

The threats are a form of repression, not necessarily executed by a government, but by thugs who get caught up in the passions of the moment. Sometimes, government officials rile up those passions; sometimes they pay the thugs.*

When people with unpopular views fear for their lives, democracy is under attack. Violent threats from uncivil society shuts down debate. A decade ago, an abortion rights campaign urged women to “shout your abortion,” intending to show how common the procedure is. Some women who shouted were threatened, limiting the campaign–which nonetheless continues.

It’s our job to keep the public sphere open to all kinds of ideas, including bad ones–and ones we don’t like. We used to say that popular ideas don’t need protection, but in the current environment, it feels like every political stance provokes responses. Pressing advocates to defend their positions is democratic debate; forcing them to defend their personal safety is not.

*Lynette Ong wrote an exceptionally good book on how China outsources repression to non-governmental thugs who enforce a kind of discipline on people with grievances.

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Jimmy Kimmel, free speech, and turning points

Posted on September 24, 2025 by David S. Meyer

When the Trump episode (epoch?) in American life ends, the brief suspension of a late night talk show host may well mark the turning point when Republicans and conservatives began to abandon this president’s authoritarian aspirations. And why not? It’s a great story.

Proudly thin-skinned, Donald Trump has never warmed to the notion that free speech means political leaders must tolerate criticism, ridicule, and even nasty asides. Most politicians cope by pretending to ignore it all, but the power move is to embrace it–getting in on the joke and coopting the critic. (Gerald Ford, George Bush, and Barack Obama all pulled off this trick.) Trump’s communications strategy–on all the time in all venues–coupled with his hypersensitivity–make him an irresistible target. Add in clownish appearance, conspicuous misinformation, and distinctly unpracticed speaking style and it’s a wonder that late-night comedians talk about anything else.

Trump’s political coalition responded to Jimmy Kimmel’s take on the MAGA movement’s effort to make Charlie Kirk a martyr already primed to take offense. ABC/Disney pulled Kimmel off-air under fire from local affiliates and the chair of the Federal Communication Commission. Alas, this isn’t new. ABC, CBS, and others (including law firms and universities) have settled the nuisance suits Trump launched in hopes of avoiding larger problems with a transparently vindictive administration.

Public response was quick and dramatic. Protesters assembled outside Disney headquarters and theme parks and organized to boycott Disney+ and Hulu streaming services. Politicians and talk show hosts issued statements about free speech and Kimmel. Beyond the customers, notable celebrities signed letters of protest, and suggested–sometimes publicly–that they wouldn’t jump at the chance to work with Disney again. Sarah McLachlan refused to perform or even appear at the Lilith Fair premier in support of Kimmel. She wasn’t alone. Obviously, Disney needs talent AND customers.

This time, the champions of Trump’s victims were joined by conservatives and Republicans who announced their antipathy to Kimmel at the same time. Provocateur Ben Shapiro said government shouldn’t be involved in making business decisions for the networks as did Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)–the (understandable butt of so much nasty satire–who proclaimed his support for speech free of government interference. Maybe it’s because they’d been to law school, or had a strong principled commitment to free speech. And maybe it’s because they smell a tide turning.

Disney/ABC caved pretty quickly. FCC Chair Brendan Carr clarified his threatening comments in a way that surely sounded like he was backing down. Trump himself was conspicuously outraged, threatening more and less specified retribution to the networks, his critics, as well as political enemies from his first term.

Score the win for the Resistance. It’s worth watching Kimmel’s monologue from his return to late night, and Sarah McLachlan’s performance.

Wins matter.

This effort opened the possibilities of new allies who are nursing second and third thoughts about the wisdom of unwavering support for Trump. Kimmel’s quick return to television–with his largest audience ever–encourages campaigns against Trump on all sorts of other issues. And Trump continues to say and do so much worth challenging. People like Shapiro and Cruz who imagine political relevance after this moment are determined not to ride the Trump train into ignominy and irrelevance. They won’t be alone.

Is this a turning point? Later on, the Kimmel campaign will make for a good story. But it’s important to remember that turning a great ship like America takes a long time. The demonstrators who showed up at the first Women’s March and early dissident Republicans like Justin Amash, Mitt Romney, and Liz Cheney pointed this way. Every bit matters, and the next round of critics will face a little less difficulty.

The straw that breaks the camel’s back isn’t always the last one.

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Searching for Solidarity in Higher Education (1)

Posted on September 5, 2025 by David S. Meyer

I want to know what we’re doing to save higher education in America from the Trump Administration. Tell me what you know about.

Here’s what I’ve seen:

The victims of the Trump Administration’s scattershot but relentless campaign against America’s colleges and universities are everywhere: scientists stripped of competitive research grants; professors told their academic freedom doesn’t cover positions or histories the president doesn’t like; administrators seeking to manage large budget cuts while fending off federal extortion; and students facing reduced funding and even worse terms on the loans they take to pay ever-increasing tuition and fees. This list of victims and grievances is woefully incomplete–and that’s part of the challenge in organizing an effective resistance.

Trump and his allies see too many offenses in higher education to ignore:

  1. Everything in higher ed is too expensive, too complicated, and too bureaucratic.
  2. Higher education is a massive and expensive part of America’s economy. Universities hire–and sometimes protect–people who conduct research and write books and articles, sometimes promoting unpopular opinions.
  3. Colleges and universities are supposed to teach students to think critically and demand evidence, which leads to broad acceptance for ideas that vaccines promote public health or that tariffs are taxes on imports that drive up prices.
  4. The system of higher education in the United States is rife with inequality. Lots of people harbor grudges–it’s too easy to identify someone else who seems to enjoy unfair advantages. A skillful hater can exploit all of this.
  5. Trump’s support depends upon the poorly educated, so keeping people out of college is a political strategy.

The Administration has responded to these political opportunities with vengeance. Most of the headlines went to attacks on elite universities like Columbia and Harvard, following (and publicizing!) the student protests against the Gaza War. The Administration announced that it was fighting antisemitism, which proved to be the most convenient stick to use in beating up on university life.

Larger numbers will be affected by cuts in Pell Grants, more onerous terms for student loans, and massive cuts in federal research grants and reimbursed indirect costs. College will be more expensive for students who will have to pay off their loans over even longer periods of time–or just skip college altogether. Physical and biological scientists who won competitive grants found their projects summarily canceled without explanations. They fired post-doctoral researchers and lab techs–and tried to provide useful advice to their own students who’d lost jobs elsewhere. The Trump Administration is gleeful in destroying scientific careers–but mostly backs away from explaining the scientific progress that will be lost.

Meanwhile, administrators at research universities are scrambling to figure out ways to compensate for lost “indirect” costs, which can be puzzling even to those of us who live in such places. Let me explain a little:

At the outset of the Cold War, American leaders somehow came to believe that scientific advancement and a broadly educated populace were assets in a global struggle for democracy–and for dominance. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, a satellite that came to symbolize a Communist threat and a scientific challenge. The United States worked to expand access to higher education, creating new campuses and many more seats, as well as programs to help students pay for college. Those campuses welcomed, more or less warmly, first generation students, underrepresented minorities, and women. Over time, campuses developed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs to accommodate a broader slice of Americans.

The government also invested in scientific research on those expanding campuses. Spreading research across the country with large grants, the federal government added a negotiated supplement to grants that covered services like trash disposal, accounting, and building maintenance. At the University of California, for example, this negotiated indirect rate is 58% of grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Trump Administration has announced a new rate of 15% instead. (My very crude estimate is the University of California, Irvine, will lose $120 million from NIH alone. Real money!)

Most importantly, the attacks on elements of higher education (and there are more) make for a comprehensive campaign against students, scientists, and teachers. Taken together, they’ll make the United States poorer, weaker, and dumber. There’s good reason for resistance.

But the challenges posed by a broad attack on higher education are felt as individual grievances. Students seeking financial aid will focus on the new, more complicated, financial aid form and the terms of loans. Scientists are already focusing on interference in their work and funding. And most administrators are neglecting a larger war on higher ed to try to protect their own campuses. There are pockets of resistance everywhere, but nothing like the comprehensive, patriotic, campaign for higher education that is needed.

In the next post, I’ll outline some of the disparate resistance efforts I’ve seen. Please tell me more.

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Labor Day (repost and rewritten)

Posted on September 1, 2025 by David S. Meyer

(2021) Here’s a repost and re-edit of some thoughts about Labor Day and its origins. As long as I’ve been aware, Labor has faced a moment of crisis–an extended moment. But things can always get worse and even more urgent. I don’t know if there’s ever been a president with so much support from working people who has been so hostile to their efforts to organize to protect their interests. Trump’s attempt to pander to working people by limiting tax on tips for a while–a favor to the National Restaurant Association–has been a popular way to avoid even modest policy reforms–like raising the minimum wage. The largest unions in the United States have committed to staging events across the country this year to claim Labor Day and make a stand. Maybe it’s a critical moment: The Republican Party has lost the support of college-educated voters for oh so many reasons and may eventually have to give something to the working people who support it. Or maybe not.

Successful politicians exploit, buy off, and sell out the movements that sometimes buoy their campaigns.  This American story is an old one, and it’s one that leaves activists disappointed, wary, and cynical, often especially about the politicians who do the most for them.

[Recall that candidate Abraham Lincoln promised to put the preservation of the Union higher on his list of priorities than ending slavery, and that abolitionists criticized President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (issued after two years of war), which ended slavery only in the territories that had seceded.]  Most do far less.

So, why is the American day to commemorate Labor held at the end of the summer, months after May Day, the workers’ celebration day virtually everywhere else in the world? How do you respond to a movement by creating an occasion for a cook-out?

crwy

President Grover Cleveland, a hard-money Democrat and no friend to organized labor, signed a bill making Labor Day a national holiday at the end of June in 1894, at the height of the Populist movement, and just after the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, had launched a boycott and strike, starting in Pullman, Illinois. Protesting the Pullman Palace Car Company’s treatment of its workers, including harsh wage cuts, railway workers across the country refused to handle any train hauling a Pullman car.

The Federal government used an injunction, then troops, to battle the union and get the trains moving.  In July, just after announcing a national day to celebrate the contributions of American workers, President Cleveland ordered federal marshals–along with 12,000 Army troops, into Chicago to break up the strike.  Workers fought back, and 13 workers were killed, and at least several dozen injured.  Debs was tried for violating an injunction, and went to prison, where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx. Clarence Darrow provided a vigorous, but unsuccessful, defense.

Debs would go to prison again, for his opposition to US entry into World War I, and would run for president five times as a Socialist.

But I digress.  President Cleveland created a distinctly American Labor Day, emphatically not on May 1, which had already been the occasion for vigorous and disruptive workers’ activism.  (Read about the Haymarket affair.)

May Day remains the day for international workers mobilization.  Instead, our Labor Day is a time to mark the end of summer by cooking outdoors and shopping for school supplies.

The  US Department of Labor’s website gives credit for Labor Day to the American worker, but makes no mention of the Pullman Strike or the Haymarket demonstrations.

So, commemoration can actually be a way to neuter the historical memory.  See our discussions of commemorative days for Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Fred Korematsu, all significantly more difficult characters than what they’ve come to represent.

P.S. Organized labor’s cumulative difficulties and declines have begun to lead to new strategies. One involves organizing workers that unions in the past had largely overlooked. Established unions have tried to expand their reach by organizing in retail stores and in fast food outlets, working to unite less skilled workers. Most recently, as example, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate teaching assistants at private colleges could organize unions and bargain collectively. But I’m not quite convinced that graduate students are the new vanguard for the working class.

Members of the Wisconsin Jobs Now group, representing Fight For 15, which favors a $15 an hour minimum wage, march down E. Chicago St. shortly before entering the Summerfest grounds for Labor Fest in 2015.

Likely more promising are efforts to use politics to improve the fortunes of American workers. Collective bargaining is one way to raise wages. Another is to mandate higher minimum wages for everyone. The Fight for $15 has had claimed some important successes in new ordinances in generally liberal cities, and has shifted the debate elsewhere. Bernie Sanders campaigned for the Democratic nomination by endorsing the proposal for a new minimum wage, and Hillary Clinton, competing for his voters, essentially endorsed the effort.

But,

When well-honed routines of organizing are no longer working, organizers have to innovate. The Fight for $15 has made substantial inroads, particularly in the Democratic Party, and organizers now see immigrants as allies rather than competition, mostly. Family Leave campaigns provide a route to build bridges between different classes of workers which, ultimately, could have large payoff. Most generally, the campaign for workers welfare is transforming to a larger concern with political and economic inequality: it’s what’s left as viable strategy.

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Froze and reversed the arms race: anniversary, repost.

Posted on June 12, 2025 by David S. Meyer

I’m reposting this reminder about the massive nuclear freeze march, part of an important campaign in the 1980s. Of course, nuclear weapons are rarely the most salient story today, when a war rages in Ukraine, activists across the country demonstrate against mass arrest and deportation sweeps of migrants, and a general fear about the eroding of democracy.. Just for starters.

But the fairly short story of the nuclear freeze offers useful lessons for all sorts of other movements. Not the least of these is that movements (sometimes) matter, and don’t get credit for their efforts unless organizers claim it. The June 12 demonstration made international news in 1982, but is generally edited out of popular histories of the Cold War or of the Reagan era. (See if you can find anniversary remembrances in your media feed today, and tell me if I’m wrong.)

The threat of nuclear war isn’t gone, and more than a few developments in the Trump era have made it more pronounced: The United States abandoned an arms control treaty with Iran that was working, and is now trying to renegotiate it, despite differences within the administration. The United States also announced that it would no longer abide by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated in the mid-1980s, and announced that it was withdrawing from an “Open Skies” verification accord first proposed by Dwight Eisenhower, and in force for decades. Bilateral and multilateral negotiations on nuclear arms control have largely stalled. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine–which ceded nuclear weapons deployed on its territory to Russia in 1994 for a promise from the major powers, including Russia, to protect its territorial integrity–put nuclear weapons back on the agenda, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin periodically threatens to use nukes on the battlefield.

It’s an urgent moment.

The Federation of American Scientists, an expert group that has promoted nuclear safety and arms control since the end of the second World War, maintains a “Doomsday Clock,” signaling its perception of the nuclear danger. In 1981, when Ronald Reagan took office and the freeze campaign took off, the clock was set at 4 minutes to midnight. In 2012, when I first wrote the appreciation below, the Clock was set at 5 minutes to midnight. 

Today, the Doomsday Clock is set to 90 89 seconds to midnight, the closest to apocalypse that it’s ever been. Had you heard of the Doomsday Clock before reading today’s post? When first created in 1947, it was a big deal, and every adjustment–usually closer to midnight–got lots of attention in mainstream media. Now that the perceived danger is worse than ever, the Clock doesn’t seem to claim much public attention.

So:

Forty-one years ago today, one million people marched in the streets of New York City to protest the nuclear arms race in general and the policies of Ronald Reagan in particular.

  Organized around a “nuclear freeze” proposal, the demonstration was a watershed for a movement that seemed to come out of nowhere, not just in the United States, but throughout what was then called Western Europe.

Of course, movements have deeper roots. Relatively small groups of people have been protesting against nuclear weapons since the idea of nuclear bombs first appeared. On occasion, they’re able to spread their concerns beyond the few to a larger public. Such was the case in 1982, when Europeans rallied against new intermediate range missiles planned for West Europe, and when Americans protested against the extraordinary military build-up/ spend-up of Ronald Reagan’s first term in office.

The freeze proposal, imagined by Randall Forsberg as a reasonable first step in reversing the arms race, was the core of organizing efforts in the United States, which included out-of-power arms control advocates and radical pacifists. Local governments passed resolutions supporting the freeze, while several states passed referenda. People demonstrated and held vigils, while community groups in churches and neighborhoods organized freeze groups to discuss–and advocate–on the nuclear arms race.

The freeze figured in large Democratic gains in the 1982 election, and Ronald Reagan ran for reelection as a born-again arms controller. Most activists didn’t buy it, but after Reagan won in a landslide, to the horror of his advisers and many of his supporters, he negotiated large reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and what used to be called the Soviet Union.

US/ Russia nuclear warheads

The arms control agreements created the space in the East for reforms, reforms that spun out of control and eventually unraveled the cold war and the Eastern bloc.

The world changed.

It was both less and more than what most activists imagined possible.

Do you want to call it a victory?

Update:

The nuclear freeze movement was the subject of my doctoral dissertation and my first book

The issues in it remain relevant.

The story shows the long and complicated trajectory through which social movements affect influence. That’s the topic of my most recent book.

There are a few simple lessons that merit repeating today:

  1. It’s never one event, action, demonstration, statement, or lawsuit that makes the difference; rather, it’s an accumulation of efforts.

2. All victories take forever.

3. And they’re never enough, and certainly not necessarily permanent.

4. The work is important, and it must continue in order to be effective.

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How the LA protests might work for activists and politicians. A note on strategy.

Posted on June 9, 2025 by David S. Meyer
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/massive-protest-against-trump-deportations-forms-near-downtown-l-a-lapd-calls-it-non-permitted/

The fallout from the immigration protests in Los Angeles that started this weekend will play out for a long while, far long than the protests–which are likely to continue and, maybe, change form in the next few days and nights. Partly, this is because those involved in the conflict are carrying different visions about what they want the demonstrations to do. I’m going to go through some of the different players, their interests, and their likely strategies–please correct me on whatever I get wrong:

At the most basic level, a demonstration is a show of political commitments and strength. Demonstrating opposition to the contours and conduct of Trump’s mass deportation is, by itself, a political act of consequence. Some have a dramatically different vision of immigration policy, and others just want a more basic support for legal process, but they all know what Trump is doing is wrong.

The spectacle of a demonstration is a signal to others that large numbers of people won’t sign onto the Trump agenda, and they may vote, campaign, and send money to strengthen their opposition. They want to stand up for the people taken into custody. In this vision, the demonstrations aren’t likely to affect policy in the short run, but may strengthen institutional resistance to mass deportation over time and underscore the horrors of the current process. Los Angeles police aren’t necessarily an obstacle, and local politicians are potential allies.

These protesters are likely to be very concerned with how the demonstrators come off to audiences elsewhere, and determined to present a broadly acceptable vision of themselves. They’re more likely to welcome American flags than Mexican flags. And they’ll emphasize non-violence, maybe even politeness.

This group was surely the largest share of this weekend’s demonstrators.

Some demonstrators have more ambitious aims: they want to raise the costs of implementing mass deportation for the Administration, or even bring down the government without elections. Local police are another obstacle, and disruption is the chief resource they have. They mean to cultivate support with demonstrated strength. They’re likely to be a small share of the demonstrators. Provoking police escalation and violence, even at risk to their own safety, is a demonstration of commitment, and the evils of authorities. They’re often called “radicals.”

Local politicians, including Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom, welcome the demonstrations and the support of the demonstrators as long as they are controllable. Opposition to the Trump Administration and support for the migrants echoes the arguments they’ve made and can provide a political resource for what they want to do. They’re going to attack Trump from the vantage point of “normal” politics, emphasizing civil liberties and the rule of law. To pull this off, they have an interest in supporting the less disruptive and confrontational protestors and marginalizing the “radicals.”

Meanwhile, Trump was very quick to call out the National Guard and alert the Marines, eager to throw gasoline on the first sparks of conflict. It’s possible he didn’t realize that his engagement in managing a demonstration in Los Angeles would energize the most radical protest factions, but everyone else did. Visible radicals throwing firecrackers, breaking windows, or writing on walls are exactly what this president wants. Trump is desperate to demonstrate his strength and commitment to deportation, and to take down his political opponents, showcasing their weakness, and unify and mobilize his supporters. He knows immigration is his best issue, and he wants to focus attention on his efforts and his enemies, rather than all of the other stupid stuff he’s involved in.

So, if the protests dissipate, Trump will claim credit, and if they accelerate, he’ll find justification for deploying increasing force. His course is clear.

Newsom and other local officials want to demonstrate support for the activists’ cause and almost all their efforts–but absolutely not the destruction of driverless cars and other acts of vandalism. It will be a hard line to walk. Filing a lawsuit is an action, to be sure, but it’s not likely to produce anything helpful for a very long time. Declaring all downtown protests an “unlawful assembly” is an understandable response, but it’s fraught with risk, shutting out the “peaceful” protesters and encouraging others to innovate.

So, the scary thing is that the Trump administration and some activists are likely to pour their efforts into dramatic demonstrations, each increasingly provoked, and Trump claiming control of the much better armed forces.

It’s not a recipe for peace.

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Polarization and the National Guard

Posted on June 8, 2025 by David S. Meyer
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-presidency-news-06-08-25

President Trump federalized the National Guard, promising to promote public order and protect Immigration agents in Los Angeles. You see, protesters had turned up to bear witness and maybe stop the wholesale detention (and deportation) of masses of people who might be undocumented immigrants. Activists assembled outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, initially on immigration, but crowds grew as ICE agents, then local police, and now guardsmen, confront the protests.

Virtually everyone predicted exactly this sort of confrontation when candidate Donald Trump promised mass deportations–focused on undocumented violent criminals. In real life, the Administration abandoned this fiction because it was impossible to find, much less process and deport, sufficient numbers of violent criminals to produce one million deportations annually. Instead, ICE cast an exceptionally broad net, snaring documented and undocumented migrants, US citizens, and student activists. The Administration abandoned the previous practice of avoiding courthouses and churches, refusing the modest nod to social order and law enforcement. Mass raids make for dramatic pictures and confrontations, and the kind of shock and awe the Administration thrives on.

Armed and uniformed forces fighting with protesters is the best bet that Trump now has to shift conversation off his feud with Elon Musk, an extraordinarily unpopular budget bill, an erratic trade regime, the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and oh so many other provocations. Migration is Trump’s most popular issue, and video clips of battles in California streets are sure to force people to take sides. Outside of California, it’s likely to rekindle some support for the Administration. Confrontation polarizes, the more violent, the more polarizing.

It’s hard even to feign surprise that Trump would set up violent confrontations for his own political benefit. Mass raids in California serve his purposes very well. And battling with Mayor Karen Bass, a Black woman, is just a bonus for Trump. We’ll have to see if ICE stages similar raids in warehouses, slaughterhouses, or farms in states that generally vote for Republicans.

Under normal circumstances, governors command the National Guard in their states, but Trump federalized the troops. California Governor Newsom has been emphatic that there was no serious trouble until Trump stepped in, and has asked Trump to back off. Don’t hold your breath.

The Guard haven’t always been successful at keeping the peace in the United States–it’s an unusual request. You’ll remember the National Guard, called out by Ohio Governor James Rhodes, shot two antiwar protesters and two bystanders at Kent State in 1970. In no way did the shootings at Kent State (and Jackson State) spur national unity or stifle the antiwar movement.

https://apnews.com/article/360439e805eb4db180fbfd52a7a0f5bb

The federalized National Guard mobilized to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, over the strenuous objections of segregationist governor Orville Faubus, and secured the enrollment of nine brave Black students, in accord with President Eisenhower’s orders, Supreme Court decisions, and moral decency. But they didn’t resolve the issue or bring peace.

The Trump Administration’s bet is that the violence and disruption works to its benefit, regardless of the costs.

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Kent State Anniversary (May 4, 1970, revised and reposted)

Posted on May 5, 2025 by David S. Meyer

This is a repost of a report on the Kent State shootings, on occasion of an anniversary. At the end, I’ve added a bit on Neil Young’s emblematic song, which helped keep the memory alive.

As I write in 2025, we’ve seen more than sparks of student activism erupt, starting with the widespread protest encampments about the Gaza War and America’s role in supplying Israel with weapons used in war crimes. We’ve also seen the beginnings of a broader resistance on some campuses aimed at protecting international students who are being prosecuted for mostly orderly activism. There has been much less visible student activism on more immediate campus issues, including the end of diversity programs and severe budget cuts. Recalling Kent State raises questions about the special environment campuses are supposed to provide.

It’s the anniversary of the killing of four college students at Kent State University. Young National Guardsmen opened fire on students protesting the war on May 4, 1970, discharging more than 60 rounds in roughly 13 seconds. They killed four students: Allison Krause, 19, and Jeffrey Miller, 20, were part of a nonviolent protest that university authorities promised to ban; Sandy Scheuer, 20, and William Schroeder, 19, were walking to class. The Guardsmen also wounded nine other students, some severely.

The Kent State student actions were part of a wave of protests that swept across American college campuses on May 1, a Friday, the day after President Richard Nixon announced that he had already ordered American air forces to expand their bombing to Cambodia. (Roughly a week earlier, after operations had already commenced, Secretary of State William P. Rogers testified before Congress, explicitly denying any intention of expanding the war to Cambodia.)

In Kent, protest and disruption spread into the town that night, with bonfires set in the streets and altercations with police.  The mayor declared a state of emergency, ordered the bars closed, and asked the governor for help in getting everything back under control; the National Guard arrived at the University on Saturday. Students planned a demonstration for Monday to protest the presence of the Guard on campus.  University officials tried to cancel the demonstration, but students assembled anyway. The Guardsmen ordered the students to disperse, then used tear gas before opening fire.

It was terrible, and there is still a great deal we don’t know: why the National Guard was on campus in the first place? why the order to fire on unarmed students hundreds of feet away? Who gave the order? or, was an order even given?  There’s a lot of writing, and a lot of controversy, still.  A good start is a summary, including an annotated bibliography, by two emeritus professors at Kent State, Jerry M. Lewis (Sociology) and Thomas R. Hensley (Political Science).

The shooting of unarmed students on a public college campus fostered a sense that the country was coming apart.  It was followed by a police shooting of student protesters at Jackson State in Mississippi, killing Philip Gibbs, 21, and James Green, 17, and wounding 12 other students.

President Nixon established a commission, chaired by William Scranton (formerly governor of Pennsylvania), to report on campus unrest. Published in September, the Scranton Commission answered few of the pressing questions about Kent State or Jackson State, but observed that campus unrest seemed to decline when the war in Vietnam seemed like it was winding down, and escalated after the bombing in Cambodia started.

The war and the demonstrations continued for a while, tapering off when the draft ended the next year.  Authorities developed ways to control dissent, on campus and elsewhere, without using live ammunition against protesters involved in large demonstrations. Demonstrations generally became less threatening, less disruptive, and less dangerous.

The Kent State and Jackson State killings remain tragic exceptions to more routine protest politics. It’s a good sign that they stand out in our memories.

One reason the memory remains is a powerful and idiosyncratic protest song, recorded within just a few weeks of the event. Days after the Kent State shootings, Neil Young wrote, “Ohio,” a song mourning the deaths. Apparently, he was shocked by photos published in Life magazine. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young released the song, which called out President Nixon and ended with the repeated line, “Four dead in Ohio”  (lyrics). The song reached the top 20 in the United States and Canada, and appeared on several albums by Young and by the group; they often performed the song in their occasional reunion tours over the past half-century.)

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May Day 2025, it’s not just labor…

Posted on May 1, 2025 by David S. Meyer

This is a repost and edit of an earlier post.

As always, May Day is an international day of protest for workers rights.  Below is a picture of a march at a courthouse in Philadelphia. CBS News has posted great photographs of May Day protests around the world, where protests are about wages, pensions, jobs, and so much more.

You’ll not from the signs that May Day protests, often animated by class, address all sorts of other issues, but economic inequality is a constant, and the protesters side with the workers. Welcoming immigrants and due process have not been the go to issues for workers during most of our history.

In the United States, by design we have a different day for workers (Labor Day), and May Day always seems like an opportunity to organize and demonstrate around a somewhat related cause, with or without the support of organized labor.

Workers, organized and otherwise, have plenty of issues in the United States these days, and President Donald Trump is on the other side of most of them. The budget plan about to drop is a proximate provocation for a whole range of other issues of inequality, now with racism, democracy, and the rule of law inescapable add-ons. Senator Bernie Sanders spoke at the Philadelphia demonstration, and you just know he was able to update the speech he’s been updating and refining for the past forty years.

Although it’s a desperate time, there are burning embers for optimism. Campaigns for raising the minimum wage at the state level have met with some success in some states. Unionization campaigns have succeeded at a couple of Starbucks and Amazon sites, but every subsequent site is a battle. Graduate student researchers and teaching assistants have launched unionization campaigns and strikes for better contracts with some success–including at the University of California. Here at UC-Irvine, the unions won substantial raises, and the University responded by cutting the number of graduate students admitted and teaching assistants assigned. There are no easy battles.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/195339/number-of-union-members-in-the-us-since-2000/

Successful campaigns have increased the number of unionized workers in the United States, bucking the trend of the past 70 years or so, but the percentage of American workers in unions continues to decline.

The graph below charts the rate of union membership since 1983. It’s hard to miss the trend line–and it’s worse for private sector workers.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/195341/percentage-of-emplyoyees-respresented-by-unions-in-the-us-since-2000/

May Day is an obvious time to take stock. Journalists look for labor stories that are normally undercovered on May Day (and even on Labor Day), and organizers work hard to fill the space.

May Day is an opportunity to organize and say something, reminding the rest of the world that constituencies and concerns remain vital and potentially volatile.

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Harvard fronts a defense of higher education

Posted on April 22, 2025 by David S. Meyer
https://theonion.com/nation-cant-believe-it-on-harvards-side/

Not for the first time, the Onion’s headline said it all…almost.

Hang onto whatever personal or political gripes you might have with Harvard University; surely, they must be justified. Still, let’s recognize that the nation’s oldest and richest (endowment >$60b) has leaned into a leading role in the ongoing fight to protect higher education. With its extraordinary wealth, history, and status, Harvard can do more in this battle than almost any other institution, particularly in blocking for, and encouraging, the rest of America’s universities and colleges.

Faced with the Trump Administration’s threat to pause and reconsider some $9b in federal grants and contracts, Harvard entered into the same sort of humiliating and counterproductive negotiations that stained Columbia University. As the negotiations continued, the Administration demanded more and more, including oversight of Harvard’s admissions and hiring, and routine reports on protesting students. Quicker than Columbia, Harvard’s leadership saw where this was going. President Alan Garber announced that they were done talking, and that Harvard would manage its own reforms.

People in the Trump administration allowed that maybe they’d made mistake, and pushed too hard too fast. Whoops. But they didn’t back away from any of their demands.

The Trump administration immediately suspended about 1/4 of Harvard’s federal funding (mostly going to medical research), and Trump himself ordered the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status, no simple matter. Harvard escalated as well, filing a suit against the Administration challenging the funding rescissions as a violation of free speech. It’s hard to think that there’s any institution of higher learning better provisioned to survive the long battles now joined. And, at least for the moment, Harvard is basking in positive attention AND alumni giving. The Crimson reports that Harvard’s fundraising spiked up when Garber announced that the school would not roll over for Trump.

And Harvard isn’t alone. MIT joined with a coalition of other research universities, including major public and private institutions I’ve heard of, to sue the Department of Energy over unilateral cuts in indirect costs. Rutgers University’s faculty senate called for a mutual aid pact among Big Ten schools to provide for the common defense of higher education. Seeing something like a NATO for colleges armed with epistles rather than missiles, allied schools signed on.

Nothing will be resolved quickly, but it’s important for us to see that the academic defiance is coupled with the demonstrations in the streets. University administrators see there is support for standing up against the crazed demands of the Trump Administration, and recognize a strength in unity. Surely, they also realize that defending research on say, tuberculosis, is a winning political strategy for academic freedom and independence.

Protest works when it stiffens the spines of potential allies who aren’t necessarily marching or carrying signs.

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