The Era of the Wuss

American popular culture, ever promoting the myth that we live in the land of the free and the brave, wants us to believe that we stand up to bullying. Even if bravery is in short supply at times, like during McCarthyism, someone like attorney Joseph Welch ultimately comes to the rescue. Breaking the spell, the First Amendment hero stands strong: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?"

It's hard to imagine who would dare to exhibit such defiance today.

These days, the assault on freedom comes not from an alcoholic senator but a teetotaling president. Donald Trump's presidency isn't even 10 weeks old, yet his threats have already prompted wealthy and powerful institutions to surrender their fundamental values.

On March 8, Trump canceled $400 million in federal research grants to Columbia University for what he called "inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students" during last spring's encampment protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Though there's still little to no evidence that pro-Palestinian demonstrators made antisemitic statements or committed antisemitic acts -- every directly sourced claim of anti-Jewish speech turns out to be anti-Zionist instead -- accusing Columbia of inaction is unfair.

In a notable set of setbacks for academic freedom even before Trump returned to the White House, Columbia forced out its president, banned two pro-Palestinian student groups (including one run by Jewish students), fired at least one professor and suspended, expelled or revoked the degrees of dozens of students. To prevent demonstrations, Columbia even commandeered a public street running through campus by indefinitely locking its gates.

Trump demanded more. So, choosing stability over principle, Columbia appeased him further. Though there's no credible allegation against it, the school's Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department will be neutered and discredited as it's placed into a watered-down form of federal receivership. Columbia will create an anti-protester security squad. Protesters will no longer be allowed to wear masks, so it will be easier for pro-Israel groups to dox those remaining who haven't yet been expelled, banned and cowed into silence.

Stability is proving elusive. Several Columbia students have been arrested by Trump's immigration officers for participating in pro-Gaza events. One, Mahmoud Khalil, a recently graduated master's alumnus, was dragged from his university-owned apartment and is now in a notorious for-profit Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana. Wary of Trump, Columbia officials have expressed nary a syllable of concern.

Not to be out-wussed, the University of Maine system reversed its policy and banned transwomen from women's sports after Trump threatened to pull $30 million a year in research funding.

Then Trump threatened to remove national security clearances from a major Democrat-aligned law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. So the firm agreed to dilute its DEI policies and donate $40 million in pro bono work to causes to be specified by the White House. A Washington, D.C., lawyer -- speaking anonymously, naturally -- told NBC News the firm's decision to cut a deal was "as craven and despicable a decision as you will find."

Then there's the media. ABC News will give $15 million to Trump's future presidential library to settle a defamation case it would normally have fought and likely won. Meta will do the same, to the tune of $25 million. If it looks like a bribe ...

It's not so much whether or not they have abandoned laudable stances in favor of bad ones to curry favor with Trump. Anyone who reveres free speech should agree with the University of California's abandonment of the woke requirement that faculty members sign "diversity statements" -- another change prompted by a Trump threat to slash federal funding.

Whether Trump is right or not is not the point. The problem is that he's getting his way by thuggery rather than persuasion.

He is the president. He has the bully pulpit. The fact that he's not leveraging his position to try to convince citizens of what's wrong and how it should be fixed signals that he does not believe buy-in is necessary. This is not the way things work in a representative democracy.

It is Trump's authoritarian style, more than his politics, that ought to animate resistance.

But who will stand up to him?

If a law firm with $2 billion in annual revenue (and a thousand lawyers) and an Ivy League university with a nearly $15 billion endowment won't tell the president to pound sand, who will? Though Trump's threats to Columbia and Paul, Weiss would have been a hit to their bottom line, neither would have been existential. They would have survived. They might even have thrived as liberal clients and alumni wrote checks in support.

Perkins Coie, another firm in Trump's crosshairs, is doing what it does best -- it's suing and has obtained a restraining order against the president.

If the story of Trump's attempt to govern by individual fiat is to have the kind of happy ending we saw to McCarthyism in 1954, it will take longer and be harder to achieve after so many well-connected and deep-pocketed institutions that could have easily resisted caved in so quickly. If and when Trump's wrath homes in on smaller targets with fewer resources, we will need people with more courage than we have seen in a long time.

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Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. His latest book, brand-new right now, is the graphic novel 2024: Revisited. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.