The Wall Street Journal condemns Trump's attack on Harvard

The Wall Street Journal is showing up as a consistent opponent of Trump's overreach.

The WSJ is Republican. It is conservative. It is pro-big business. It is anti-union. It is for the wealthy and it thinks trickle down is just fine. It isn't populist because it understands that the great masses want a bigger share of the pie. Their pie. 

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The WSJ wants to put brakes on Trump. They are staffed by worldly, educated people who recognize dangerous authoritarian lawlessness when they see it. They don't like it. It is bad for business. It sets a bad precedent.

Today the WSJ continues their almost-daily criticism of Trump. This time they criticize his demands on Harvard:

 Few Americans will shed tears for the Cambridge crowd, but there are good reasons to oppose this unprecedented attempt by government to micromanage a private university.

That would be a typical construction for the WSJ, starting with a little swipe against an institution coded as liberal. The WSJ editors know they need to put a little sugar in with the medicine. Having made a gesture to their audience they get tougher:

 . . .the Administration runs off the legal rails by ordering Harvard to reduce “governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization.” It also orders the school to review “all existing and prospective faculty . . . for plagiarism” and ensure “viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit.”

These reforms may be worth pursuing, but the government has no business requiring them. Its biggest overreach is requiring “viewpoint diversity,” which it doesn’t define. Does this mean the English department must hire more Republican faculty or Shakespeare scholars?

President Trump is attempting a multi-generational change in America's role in the world. He has radically changed our foreign policy and therefore the world's. We have switched partnership from Europe, the UK, and Canada and the rules-based world order, to one in which we acknowledge three great regional powers: the U.S., Russia, and China. Trump is attempting to change our economic policy into something much less global. We can be our own island of prosperity, thus protecting workers from competition from low-wage countries. Those are matters of policy that might change from administration to administration. That isn't necessarily permanent. If we avoid nuclear war, we can live through this. Life will go on.

The Wall Street Journal is attacking the third and potentially most permanent change Trump is attempting. Trump is asserting a dramatic change in the form of government: the primacy of Article Two. For two centuries we presumed that Madison v. Marbury validated judicial power to establish the law, making the judiciary a co-equal branch. Trump is openly flouting that. Trump has steamrolled over Congress' laws regarding spending. Congress does nothing. Trump is ignoring enforcement of the TikTok law. Congress does nothing. Congress is letting Trump do whatever he wants on tariffs, even though Trump's tariffs damage constituents in their districts and states. Trump is openly dissolving departments and agencies established by Congress, and Congress is letting him do it. Congress conceded. 

And Trump is asserting presidential power to direct the policies and operations of independent corporations. This is a sensitive point for the WSJ. Harvard is a corporation, the oldest one in North America. Harvard is lawful private property.  Of course, the WSJ realizes the threat. This is the WSJ wheelhouse.

Democrats will never find the WSJ to be a partner in opposition to Trump, but they should not wish for that. The WSJ is more useful as an ally and a bridge to Republicans. There remains a segment of Republicans -- now on the outs and keeping quiet -- who understand and oppose Trump's remaking of the GOP and the the structure of our government. There are Republicans who can look ahead and see that a president who declares the right to manage university policies on personal whim is bad policy and worse precedent. Same with a president who, on personal whim, can pick up citizens without notice and send them to overseas prisons where they can be tortured and killed. It is dangerous policy under Trump and more dangerous as precedent, just in case a Democrat is ever elected president. Better to have the rule of law, run though a slow and disputatious Congress, reviewed by independent courts.

The WSJ is an ally here in the great battle: Will we have a country that operates with three branches of government and that respects the rule of law?

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