SURE, THAT’LL WORK: Anti-Israel protesters at Columbia demand divestment, threaten tuition strike.

LOL, YALE STUDENTS SKIPPING CLASS: Yale students walk out of class on first day of semester to protest school’s ‘complicity in genocide.’

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: The Coldest Place. And the survival power of bitching.

THEY’RE NOT WRONG: Voters: Obama is Biden’s puppet master. “Most voters, including a majority of Democrats, believe former President Barack Obama is the controlling influence on President Joe Biden as he pushes forward much of his ex-boss’s liberal agenda.”

JOHN O’SULLIVAN: Parkinson’s Law in the Persian Gulf.

MAKE THE RUBBLE BOUNCE, JUST TO BE SURE: Andy Kessler: Pop Goes the DEI Bubble.

Have we reached peak DEI? The unraveling of “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives had already begun—five states banning DEI programs; Google, Facebook
and others cutting DEI staff; Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard—well before Harvard President Claudine Gay was demoted.

Author Christopher Rufo, echoing 1960s student activists, called the rise of DEI a “long march through the institutions”—a 50-plus-year ideology infiltration into universities, K-12 schools, government, media and corporations with the goal of telling us all how to live. That’s why I enjoy that the word “rot” is back in style to describe what is happening inside the walls of academia.

Like everything based on the writings of Karl Marx—seeing oppressors and colonial struggles everywhere—DEI was doomed to fail. The uniformity of thought known as intersectionality, fostered by DEI, meant all oppressed people must support all others who are oppressed. But that idea burst on Oct. 7 when Hamas raped, murdered and kidnapped Israelis. Many liberals, especially Jewish ones, couldn’t support genocidal “colonized” terrorists. Pop! The long march is in retreat.

By the way, ESG, or investing based on “environmental, social and governance” principles, peaked last June, when BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he would stop using “the word ESG anymore, because it’s been entirely weaponized.” Never mind that performance of ESG funds has been sketchy and that BlackRock had been adding the label “sustainable” or “ESG” to funds and charging up to five times as much. Then a study published in December by Boston University’s Andrew King found “no reliable evidence for the proposed link between sustainability and financial performance.” Pop!

Most offensive to me was DEI’s devious underlying agenda: societal design. Blinded by fanatical devotion, activists were pawns for the cause of reshaping the world into a collective utopia to be run, of course, by progressive, self-identifying elites. That was the “my truth” that Ms. Gay invoked on her exit. Critical theories and Marxist techniques would take power from you and me, using big government as the enforcer.

The new societal design, embedded in DEI and ESG, envisioned idyllic communal progress. History shows this never works because power corrupts. Diversity meant ideological conformity. Equity meant discrimination. Inclusion meant blurring the sexes. Men winning women’s athletic events would be considered normal. It was all theatrics, like the tampons I’ve seen in men’s bathrooms on Ivy League campuses. Somewhere George Orwell is rolling on the floor laughing.

One goal of progressive societal design is to shrink—depopulation. Twenty-somethings now question having children. Net zero and degrowth, both World Economic Forum approved, are pushed via energy myths: carbon bad, cows bad. A plant-based chicken in every pot and two electric cars in every garage. They envy the merit-touting rich, shout “inequality” and wear “Tax the Rich” dresses. They tear down statues to erase history. How did we let this happen?

You get what you tolerate. Don’t tolerate this.

Related: Are Our Elites Crazy? Yes, yes they are.

Also:

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: The Coldest Place. And the survival power of bitching.

ROGER KIMBALL: Ramaswamy Defies New York Times Narrative: Suspends Campaign, Backs Trump. “I think it was a writer for Time magazine who, back in the day, illustrated the point by noting the difference in tone between ‘Truman slunk from the room to huddle with his cronies’ and ‘Ike strode from the chamber to confer with his advisors.’ Truman and Ike were doing the same thing, but the description of their activities cast them in very different rhetorical spaces. The Times obviously had Vivek slated for a Truman-like role.”

JOEL KOTKIN: California: where freedom goes to die. Gavin Newsom has turned the Golden State into a woke dystopia.

TIME TO COUGH UP SOME REPARATIONS, I GUESS: LeVar Burton shocked to discover he’s descended from a Confederate soldier. “Burton, who famously portrayed a slave in the 1977 TV miniseries, ‘Roots,’ was floored to find out his great-great grandfather fought to protect the institution of slavery during America’s Civil War. . . . Other celebrities have been shocked to learn about their heritage on the hit PBS show. Last year, former Black Panther Angela Davis was surprised to discover her ancestors came over on the Mayflower.”

THERE SEEM TO BE A LOT OF SECRET PUBLIC-PRIVATE ALLIANCES THESE DAYS: The Secret Public-Private Alliance to End Inflation and Save the Biden Administration. “By now you should be putting things together. The #metoo movement and the BLM pogroms in every major city became the pretext for a ‘re-imagining’ of long-standing IPs, in a way that made no sense as business decisions, but were perfectly rational if the goal was, in fact, to make money disappear.” Heh. A conspiracy so vast . . . .

Plus: “While I do not have what most skeptics would regard as ‘evidence,’ I do have plenty of hearsay and conjecture, which are kinds of evidence.”

LOL, BRUCE BARTLETT’S TDS IS SHOWING:

I'm not so sure. Trump's speech last night to a full house in Manchester was (I reluctantly realized) highly effective. He didn't ramble and he kept all the defects (eg grievances) in check or hidden. No signs of dementia. https://t.co/tZLaeOoCMt

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) January 21, 2024

To be honest, if I could wave my magic want and make DeSantis president I would. I don’t have a magic wand, and he can’t be elected. It’s Trump or Biden (or worse, Kamala, Michelle, Gavin Newsom, or several other worse choices). I choose Trump.

OPEN THREAD: How was your weekend?

DIVERSITY: ‘We have doubled the number of nationalities aboard’ ISS as all-European SpaceX Ax-3 astronauts dock at space station.

FRED HOYLE SMILES: What if Life on Earth Began When Interstellar Objects Crashed Here?

MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: The Coldest Place. And the survival power of bitching.

FROM SPIKED, a report on the German Farmers’ Revolt.

THE DREAM SINCE HENRY FORD’S TIME: The Green Spark: A Catalyst Transforming Water Into Energy Wealth.

TAMARA KEEL: Volume of Fire: How do I get to Carnegie Hall? “Practice, practice. . .”

THIS SEEMS LIKE A TERRIBLE IDEA: Kevin McCarthy foe Tim Burchett could face primary challenge after voting for ouster. I know both Tim Burchett and Jimmy Matlock and I like them both. But I think that Tim was right to vote against McCarthy, and I don’t think we need a primary fight. Though it’s kinda late for that anyway. Perhaps this talk is more by way of a brushback pitch.

WHEN SECONDS COUNT, THE POLICE ARE MINUTES AWAY JUST NOT COMING: Sordid Lessons from Uvalde School Shooting; Justice Department Cites “Cascading Failures.”

CHANGE: BREAKING: Ron DeSantis Suspends Presidential Campaign, Makes Endorsement. “Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge.”

IN DEFENSE OF BAD THIRD-ROW SEATS. The one in my SUV isn’t great, but it comes in handy sometimes. And it’s better than the one in the Mitsubishi Outlander, for sure.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY: Demand and Production of 1 Billion Humanoid Bots Per Year.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Research suggests European Alps eroding slower than >10,000 years ago.