You’ve nailed the bigger picture, Paul!

For authoritarians, open debate isn’t something to be celebrated; it’s something to be controlled. Universities, with their tendency to challenge orthodoxy and encourage independent thinking, become prime targets. Once a space is capable of asking, “What if the official story isn’t right?” - even in good faith - that space becomes dangerous to any regime built on manufactured reality.

And yes, America’s system puts a huge amount of power in the hands of one person, based on the assumption that the rest of the system (courts, Congress, states, media, civil society) will hold that person in check. But we’re seeing how fragile those assumptions are when large parts of those institutions either fall in line, get co-opted, or are bullied and intimidated by the mob rule of MAGA.

The idea that “the people” will fix everything at the ballot box only holds if the machinery of democracy isn’t being tampered with in the meantime.

Clearly, it is.

What worries me most about the education side of this is how openly it’s now being done. Trump’s not asking universities to stop breaking laws; he’s demanding they stop contradicting the narrative. It’s not enough to allow MAGA-aligned perspectives in the room. The goal is to elevate them, even when they’re provably false, and to punish anyone who refuses to play along.

That’s not viewpoint diversity. That’s state-enforced confusion.

If that trend continues and enough institutions cave to the pressure, we’re not just talking about political division anymore. We’re talking about two parallel realities, with no shared framework for truth.

So yes, I agree - the demigod’s ahead on points. And with every university that backs down, the gap widens.

Thanks John for the reply, I couldn't agree more.

Democracy is a fragile luxury. Its through a fair and just society, underpinned by the reasonable distribution of mass wealth, which is the glue that binds a society like ours together, and keeps it stable. Institutions like parliament, the legal system etc, are not what creates democracy in society, but are mechanisms within that facilitate the good functioning of society. A radical decline in social wellbeing, real or imaginary, will quickly lead to the breakdown of institutions. A radical opportunists will exploit discontent, often creating it themselves for their own benefit. Trumps MAGA is a perfect example of a demigod manufacturing discontent within the American society, then exploiting that discontent to further his own political agenda.

Thanks, Paul. Beautifully put.

I especially agree with your point about institutions being downstream from broader social cohesion. A functioning parliament or judiciary doesn’t guarantee democracy if the public loses trust in them, or worse, is convinced they’re part of a rigged system.

That’s the real risk with people like Trump. They don’t just take shots at institutions, they try to undermine faith in them entirely, while claiming they’re the only ones who can fix things. It’s straight from the populist playbook: stir up a crisis, then play the saviour. Once supporters buy into that, breaking rules starts to feel not just acceptable, but necessary.

Hell, you can even be a sexual predator and a convicted felon - nothing matters.

It’s no coincidence that the rise of Trumpism coincides with growing inequality, economic anxiety, and cultural fragmentation. Discontent doesn’t have to be fully real to be politically useful - it just has to feel real.

And MAGA turned that into a branding exercise.

I used to naively assume the US was safe from dictatorship - that it couldn’t happen without military backing. What I didn’t consider was mob rule. The MAGA movement showed how bullying, intimidation, and even violence could frighten individuals - politicians, judges, election officials - into silence or complicity.

You don’t need tanks in the streets when you’ve got a mob willing to do the dirty work.