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Comment by mikeyouse | Hacker News Reader

I really wish some of the cowards braying about censorship on campus over the past decade would actually stand up against this… the entire right-wing media and legal apparatus (aside from FIRE maybe?) is just standing by or cheering this lawlessness and it’s infuriating.

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Attempting to shame hypocrites is a pointless endeavor. They will only laugh at you while continuing to do what they do.

The only reasonable move is to interpret them as damage and route around them.

I don’t disagree but as far as I’m aware, they’re necessary for this whole democracy mess to work. The only reason Nixon was forced out of office is because his party finally had enough and couldn’t stand the shame (and certain electoral defeat) had he remained in office, so they loudly abandoned him and indicated they’d vote for his removal from office if they were given the choice.

The party of Nixon isn't the Republican party of today. We've been getting a Nixon-level crisis every week with zero defections from Republican Congressmen. And I'm tired of Republicans shrieking about some minor or imagined Dem transgression, then doing something 100x worse when they're in power, and all the Democrats going HEY REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN... IMAGINE IF BIDEN...

Yes, they remember, they don't care, they feed off your reaction. Engaging is useless. The blunt instrument of power is the only thing they understand; ignore and route around.

I've never set foot in the USA, but from an outsider looking in, it seems like academic integrity was sidelined by ideology during that period. Once this has been normalised, it's not difficult for a competing ideology to move in. Seems like a real shame, but surely this didn't just happen overnight in 2024.

FIRE has been pretty clear... e.g.

https://www.thefire.org/news/inside-trump-administrations-ex...

FIRE talks out of both sides of their mouth. Yes, they aren't absolute partisans and have been materially opposing part of Trump's fascist regime. But their media arm remains excessively focused on perceived excesses of the left and they've been unable to make a consistent full throated public denouncement of what is happening.

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