Never Trump

From the election in November to the presidential inauguration in January, media commentators took turns to pronounce the Trump “Resistance” dead. I know I did. The line was too tempting. As Trump stormed back into the White House, his power looked irresistible. His enemies seemed so broken and defeated. We all spoke too soon. “NeverTrumpism” is a reaction to Trumpism, as natural as magnetic repulsion and the urge to defy and destroy his presidency hasn’t vanished. In fact, look closely and you can see a “Resistance 2.0” gathering momentum in response to the second Trump administration.

What makes America America? An answer available to most of us is our shared dedication to the principles of liberty and equality. We are ‘the land of the free’. Or at least we were until five minutes ago. Our freedom these days seems a little shaky. And in the world of higher education, those simple declarations are especially faint. By the time they arrive as freshmen (or ‘first years’ in today’s man-phobic argot) students are generally well-versed in all the ways we aren’t ‘free’ and most of the reasons why ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’ are doubtful propositions. ‘America’ is increasingly defined for this generation as a place where some really bad things happened and continue to happen.