"Whether it’s universities, law firms, or entire countries, here are 10 basic rules for hitting back"
Friends,
On Tuesday, the Trump regime targeted Harvard University, threatening to withdraw about $9 billion in contracts and multiyear grants unless Harvard capitulates to unspecified demands.
Last week, Trump targeted major Washington law firms, threatening to cut off their access to government buildings and government contracts unless they capitulated to various demands.
Yesterday, the regime placed 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico and “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from all other nations. Some governments say they’ll retaliate. Others — Israel and Vietnam, for example — are responding by rolling back their own tariffs. Trump says he’ll continue to raise tariffs until other countries capitulate to various unspecified demands.
What do all these have in common? Trump’s unquenchable thirst for power, dominance, and intimidation.
Here are 10 rules for dealing with this.
Stop treating Trump’s excuses as his real concerns. He says, for example, that he’s motivated by antisemitism at various universities. He isn’t. He and his goons have attacked other universities for entirely different reasons — allowing transgender women to play in women’s sports, or maintaining programs that encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion. They’ll use whatever pretext they can find to issue demands and get universities to capitulate.
For the same reason, stop assuming that Trump is concerned about other nations’ “unfair” trade practices or illegal immigration. These, too, are pretexts. He is using tariffs, immigration, and every tool at his command to intimidate other nations, including our Canadian and Mexican allies and traditional allies in Europe, in order to get them to capitulate to various demands.
Trump’s major interest is capitulation itself. Surrender is the whole point. He and those under him who are managing these extortionate initiatives want headlines that say “they” have surrendered to him — whether “they” is a country, a major university, a large law firm, a big nonprofit, even a Democratic state like California. Surrender is the point. Domination is his goal. (It always has been.)
Each surrender feeds the public impression that Trump wants fed — that he is all-powerful, invincible, and able to get every person, institution, and country to cower to him. He knows intuitively that each capitulation feeds his power — because power is itself an impression; invincibility, the consequence of everyone’s capitulation.
Each capitulation encourages him and his goons to engage in even more bullying of more institutions and countries. Trump’s need for dominance is insatiable. Every time he succeeds in gaining capitulation, he and his goons look for other opportunities to enlarge the impression that he has boundless power.
Most of these institutions and countries will cave to Trump because their leaders are mainly concerned about their own institution’s or country’s survival. They are not concerned about the effects of their capitulations on other institutions or on the world as a whole. The costs of significant losses of funding, clients, or access are borne by them; the benefits of resistance are felt by all.
It’s vitally important, therefore, that institutions and countries join together to fight this systemic intimidation.
University faculties must join together under the umbrella of the American Association of University Professors to speak out against Trump’s assault on free speech and debate at universities, sue the Trump administration for violating their rights under the First Amendment, and develop a media strategy to alert the public to the dangers.
Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the European Union must join together to create a special trade zone that excludes the United States. They should threaten to limit American banks’ access to their public procurement markets, limit the huge sums their citizens invest in American companies annually, and increase tax and regulatory pressure on American digital platforms.
The media must not fan the flames of Trump’s madness. They should celebrate institutions that are standing up to Trump (such as the Jenner & Block law firm, Canada, and Mexico) and condemn those that are surrendering to him (such as Columbia University, the Paul Weiss law firm, and Israel and Vietnam on tariffs). They should help educate Americans about the costs of capitulating to Trump and its baleful consequences. This is all about power, and Trump’s thirst for power is all about converting the United States into a dictatorship.
Robert Reich
