High winds intersecting with historic drought levels are contributing to the dangerous conditions that sparked the multiple fires raging in the Los Angeles area. Dr. Helen Holmlund, an assistant professor of biology at Pepperdine University, joins CBS News with more on the extreme conditions.
Related link:
Viral Video Shows Franklin Fire Raging Outside Pepperdine University Library Doors (Weather Channel)
Thinking about climate change and international study (Bryan Alexander)
[In 2017, we collaborated with Crush the Street on a video describing the College Meltdown.]
“Education is not merely a credentialing system; it is a humanizing act that fosters connection, purpose, and community.”
The College Meltdown began in the mid-2010s as a blog chronicling the slow collapse of U.S. higher education. Rising tuition, mounting student debt, and corporatization were visible signs, but the deeper crisis was structural: the erosion of public accountability and mission.
By 2015, the warning signs were unmistakable to us. On some campuses, student spaces were closed to host corporate “best practices” conferences. At many schools, adjunct instructors carried the bulk of teaching responsibilities, often without benefits, while administrators celebrated innovation. Higher education was quietly being reshaped to benefit corporations over students and communities — a true meltdown.
Enrollment in U.S. colleges began declining as early as 2011, reflecting broader demographic shifts: fewer children entering the system and a growing population of older adults. Small colleges, community colleges, and regional public universities were hardest hit, while flagship institutions consolidated wealth and prestige.
Corporate intermediaries known as Online Program Managers (OPMs) managed recruitment, marketing, and course design, taking large portions of tuition while universities retained risk. Fully automated robocolleges emerged, relying on AI-driven templates, predictive analytics, and outsourced grading. While efficient, these systems dehumanized education: students became data points, faculty became monitors, and mentorship disappeared.
“Robocolleges and AI-driven systems reduce humans to data points — an education stripped of connection is no education at all.”
As part of our effort to reclaim knowledge and influence public discourse, we actively contributed to Wikipedia. Over the years, we made more than 12,000 edits on higher education topics, ensuring accurate documentation of predatory practices, adjunct labor, OPMs, and corporatization. These edits both informed the public and, inadvertently, fed the AI beast — large language models and AI systems that scrape Wikipedia for training data now reflect our work, amplifying it in ways we could never have predicted.
“By documenting higher education rigorously, we shaped both public knowledge and the datasets powering AI systems — turning transparency into a tool of influence.”
The College Meltdown documented the mental health toll of these transformations. Rising anxiety, feelings of anomie, and widespread alienation were linked to AI reliance, dehumanized classrooms, insecure faculty labor, and societal pressures. Students felt like credential seekers; faculty suffered burnout.
“Addressing the psychological and social effects of dehumanized education is essential for ethical recovery.”
The project also addressed the broader political and social climate. The Trump era brought rising anti-intellectualism, skepticism toward expertise, and a celebration of market logic over civic and moral education. For many, it was an era of fear: fear of surveillance, fear of litigation, fear of being marginalized in a rapidly corporatized, AI-driven educational system. Neoliberal policies exacerbated these pressures, emphasizing privatization, metrics, and competition over community and care.
“Living under Trump-era neoliberalism, with AI monitoring, corporate oversight, and mass surveillance, education became a space of anxiety as much as learning.”
Education should serve human well-being, not just revenue. The blog emphasized Quality of Life and advocated for Rehumanization — restoring mentorship, personal connection, and ethical engagement.
“Rehumanization is not a luxury; it is the foundation of meaningful learning.”
From the start, The College Meltdown relied on evidence-based reporting. FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were used to obtain internal communications, budgets, and regulatory filings, shining light on opaque practices. Whistleblowers, including adjunct faculty and staff at universities and OPMs, provided firsthand testimony of misconduct, financial malfeasance, and educational dehumanization. Their courage was central to the project’s mission of transparency and accountability.
“Insider testimony and public records revealed the hidden forces reshaping higher education, from corporate influence to predatory practices.”
The importance of historical sociology cannot be overstated in analyzing the decline of higher education. By examining the evolution of educational systems, we can identify patterns of inequality, the concentration of power, and the commodification of knowledge. Historical sociology provides the tools to understand how past decisions and structures have led to the current crisis.
“Historical sociology reveals, defines, and formulates patterns of social development, helping us understand the systemic forces at play in education.”
A critical aspect of The College Meltdown was the emphasis on naming bad actors — identifying and holding accountable those responsible for the exploitation and degradation of higher education. This included:
University Administrators: Prioritizing profit over pedagogy.
Corporate Entities: Robocolleges and OPMs profiting at the expense of educational quality.
Political Figures and Ultraconservatives: Promoting policies that undermined public education and anti-intellectualism.
“Holding bad actors accountable is essential for meaningful reform and the restoration of education's ethical purpose.”
The blog also examined the existential dimensions of climate change. Students and faculty face a dual challenge: preparing for uncertain futures while witnessing environmental degradation accelerate. Higher education itself is implicated, both as a contributor through consumption and as a forum for solutions. The looming climate crisis intensifies anxiety, alienation, and the urgency for ethical, human-centered education.
“Climate change makes the stakes of education existential: our survival, our knowledge, and our moral responsibility are intertwined.”
Another critical theme explored was mass speculation and financialization. The expansion of student debt markets, tuition-backed bonds, and corporate investments in higher education transformed students into financial instruments. These speculative dynamics mirrored broader economic instability, creating both a moral and systemic crisis for the educational sector.
“When education becomes a commodity for speculation, learning, mentorship, and ethical development are subordinated to profit and risk metrics.”
The College Meltdown documented student and faculty resistance: tuition protests, adjunct labor actions, and campaigns against predatory OPM arrangements. Nonviolent action was central: teach-ins, sit-ins, and organized campaigns demonstrated moral authority and communal solidarity in the face of systemic pressures, litigation, and corporate intimidation.
Glen McGhee provided exceptional guidance, connecting insights on systemic collapse, inequality, and credential inflation. Guest authors contributed across disciplines and movements, making the blog a living archive of accountability and solidarity:
Guest Contributors:
Bryan Alexander, Ann Bowers, James Michael Brodie, Randall Collins, Garrett Fitzgerald, Erica Gallagher, Henry Giroux, David Halperin, Bill Harrington, Phil Hill, Robert Jensen, Hank Kalet, Neil Kraus, the LACCD Whistleblower, Wendy Lynne Lee, Annelise Orleck, Robert Kelchen, Debbi Potts, Jack Metzger, Derek Newton, Gary Roth, Mark Salisbury, Gary Stocker, Harry Targ, Heidi Weber, Richard Wolff, and Helena Worthen.
The crisis was systemic. Technology amplified inequality. Corporate higher education rebranded rather than reformed. Adjunctification and labor precarity became normalized. Communities of color and working-class students suffered disproportionately.
Dehumanization emerged as a central theme. AI, automation, and robocolleges prioritized efficiency over mentorship, data over dialogue, and systems over human relationships. Rising anxiety, anomie, and alienation reflected the human toll.
“Rehumanization, mentorship, community, transparency, ethical accountability, and ecological awareness are essential to restore meaningful higher education.”
As higher education entered the Trump era, its future remained uncertain. Students, faculty, and communities faced fear under neoliberal policies, AI-driven monitoring, mass surveillance, litigation pressures, ultraconservative influence, climate crises, and financial speculation. Will universities reclaim their role as public goods, or continue as commodified services? The College Meltdown stands as a testament to those who resisted dehumanization and anti-intellectualism. It also calls for Quality of Life, ethical practice, mental well-being, environmental responsibility, and Rehumanization, ensuring education serves the whole person, not just the bottom line.
Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid. Doubleday, 2006.
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness. Penguin, 2017.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown, 2010.
Nelson, Alondra. Body and Soul. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Paucek, Chip. “2U and the Growth of OPMs.” EdSurge, 2021. link
Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Basic Books, 2010.
Alexander, Bryan. Academia Next. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.
U.S. Department of Education. “Closed School Information.” 2016–2020. link
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Student Debt Statistics, 2024. link
Wayback Machine Archive of College Meltdown Blog: link
Moral capital has become a contested currency in American public life. It is deployed by political elites to justify austerity, by campus executives to rationalize managerial authority, and by think tanks to discipline the working class. Yet moral capital also rises from below—from students building mutual-aid networks, from adjuncts organizing for fair wages, from communities confronting the harms universities have helped produce. In an era defined by climate peril, surveillance capitalism, and proliferating wars, the stakes of who controls moral capital—and who gets to exercise real agency—have never been higher.
At the center of this struggle lies a fraught psychological and sociological concept: locus of control. Higher education constantly toggles between narratives of internal control (grit, resilience, personal responsibility) and external control (the market, political pressures, funding cycles). Powerful actors encourage an internal locus of control when it shifts blame downward, and an external locus of control when it shields institutional failure. Students, staff, and faculty live suspended in this contradiction, expected to absorb the consequences of decisions made far above them.
Quality of Life—once peripheral to higher education policy—is now a defining moral issue. Students and workers contend with unstable housing, food insecurity, unsafe campuses, inaccessible mental health care, and relentless economic pressures. For many, these burdens are compounded by existential crises: climate anxiety, global conflicts, democratic backsliding, and precarity amplified by technological surveillance.
Institutions often portray these crises as personal challenges requiring self-management. But Quality of Life is not an individual moral failure; it is a metric of collective conditions. When a university community’s quality of life declines, it signals a profound imbalance between agency and structure—a distorted locus of control.
Universities have long crafted narratives that elevate their own moral standing while displacing responsibility onto individuals. The “grateful striver” student, the “self-sacrificing” adjunct, the “visionary” president—these tropes protect managerial systems from scrutiny and allow elites to accumulate moral capital even as Quality of Life deteriorates for everyone else.
This manufactured moral authority collapses under existential pressures. As campuses confront heatwaves, flooding, militarized policing, housing crises, widening wars, and state-sanctioned surveillance, it becomes impossible to sustain the fiction that individuals can simply “grit” their way to stability.
Moral capital is not owned by institutions. It can be reimagined, reclaimed, and reoriented. Four longstanding modes of internal discipline—temperance, celibacy, critical thinking, and solidarity—take on new urgency when placed in the context of planetary and political crisis.
Temperance
Temperance, stripped of its historical misuse, becomes a strategy of mindful refusal in the face of consumption-based exploitation. It includes rejecting burnout culture, resisting technological tools that monitor student behavior, and refusing to internalize blame for systemic failures. In an era of climate breakdown, temperance also signifies ecological responsibility—a modest but meaningful form of internal control aligned with global survival rather than institutional convenience.
Celibacy
Broadly interpreted, celibacy represents intentional self-limitation that protects one’s emotional and cognitive bandwidth. Amid surveillance-driven social media, algorithmic manipulation, and institutions that increasingly commodify student identity, celibacy can be a form of psychological sovereignty. It creates space for reflection in a world designed to keep people reactive, distracted, and easily governed.
Critical thinking remains the academy’s most subversive tradition—especially when deployed against the university itself. It helps students analyze the interplay between personal agency and systemic constraint. It equips them to understand climate injustice, militarism, and the geopolitics of knowledge production. And it exposes the ways mass surveillance—from learning analytics to campus police technologies—erodes autonomy and shifts the locus of control away from individuals and communities toward powerful institutions.
Solidarity transforms private moral commitments into collective action. It breaks the isolation manufactured by surveillance systems, precarity, and competitive academic cultures. Solidarity has historically been the source of the most effective nonviolent strategies—from civil rights sit-ins to anti-war mobilizations to student debt strikes. Today, as geopolitical conflicts escalate and authoritarian tendencies rise, the power of organized nonviolence becomes an existential necessity. It is one of the few tools capable of confronting militarized policing, resisting state repression, and challenging the corporate infrastructures that profit from crisis.
Nonviolent action remains a potent form of moral capital—and one of the most effective forms of collective agency. Research across conflicts shows that sustained, mass-based nonviolent movements often outperform violent struggles, especially against highly resourced opponents. For universities, which increasingly collaborate with defense contractors, data brokers, and state surveillance agencies, nonviolent resistance has become both a safeguard and a moral compass.
Sit-ins, teach-ins, encampments, divestment campaigns, and labor actions reassert external locus of control as something communities can influence—not by force, but by moral clarity, strategic discipline, and the refusal to comply with harmful systems.
Mass surveillance is now woven into the fabric of academic life. Learning management systems track student behavior down to the minute. Proctoring software uses biometrics to police exams. Campus police drones and public-private security networks feed data into law enforcement databases. Administrative dashboards quantify student “risk” and worker “efficiency” in ways that reshape institutional priorities.
This surveillance apparatus corrodes moral capital by reducing human judgment to automated metrics. It also distorts locus of control: individuals are told to take responsibility while being monitored and managed by opaque systems far beyond their influence.
Reclaiming agency requires dismantling or limiting these systems, demanding transparency, and reasserting human dignity in spaces now governed by algorithms.
Moral capital and locus of control are not academic abstractions. They are lived realities shaped by climate disruption, war, inequality, and surveillance. Higher education must stop using moral narratives to deflect responsibility and instead cultivate practices that reinforce real agency: temperance, celibacy, critical thinking, solidarity, and the disciplined power of nonviolent resistance.
In a world marked by existential threats, reclaiming moral capital from below is not simply an intellectual exercise—it is a condition for survival, and a pathway to collective liberation.
Sources
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
Erica Chenoweth & Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Astra Taylor, Democracy May Not Exist, but We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone
The United States faces a complex mix of economic, social, and environmental challenges that, if left unaddressed, could lead to a significant downturn. These challenges include ongoing financial speculation, escalating climate impacts, regulatory rollbacks, rising isolationism, expanding surveillance, immigration enforcement policies, tariff conflicts, and the shifting global balance with the rise of BRICS nations. Alongside these issues, the growing student debt crisis and institutional vulnerabilities compound the nation’s fragility.
Climate change has begun to have immediate effects, with increasing natural disasters disrupting communities and infrastructure. Reduced environmental regulations have intensified these risks, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations and increasing economic costs.
The rollback of regulatory protections in finance, environment, and education has allowed risky practices to grow while reducing oversight. This shift has raised the chances of economic shocks and deepened social inequalities.
Trade disputes and reduced international cooperation have weakened key economic and diplomatic relationships. At the same time, BRICS countries are expanding their influence, altering the global economic landscape in ways that require careful attention.
The expansion of surveillance programs and strict immigration enforcement have raised concerns about civil liberties and community trust. These pressures threaten the social cohesion needed to address larger systemic issues.
Recent reporting by the Higher Education Inquirer shows that the student debt crisis and speculative financial pressures in higher education mirror and magnify these broader challenges. The sector’s increasing reliance on debt financing not only affects students but also contributes to wider economic fragility (HEI 2025).
Earlier analysis emphasized that these trends were predictable outcomes of longstanding policy decisions and economic structures (HEI 2020).
Preventing a serious downturn requires coordinated action on multiple fronts. Strengthening regulations is necessary to reduce financial risks and protect consumers. Effective climate policies are essential, particularly those focused on vulnerable communities. Reforming higher education financing to reduce unsustainable debt burdens can ease economic pressures. Restoring international cooperation and fair trade practices will help rebuild economic and diplomatic relationships. Protecting civil rights and fostering social trust are crucial to maintaining social cohesion.
These issues are deeply interconnected and require comprehensive approaches.
Higher Education Inquirer, Let’s Pretend We Didn’t See It Coming...Again (June 2025): https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/06/lets-pretend-we-didnt-see-it-comingagain.html
Higher Education Inquirer, The US Working‑Class Depression: Let’s All Pretend We Couldn’t See It Coming (May 2020): https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2020/05/lets-all-pretend-we-couldnt-see-it.html
Federal Reserve, Consumer Credit Report, 2025
U.S. Department of Education, Student Loan Debt Statistics, 2025
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Sixth Assessment Report, 2023
Council on Foreign Relations, The BRICS and Global Power, 2024
In 2025, the landscape of higher education is dominated by contradictions, crises, and the relentless churn of what might be called “collegemania.” Underneath the polished veneer of university marketing—the glossy brochures, viral TikToks, and celebrity endorsements—lurks a network of systemic pressures that students, faculty, and society at large must navigate. The hashtags trending below the masthead of Higher Education Without Illusions capture the full spectrum of these pressures: #accountability, #adjunct, #AI, #AImeltdown, #algo, #alienation, #anomie, #anxiety, #austerity, #BDR, #bot, #boycott, #BRICS, #climate, #collegemania, #collegemeltdown, #crypto, #divest, #doomloop, #edugrift, #enshittification, #FAFSA, #greed, #incel, #jobless, #kleptocracy, #medugrift, #moralcapital, #nokings, #nonviolence, #PSLF, #QOL, #rehumanization, #resistance, #robocollege, #robostudent, #roboworker, #solidarity, #strikedebt, #surveillance, #temperance, #TPUSA, #transparency, #Trump, #veritas.
Taken together, these words map the terrain of higher education as it exists today: a fragile ecosystem strained by debt, automation, political polarization, and climate urgency. Students are increasingly treated as commodities (#robostudent, #strikedebt), faculty are underpaid and precarious (#adjunct, #medugrift), and universities themselves are subjected to the whims of markets and algorithms (#algo, #AImeltdown, #robocollege).
Financial pressures are unrelenting. The FAFSA system, once intended as a bridge to opportunity, now functions as a tool of surveillance and debt management (#FAFSA, #BDR). Public service loan forgiveness (#PSLF) continues to be delayed or denied, leaving graduates to navigate the twin anxieties of indebtedness and joblessness (#jobless, #doomloop). Meanwhile, austerity measures squeeze institutional budgets, often at the expense of research, mental health support, and academic freedom (#austerity, #anomie, #anxiety).
Automation and artificial intelligence are now central to the higher education ecosystem. AI grading tools, predictive enrollment algorithms, and administrative bots promise efficiency but often produce alienation and ethical dilemmas (#AI, #AImeltdown, #roboworker, #bot). In this context, “robocollege” is not a metaphor but a lived reality for many students navigating hyper-digitized classrooms where human mentorship is increasingly rare.
Political and cultural currents further complicate the picture. From the influence of conservative campus organizations (#TPUSA, #Trump) to global shifts in power (#BRICS), universities are battlegrounds for ideological and material stakes. Moral capital—the credibility and legitimacy of an institution—is increasingly intertwined with corporate sponsorships, divestment movements, and climate commitments (#moralcapital, #divest, #climate). At the same time, greed and kleptocracy (#greed, #kleptocracy) permeate administration and policy decisions, eroding trust in higher education’s social mission.
Yet amid this bleakness, there are threads of resistance and rehumanization. Student debt strikes, faculty solidarity networks, and advocacy for transparency (#strikedebt, #solidarity, #transparency, #rehumanization) reveal a persistent desire to reclaim the university as a space of collective flourishing rather than pure financial extraction. Nonviolence (#nonviolence), temperance (#temperance), and boycotts (#boycott) reflect strategic, principled responses to systemic crises, even as anxiety and alienation persist.
Ultimately, higher education without illusions demands that we confront both the structural and human dimensions of its crises. Universities are not just engines of credentialing and profit—they are social institutions embedded in broader networks of power, ideology, and technology. A recognition of #veritas and #QOL (quality of life) alongside the demands of #collegemania and #enshittification is essential for any hope of reform.
The hashtags are more than social media markers—they are diagnostics. They chart a system in flux, exposing the frictions between automation and humanity, austerity and access, greed and moral responsibility. They call on all of us—students, educators, policymakers, and citizens—to act with accountability, solidarity, and courage.
Higher education without illusions is not pessimism; it is clarity. Only by naming the pressures and contradictions can we begin to imagine institutions that serve human flourishing rather than perpetuate cycles of debt, alienation, and social inequality.
Sources & Further Reading:
An American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal
Medical Apartheid, Harriet Washington
Body and Soul, Alondra Nelson
HEI coverage of student debt, adjunct labor, and AI in higher education
At the Higher Education Inquirer, we’ve long tracked the creeping politicization, corporatization, and hollowing-out of American higher education. But we also know that some of the most important journalism in this space isn’t coming from cable news or legacy media—it’s being done by student reporters working late nights in underfunded college newsrooms.
That’s why we’re launching a new initiative: to amplify and highlight outstanding student journalism that exposes institutional failures, lifts up marginalized voices, and brings transparency to power.
We begin by spotlighting vital reporting from The Independent Florida Alligator, the student-run newspaper at the University of Florida.
In an August 7th article, "UF shuts down Office of Sustainability," student journalists revealed that UF has abruptly dismantled its Office of Sustainability. The decision was made quietly, with no input from students or faculty. The office had led the university’s efforts on climate action, environmental education, waste reduction, and green infrastructure.
The story goes far beyond campus housekeeping—it reflects a larger pattern of political interference under Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Programs tied to environmentalism, racial equity, and academic freedom have come under fire as part of a sweeping campaign to reshape public education into a vehicle for conservative ideology.
Staff from the sustainability office have reportedly been reassigned to facilities management, signaling a shift in priorities from systemic environmental change to mere operational efficiency. The message is clear: climate action is no longer a public commitment, but a liability.
This is happening in a state already suffering the consequences of climate change—rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, dangerous heat waves. Universities, especially public ones, should be at the forefront of scientific and civic leadership. Instead, they’re retreating. And student journalists are left to do the work that administrators won’t.
The Higher Education Inquirer is proud to support and amplify the work of student journalists who are holding institutions accountable. With shrinking professional newsrooms and growing institutional secrecy, student-run papers remain a critical watchdog in American higher education.
We encourage our readers to follow, share, and support publications like The Alligator. Their work is a public service—and they’re doing it with fewer resources and greater risks than many professionals.
We’ll be featuring more stories like this in the months ahead. If you’re a student journalist breaking news, blowing whistles, or investigating injustice in higher education, we want to hear from you.
Source:
The Independent Florida Alligator, August 7, 2025: “UF shuts down Office of Sustainability”
Social philosopher Herbert Spencer
was wrong in many respects when he coined the term survival of the fittest to discuss human behavior and Victorian social policies. But
social scientists would not be wrong today in comparing humans to other organisms, or to understanding (but not necessarily agreeing with) Spencer's application of survival of the fittest, especially as the guardrails of government and religion are weakened.
Humans may appear sophisticated in some ways, but we are animals, nevertheless. Many of the laws of human behavior are consistent with the laws of nature, despite commonly held beliefs about human civilization that seemingly make us different. Yet like other animals, humans are prone to disease and vulnerable to the environment. We can adapt to change, and survive using a variety of means which may comport to our values or cause cognitive dissonance. Humans imitate, innovate, manipulate, connive, and steal. Non-human organisms, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and more complex beings, like insects and rodents, can also adapt, and have so for millions of years, much longer than we have. We live in an ecosystem, and in communities. When other organisms thrive or die, it affects us.
This new social reality (or a return to older social realities) should become more apparent in the coming years as humans across the globe deal with a number of existential issues, including war, famine, and disease--and the human-induced climate change that will pour fuel on these issues. Not only must we reexamine Herbert Spencer, we must also reexamine Thomas Malthus and determine what aspects of his theories on population may be coming back to life, and what aspects may not be as relevant.
Related links:
The US Working-Class Depression: "Let's all pretend we couldn't see it coming."Over the past two weeks I carved out time to participate in two anti-Trump in-person events. In this post I wanted to share some notes on the experiences, along with photos.
Last Thursday, after the regular Future Trends Forum session, my son Owain and I went to a local town hall led by our federal representative, Democrat Suhas Subramanyam. It took place in a community center and was very crowded, packed with people. Before it began I didn’t hear much discussion, but did see some folks with anti-Trump and -Musk signs. I found some seats for Owain and I and we each opened up a Google Doc on our phones to take notes.
Subramanyam took the stage and began with some brief remarks, starting with citing the dangers of DOGE. He mentioned working in the United States Digital Service during the Obama administration, the unit which DOGE took over as its institutional base. Subramanyam described why he voted against the continuing resolution to keep the government running and also spoke to the humanitarian and governmental problems of firing so many federal workers.
Then it was over to questions. Folks lined up before two (somewhat functional) microphones. They told personal stories: of being lifelong federal workers, or having family members in those positions, and now facing their work being undone or their jobs ruined. Some spoke of depending on federal programs (SNAP, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) and fearing cuts to them. Several had military experience, which won applause from the room. Above all was this seething sense that Trump was a brutal and extraordinary threat, that Democrats weren’t taking it seriously, and the question: what can we do to fight back? Subramanyam listened hard to each one and answered thoughtfully, respectfully, often pointing to resources or actions we could take.
Ever the extrovert, I joined the microphone line right away. I was going
to ask about threats to higher education, but happily someone else beat
me to it. The representative offered a positive response, praising the
work of researchers and teachers, urging us to fight for educators. So,
standing in line, I came up with another question. When my turn came I
began by thanking the representative for actually doing a real town
hall meeting, not a scripted thing. I compared this meeting favorably to
Vermont’s town hall tradition, and mentioned Bernie Sanders as a
comparable example of someone who also knows how to do a community
meeting well, and the room erupted in applause.
So I asked about climate change, how we – academics and everyone – can do climate work in this situation. I noted how the crisis was worsening, and how Trump was going to make things even more difficult. I was impressed to have Subramanyam’s full attention while I spoke. I was equally impressed that he replied by supporting my remarks and work, then called for more climate action in the face of Trump’s actions.
Nobody got a photo of me that I know of, so here’s a shot of the representative (on right) paying close attention to one resident (standing on left).
(A sign of climate in culture today: people applauded my question. After I left the mic, several folks reached out to me – literally – to thank me for raising the topic.)
Returning to that question of what can be done to oppose Trump, Subramanyam and questioners listed these actions:
There were no calls for property damage or violence against people. Nor did anybody used the phrase “civil disobedience” or called for such actions.
The hour grew late and people started to drift out. Owain and I had to get home and we filed out as well.
Two weeks ago I joined a different event, a rally for science in Washington, DC. It took place at the Lincoln Memorial. Several thousand people were there, all ages, races, genders. The mood was upbeat despite the chill and strong winds.
A podium rested on the steps and from there spoke quite the program of luminaries, including Bill Nye (I missed him), Francis Collins (just stepped down as NIH head), Atul Gawande (excellent medical writer, also surgeon), Phil Plait (astronomer, science communicator), and some other people I didn’t recognize. There was some singing, too.
Dr. Gawande
The overall theme was that Trump’s science cuts were awful. Speakers hit on points under this header, such as that RFK was a dangerous idiot and that research reductions meant that human lives would be harmed and lost. Diversity along race and gender lines was vital. All kinds of science were mentioned, with medicine and public health leading the charge.
The consensus was on returning science funding to what it was under Biden, not in expanding it. There were no claims for adding scientific overviews to policy – it was a defensive, not offensive program.
There were plenty of signs. Some had a fine satirical edge:
Off to one side – well, down along the reflecting pool – there was an Extinction Rebellion performance or group appearance, but I didn’t get to see if they staged anything besides looking awesome and grim.
During the time I was there no police appeared. There weren’t any counterprotesters.
Eventually I had to start the trip home. As I walked along the reflecting pool towards the Metro station I heard speakers continuing and the roar of the appreciative crowd.
What can we take away from these two events?
There is a fierce opposition to Trump and it occurs across various sectors of society, from scientists to everyday folks (with some overlap!). Pro-Trump people didn’t appear, so I didn’t see arguments or worse between groups. I don’t know if this means that the president’s supporters are just confident or prefer to work online.
The Democratic party is not in a leadership role. Outrage precedes and exceeds its actions so far. The town hall liked Subramanyam, but it was clear they were bringing demands to him, and that he did not back the party leadership.
Both events had a strong positive feel, even though each was based on outrage. There was a sense of energy to be exerted, action to be had.
Many people visibly recorded each event, primarily through phones. I didn’t see anyone object to this. (I tried to get people’s permission to photograph them, when they were clearly identifiable individuals.)
My feel is that climate interest is waning among people who oppose Trump. They aren’t denying it and will support those who speak and act on it, but it’s no longer a leading concern.
Yet these were just two events, a very small sample size, and both in roughly the same geographic area, about 50 miles apart. We can’t seriously generalize from this evidence, but hopefully it’s a useful snapshot and sample.
Personally, I found both to be rewarding and supportive. It was good to be with people who were similarly outraged and willing to be so in public.
American readers, are you seeing anything similar in your areas? Non-Americans, what do you think of this glimpse?
[Editors note: This article first appeared at BryanAlexander.org.]
In 1929, when the stock market crashed, millions of Americans were plunged into unemployment, hunger, and despair. Yet the elites of Wall Street—whose reckless speculation fueled the disaster—often landed softly. By 1933, as the Great Depression deepened, nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, thousands of banks had failed, and working families bore the brunt of the collapse. Ordinary people endured soup lines, Dust Bowl migration, and generational poverty. The government of Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually stepped in with reforms and safeguards like the FDIC and Glass-Steagall, but not before working-class Americans had paid the heaviest price.
Fast forward to 2008, when the global financial system once again teetered on collapse. This time, instead of letting the failures run their course, the U.S. government rushed to bail out Wall Street banks, auto manufacturers, and other corporate giants deemed “too big to fail.” Banks survived, CEOs kept their bonuses, and investors were shielded. Meanwhile, millions of working-class families lost their homes, jobs, and savings. Student loan borrowers, particularly those from working-class and minority backgrounds, never got a bailout. Adjunct faculty, contract workers, and gig laborers were left to navigate economic insecurity without systemic relief.
The pandemic brought the same story in a new form. Corporate bailouts, Federal Reserve interventions, and stimulus packages stabilized markets far more effectively than they stabilized households. Wall Street bounced back faster than Main Street. By 2021, the wealth of America’s billionaires had surged by more than $1.8 trillion, while ordinary workers struggled with eviction threats, childcare crises, and medical debt.
But the stakes are even higher today. U.S. elites are not only repeating past mistakes—they are doubling down on mass speculation across Artificial Intelligence, crypto, real estate, and equity markets. The rise and collapse of speculative cryptocurrencies revealed how wealth can be created and destroyed almost overnight, with everyday investors bearing the losses while venture capitalists and insiders cashed out early. Real estate speculation has driven housing prices beyond the reach of millions of working families, fueling homelessness and displacement. Equity markets, inflated by cheap debt and stock buybacks, have become disconnected from the real economy, rewarding executives while leaving workers behind.
This speculative frenzy is not just an economic issue—it is an environmental one. Artificial Intelligence requires enormous data farms that use lots of energy. Fossil fuel corporations and their financiers continue to reap profits from industries that accelerate climate change, deforestation, and resource depletion. The destruction of ecosystems, the intensification of climate disasters, and the burden of environmental cleanup all fall disproportionately on working-class and marginalized communities. Yet when markets wobble, it is these same polluting elites who position themselves first in line for government protection.
The Federal Reserve has played a decisive role in this cycle. By keeping interest rates artificially low for years, it fueled debt-driven speculation in housing, equities, and corporate borrowing. When inflation spiked, the Fed shifted gears, raising rates at the fastest pace in decades. This brought pain to households through higher mortgage costs, rising credit card balances, and job insecurity—but banks and investment firms continued to receive lifelines through emergency lending facilities. The Fed’s interventions have too often prioritized elite stability over working-class survival.
Political leadership has compounded the problem. Under Donald Trump's first term, deregulation accelerated, with key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act rolled back in 2018. Banks gained greater leeway to take risks, and oversight of mid-sized institutions weakened—a decision that later contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. Trump’s tax cuts overwhelmingly favored corporations and the wealthy, further concentrating wealth at the top while leaving the federal government less able to respond to future crises. In his second term, Trump and his allies signal that they would pressure the Fed to prioritize markets over workers and strip down remaining regulatory guardrails.
The logic of endless bailouts assumes that the survival of elites ensures the survival of the economy. But history proves otherwise. Whether in 1929, 2008, or 2020, the repeated subsidization of corporations and financial elites entrenches inequality, fuels reckless risk-taking, and leaves working families with the bill. The banks, crypto funds, and private equity firms that profit most during boom times rarely share their gains, yet they demand protection in busts.
And the problem is no longer just domestic—it is geopolitical. While U.S. elites depend on bailouts, rival powers are recalibrating. China is building alternative banking systems through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia, sanctioned by the West, is tightening its economic ties with China and other non-Western states. India and Brazil, key players in the BRICS bloc, are exploring alternatives to U.S. dollar dominance. If the U.S. continues to subsidize private failure with public money, it risks undermining its own global credibility and ceding economic leadership to rivals.
National security is directly tied to economic and environmental stability. A U.S. that repeatedly bails out elites while leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable erodes trust not only at home but abroad. Allies may question American leadership, while adversaries see opportunity in its fragility. If the U.S. financial system is perceived as permanently rigged—propping up elites while disempowering its workforce—it will accelerate the shift of global influence toward China, Russia, India, and Brazil.
Perhaps it’s time to let the system fail—not in the sense of mass suffering for ordinary people, but in the sense of refusing to cushion elites from the consequences of their own decisions. If banks gamble recklessly, let them face bankruptcy. If private equity firms strip-mine industries, let them collapse under their own weight. If universities chase speculative growth with predatory lending and overpriced credentials, let them answer for it in the courts of law and public opinion.
Failure, though painful, can also be cleansing. Without bailouts, institutions would be forced to reckon with structural flaws instead of papering them over. Alternatives could emerge: community-based credit unions, worker-owned cooperatives, public higher education funded for the public good rather than private profit, and serious investment in green energy and sustainable development.
The real question is not whether elites deserve another bailout. The real question is whether the United States can afford to keep subsidizing them while undermining its working class, its environment, and its national security. For too long, workers, students, and families have shouldered the costs of elite failure. The survival of the U.S. economy—and its place in the world—may depend not on saving elites, but on building something stronger and fairer in their place.
Sources:
Congressional Budget Office, The 2008 Financial Crisis and Federal Response
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Bank Failures During the Great Depression
Institute for Policy Studies, Billionaire Wealth Surge During COVID-19
Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy and Emergency Lending Facilities
Brookings Institution, Bailouts and Moral Hazard
BRICS Policy Center, Alternative Financial Governance Structures
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report
National Association of Realtors, Housing Affordability Data
Public Law 115-174, Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (2018)
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) brands itself as a conservative youth movement dedicated to free markets and limited government. In reality, a growing body of investigative reporting, watchdog research, and student testimony reveals an organization built on intimidation, manipulation, and close ties to extremists. Students should be aware of the risks before engaging with TPUSA in any capacity.
From its inception, TPUSA has sought to be confrontational. One of its most notorious tools, the Professor Watchlist, publishes the names, photos, and alleged offenses of professors the group deems “anti-conservative.” This public shaming campaign has been condemned by educators and civil liberties advocates as a threat to academic freedom and personal safety. In more recent years, TPUSA has expanded its targets beyond individual professors, with initiatives like the School Board Watchlist, designed to stir distrust of public education and stoke fear around diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
These campaigns are paired with questionable political tactics. Investigations have shown that TPUSA has engaged in covert influence efforts on college campuses, including secretly funding student government elections and running coordinated online disinformation campaigns. Their political arm, Turning Point Action, has been compared to a troll farm for its use of deceptive social media operations.
The group’s leadership and chapters have repeatedly been linked to white supremacist and far-right extremist figures. TPUSA events have hosted or associated with members of Nick Fuentes’ “Groyper” movement, Holocaust deniers, and other alt-right personalities. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League, and multiple journalists have documented these associations, which TPUSA leaders routinely downplay. Internal communications and leaked chapter messages have exposed racist, homophobic, and Islamophobic rhetoric from members. Charlie Kirk, TPUSA’s founder, once falsely claimed that a Black woman had “taken his place” at West Point, a statement criticized as both untrue and racially inflammatory.
TPUSA’s messaging also extends beyond politics into science denial. The group has repeatedly dismissed the scientific consensus on climate change, framing environmental concerns as a hoax or left-wing scare tactic, and hosting events that platform climate change skeptics over credible experts. TPUSA has received significant funding from fossil fuel interests, including Koch network-affiliated donors, and from political megadonors such as Foster Friess and Rebekah Mercer, who are known for underwriting climate denial campaigns. Other key allies include right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and media figures such as Tucker Carlson, who have amplified TPUSA’s messaging to broader audiences. The organization has also benefitted from support by religious nationalist groups and political operatives who share its hardline positions on education, race, and gender.
TPUSA’s confrontational model often invites chaos. At UC Davis, a TPUSA-sponsored event erupted into physical clashes involving Proud Boys. Across campuses, students and faculty report that TPUSA representatives deliberately provoke heated exchanges, record them, and circulate the footage to mobilize their base and fundraise off manufactured outrage. Former members have confirmed that such confrontations are not accidental, but rather part of the playbook.
While TPUSA presents itself as a mainstream conservative voice, the evidence paints a darker picture: an organization willing to distort, harass, and align with extremists to achieve its goals. Students seeking honest political debate should look for groups that engage in respectful dialogue, value truth over theatrics, and reject intimidation as a tool.
Sources:
Southern Poverty Law Center – Turning Point USA: Case Study in the Hard Right
Media Matters – Turning Point USA’s History of Racism and White Nationalist Ties
The New Yorker – A Conservative Nonprofit That Seeks to Transform College Campuses Faces Allegations of Racial Bias and Illegal Campaign Activity
Anti-Defamation League – Extremism in American Politics: Turning Point USA
Wired – How Charlie Kirk Plans to Discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act
Chron – Texas A&M Turning Point Chat Exposes Racist and Homophobic Comments
The Guardian – What I Learned When Turning Point USA Came to My Campus
OpenSecrets – Turning Point USA Donors and Political Funding
DeSmog – Turning Point USA and Fossil Fuel Industry Influence
The "disrupters" (21st century robber barons) have enabled an alienating and anomic system that is highly dysfunctional for most of the planet, using "algorithms of oppression." And this cannot be solved with data alchemy, marketing, and other forms of sophistry.
Put down your iPhone for a minute and ponder these rhetorical questions:
Warm Koolaid (2016) signified corporate America's use of myths and distractions to sedate the masses.
Who will hear the warnings and do something constructive for our future? Or is this Covid crisis another opportunity for the rich to cash in on the tragedy?
"An economy based on mass deception, exploitation, degradation and oppression, violence, war, and massive environmental destruction...is unsustainable."
