→ Confidence in US universities continues to nosedive
Universities’ role as the nerve centre of the country’s culture wars has not helped with their popularity. According to Gallup, only a third of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, down from 57% in 2015. Amid disruptive campus protests and numerous high-profile antisemitism scandals and plagiarism accusations — one resulting in the resignation of Harvard’s president — it’s no wonder they’re struggling with their image.
The decline in confidence has been driven by Republicans, among whom support for higher education fell from 56% in 2015 to 20% in the present. Respondents’ leading concern was higher education’s political agenda. Will the kids be alright?
→ Over-65s keeping Tories alive
“Zero seats!” was the call from young Right-wingers who wanted the Tories to suffer for their incompetence. As the post-mortem of last week’s general election continues, polling data shows that, if you exclude over-65s, the Conservative Party may have been close to a total wipeout.
Polling from Lord Ashcroft shows that the Tories only beat Labour in the pensioner age group (with 38%), mustering well below a third of the vote in every other category. Rishi Sunak’s party did particularly poorly among 25-36-year-olds, claiming just 10% of the vote.
Take out over-65s vote and I suspect the Tories were indeed on zero seats. The Green Party also seemingly beat them among under 45s. pic.twitter.com/QcBIidswBm
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) July 8, 2024
Labour beat the Tories among both men and women by a 10-point margin while Reform did slightly better among men, with 16% compared to 12% for women. But for an ageing population, zero seats might well have come true. The Tories should be grateful for the miracle of modern medicine…
→ The Patriot Front: feds in disguise?
A neo-Nazi hate group went viral over the weekend after marching in Nashville, but many on the American Right suspect that the march was a sting operation run by federal agents.
I’ve never heard of this group
Any chance this is a false flag operation? pic.twitter.com/bxhUCA7fXv
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 7, 2024
Patriot Front members, who wear matching khakis, polo shirts and identity-obscuring masks, are too uniform to be an organic far-Right hate group, some have argued. Republican Senator Mike Lee suggested the group was part of a false flag operation, an argument Right-wingers on X have been making years. Indeed, last year podcast host Joe Rogan raised similar concerns, asking: “Where’s the fat people? [sic]”
A viral clip of such an incident highlights the stark difference in appearance between the Patriot Front and other American far-Right groups: the Proud Boys wore jeans, t-shirts with sleeves cut off, and the occasional mullet, while several were noticeably overweight. Patriot Front members, on the other hand, were uniformly slim. Can’t a far-Right group be in good shape?
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SubscribeThe decline in support for universities is being driven by Republicans? Wouldn’t it be universities themselves that are driving the lack of trust?
The decline in support for universities is probably being driven by climate change.
I can guarantee that argument is actually being made!
I would only send my kid to a Catholic university where Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ “Final Causality”, the end or purpose of things are taught. That is the link with the possibility of sanity in the west as Dr. Ed Feser showed nicely in his response to the new atheist babbling incoherence. Postmodernism defines unintelligibility and incoherence in action. Modern universities leave people not just stupid, but insane.
Aristotle vs. Kant with professor Peter Kreeft https://youtu.be/MozdG1-dFlo
…. an argument Right-wingers on X have been making *for* years… I wonder if Unherd staff are taught prepositions at their universities.
The use of prepositions in Universities has declined from 57% in 2015 to a bleak 36% 2024.
Oh dear! What is so infuriating is that, if experience of similar grammatical aberrations is anything to go by, those of us who do continue to use prepositions will initially be seen as outdated (not too fussed about that) but then as ill educated!
We need to prepare our positions in advance.
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