The breadth of the President Donald Trump regime’s assault on our freedoms is staggering. His closing down of Voice of America, cutting funding to NPR and PBS, deportation of green card holders (without due process), weaponizing the Department of Justice and his extortion of colleges and universities (to name a few) is a harbinger of things to come.
Periodic nationwide protests are starting to take place. However, what’s interesting about these protests is the lack of young participants. Those taking to the streets are baby boomers who have experienced government excess in the past (i.e., The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, The Chicago Seven, etc.). They protested during the Vietnam War and are protesting again.
Considering that Trump’s attacks on our freedoms will affect the young more than the old, our institutions of higher learning should be erupting in protest. Where is it? To paraphrase a famous quote by Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and students] to do nothing.”
There is a song titled “Compliance” by Muse that, if you listen to the lyrics, is a perfect description of what the Supreme Leader [Trump] wants from his students. However, another song by Muse, titled “Uprising,” should be your anthem.
Scott Nichols
1979
Scott Nichols graduated from Miami University in 1979 with a degree in accounting and finance. He is from Portsmouth, Ohio. After graduation, Nichols joined the Peace Corps and later the FBI as an accountant. After five years, he transferred to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Office of Inspector General. After retiring from USAID, he took a job with Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, conducting internal investigations. He now sends letters to the editor of his alma mater, and he also publishes a daily news summary for his children and their friends titled, “The Cranky Dad News.”
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