In the peak-woke madness of the Floyd summer, some prominent journalists decided to declare war on the goal of “objectivity.” The conditions of “white supremacy,” as defined by critical race theory, demanded “moral clarity” rather than both-sides fairness, they argued. The myth of balance was, in fact, itself a manifestation of “whiteness.” And so we were subjected to a “paradigm shift” in which news stories became merely daily illustrations of how “white supremacy” operates. Everything was parsed in that narrative.
The declaration of a single, illiberal, totalist ideology in a formerly liberal space — the worst was the NYT’s 1619 Project, a critical race theory production — was not solely restricted to the media, of course. Corporate America and the universities — especially the Ivy League — followed.
The Ivies supported race and sex discrimination as a moral cause for the same reason that Wesley Lowery wanted CRT journalism: because “white supremacy” made it necessary; they removed due process from men accused of sexual harassment because of “structural misogyny”; in the humanities, they hired faculty to the left of the left until the conservatives still teaching in the Ivies could fit into an ADA bathroom. Then, two years ago, this toxic indoctrination produced its usual fruit: a violent orgy of anti-semitism, in part enabled by the faculty and administrators.
After all that, how are the press and the Ivies doing?
The media had a 40 percent approval rating in 2020; now it’s 28 percent — the lowest percentage Gallup has ever reported. Ditto the universities: public approval was 57 percent in Gallup’s survey in 2015 before crashing to 36 percent in 2023, followed by a slight rebound. The Ivy League polls even lower: around 15 percent of the public say they trust them in a recent survey. In another, 28 percent of Americans regarded them as “the enemy”!
This, it seems to me, is the key context for the Trump administration’s illiberal moves this year. One reason Trump has gotten away with his strongman use of lawsuits (against newspapers) and the leverage of federal funds (against the Ivies and others) is that the public has come to distrust these institutions as well, and sees no urgent need to come to their defense. It cannot be stressed enough how a huge number of institutions critical to liberal democracy did most of the damage to themselves. Not that they are able to admit it.
Can that justify Trump’s bullying? I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as I’d like it to be. In many ways, it’s a classic test for someone like me: does maintaining liberal democracy need government to step in and be illiberal sometimes? In an ideal world, the government would have no say in how universities decide to run themselves, or what newspapers print. But in the world we actually live in, after the woke capture of both the media and universities we just lived through, I don’t think it’s so simple.
I was reminded of Lowery’s “moral clarity” argument reading Jonathan Last’s breathless celebration this week of the Bulwark hiring a columnist from the WaPo. Money quote:
Once authoritarianism shows up to the party, there can be only two kinds of media:
Propaganda that is sanctioned by the regime
Independent media that exists to see the authoritarian project ended.
There is no third way. Eventually, every media institution will have to choose a side.
Really? The “third way,” after all, is our sacred and rare inheritance: liberal democracy. For the media, that means trying to discover the empirical truth about the world, using every source available, offering readers a variety of opinion, subjecting all sides to scrutiny. For universities, it means absolute freedom of speech on campus, a curriculum that has many viewpoints within it, and a faculty as ideologically diverse as possible.
Like Lowery in 2020, Last seems to believe this is no longer possible in 2025 because the stakes are too high: you cannot subject both the right and the left to scrutiny when the right is engaged in an authoritarian coup. It’s a version of the universities’ argument: under “white supremacy,” it’s impossible to use simple merit in admissions or to allow open debate in class — because the structure of society is already structurally rigged for oppression against “marginalized groups.”
And I understand where Last is coming from. Trump truly is dangerous, as you’ll see from my chat with Michael Wolff this week. But I think Last surrenders far too much at this moment. Turning every media outlet into an anti-Trump machine, when he just won an election and is supported by 40 percent of the country, will not save the press. It would, I suspect, rather intensify the collapse in trust.
It’s fashionable to say that we are in a “post-liberal” moment, or that liberal democracy has disappeared. I’ve done so myself in some contexts. But liberal democracy is, above all, an act of will; and the same essential structures that support it remain: a First Amendment, a vibrant private sector, the separation of powers, an independent judiciary. These cannot work as designed if we wage tribal war on each other, as we are. But they are still there. They can still be used for their original purpose with their authentic liberal spirit.
And the truth is that the media is eminently fixable, and our job as journos is to fix it. If we already had, none of this would be happening. That’s why Bari Weiss matters at CBS, and why I am praying she pulls it off. It’s also why Bezos is right to rebrand the WaPo and bring in more intellectually diverse columnists; and why getting NPR off federal funding is important — so it no longer propagandizes on our dime. In my view, these are positive developments — even if they are rooted in Trump’s re-election.
If Bari et al. can return to mainstream media and make it less polarized and more empirical, it will be a mitzvah for the republic. We need these institutions. I’ve never believed that the old blogosphere, or YouTube, or the new Substack, could replace them. They matter. And as long as Bari understands that while both sides deserve scrutiny, only one is in power right now, and that is therefore where the main focus must be, she’ll succeed. It is vital she shows her anti-Trump mettle as well as her opposition to wokeness. If we are to regain liberal democracy, it will not be by continuing to one-side everything. It will be by guiding these institutions back to public respect.
The same applies to elite universities. I was prepared to be horrified by Trump’s memo of conditions for future federal funding, sent to nine institutions. But I wasn’t. The demands make sense: ending race discrimination in admissions and hiring (already illegal); ensuring intellectual and ideological diversity; mandatory SATs and grade transparency — anonymized, of course; tuition fees held steady for five years; an end to the gender madness; and foreigners capped at 15 percent of the student body.
I don’t like one provision: shutting down departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” That would remove critical theory entirely. Better to argue that all humanities departments need to have at least one professor not in the critical theory cult, as a small step to restore an atmosphere of inquiry rather than ideology. Or in the worst woke madrassas, maybe a separate body, like Robbie George’s at Princeton, could work. I fail to see how this is more authoritarian than the Biden and Obama administrations’ imposition of gender ideology by fiat. It is designed to open up debate, not close it.
Do I wish it hadn’t come to this? Absolutely. But ridding the media of one-note wokeness, and demanding universities pursue merit and excellence rather than discrimination and “equity,” do not mark a slide into authoritarianism. It’s not a violation of the First Amendment. Anyone who accepts federal funding has already placed themselves accountable to the broader American public. What’s happening now is just that: accountability.
And the hope is that these initiatives might just keep the flame of liberal democracy flickering until this toxic period is past us. The only way to save liberal democracy is not to accept that it’s over, and go to war against the authoritarians of one side. That merely entrenches authoritarianism.
It is to practice it — and remind people of the extraordinary inheritance it contains.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: an examination of Trump’s psyche with Michael Wolff; a brief note on the Gaza ceasefire; many reader dissents on immigration; more dissents over the pods on alcoholism and trans ideology; 10 notable quotes from the week in news; 19 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of a dreamy French song; a residential window in Brooklyn; and the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a longtime Dishhead who just started paying: “I’ve been following you since watching you debate Harvey Mansfield in Sanders Theater ... a long time ago.” Why another just subscribed:
The Dish is one of the few sane publications left that will state the truth, which is that the radical left and right are equally terrible in their own unique way. Two sides of the same worthless coin.
The Ceasefire In Gaza
It’s fantastic news that the Israeli hostages may soon be released. I cannot imagine the ordeal they have endured these past two years — or the suffering of their families. And, on the face of it, this looks like a serious Hamas climb-down, facilitated by Trump’s pressure in Qatar, after Israel bombed them. So great news and a real feather in the cap for Trump. But it’s wiser to wait till next week — to see how this plays out on the ground — for anything more than a quick reaction. See you then.
Back On The Dishcast: Michael Wolff
Michael is a media critic and author. He’s been a columnist for New York magazine, Vanity Fair, British GQ, the Hollywood Reporter, and the Guardian. Among his many books include four on Donald Trump — the third one we covered on the Dishcast, and the latest was All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America. He also co-hosts the podcast “Inside Trump’s Head.” This week we unpack the president’s unique pathology.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on Trump’s closest lackeys, and examples of the best resistance to Trump. That link also takes you to a lot of great response to our pods with Katie Herzog on alcoholism and Wesley Yang on gender ideology. We also hear from a bunch of readers debating the state of the left in the US and the UK.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Charles Murray on finding religion, Karen Hao on AI, Michel Paradis on Eisenhower, David Ignatius on the Trump effect globally, Mark Halperin on the domestic front, and Arthur Brooks on the science of happiness. As always, please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
I found myself cringing at your statement on “non-white” immigration — something that feels like it’s creeping in to your thesis more and more. Obviously, skin color is the most visible and immediate way that a native notices the differences around him or her, but this observation is a reaction of our reptilian brains and should not be encouraged.
This is not to downplay the truth of your concerns around the negative effects of overwhelming rates of immigration to the West. It is a plainly obvious that there are limits to the numbers of immigrants that a society can absorb without suffering disruption and while maintaining its culture. But these limits are, or should be, independent of whether the immigrants are European Ashkenazi Jews or Christian Somalis. To imply otherwise is, by definition, racist.
That is actually my point: “skin color is the most visible and immediate way that a native notices the differences around him or her.” That’s simply an empirical fact with deep evolutionary roots: we’re tribal in our DNA and designed to find novelty or difference frightening. It’s what kept our hunter-gatherer ancestors alive. And so it is mere prudence, not bigotry, to take the reptilian side into account when in government.
Read the rest of my response here, along with three more dissents. Further criticism is on the pod page. Please keep it coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as the shutdown, troops in US cities, and slavery discourse. Examples:
Bethel McGrew honors the young victims of the Nova pogrom, including a girl with cerebral palsy.
If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. Here’s the entry last week from our VFYW chef:
This view brought back so many memories of our time in France: two full-year sabbaticals plus numerous summer visits. We are a few minutes’ walk from the Musée du Louvre, which has some wonderful food paintings by the 18th century painter Jean Siméon Chardin:
The one on the left is one of my favorite paintings of all time. I remember standing before it, taking in the rich and luminous folded flesh of the salmon. The middle painting of a pile of strawberries is a recent acquisition from a private collection, and the one on the right inspired daughter no. 1 to go down a brioche rabbit hole, as explained below.
Honoring memory, I went back even further to the first cookbook I owned, Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, where I found a recipe for cold salmon loin with Montpelier butter, a rich puree of butter, tarragon, parsley, chervil, chives, shallots, cornichon, anchovies, capers, garlic, egg yolks, olive oil, and vinegar. The Chop Shop had a whole Ōra King Salmon (“the Wagyu beef of fish”) which I could not resist buying and breaking down with the help of many YouTube videos and a sharp knife:
Inspired by the pile of strawberries, I found another recipe from Elizabeth David for fromage à la crème, with the following warning:
On no account must this lovely sweet … be despoiled of [its] cool cream and white beauty by the addition of any trimming or irrelevant decoration. In the season, however, a mound of fresh strawberries or raspberries, or an uncooked purée of either, can accompany the cream cheese …
Meanwhile, daughter no. 1 was busy researching brioche in The Breadbaker’s Apprentice. There were three versions — for the rich, the middle class, and the poor — mostly distinguished by the amount of butter they used. So of course we chose the rich, although she and her husband later did some research to find out that Chardin was a champion of the middle class. Apparently, still lives were shunned by the hoity-toity in favor of grand historical paintings. We started out the meal with a selection of French cheeses, followed by the divine combination of cold poached salmon loin and Montpelier butter, finishing with the fromage à la crème, strawberries, and brioche:
Last weekend was the anniversary of the devastation of Hurricane Helene. Eda Rhyne, the distillery I paid homage to in contest #438 in Asheville, was selling some of their barrel-aged whiskey salvaged from the 10 feet of water that flooded their building, shown on the right above. The label says “fill date 3/20, dump date 6/25”—through the pandemic and the catastrophe. We made Manhattans from it.
The town is coming back. The Grand Marquee just reopened, and Foundation Woodworks, owned by our neighbors Mark and Jacqueline, just moved back into their original location. The breadboard holding the cheese in the photo above was made by Mark.
