Progs have abandoned progressivism, Columbia's ‘message of hope' and other commentary

New York Post

13 hours ago

Liberal: Progs Have Abandoned Progressivism
'Today's progressives aren't really progressive in the true sense of the term,' contends The Liberal Patriot's Ruy Teixeira.
'The quintessential moral commitment of midcentury progressives was to make American society truly colorblind.'
Now, progs 'favor color-conscious remedies like affirmative action.'
They view 'merit and objective measures of achievement . . . with suspicion.'
Progressives used to be steadfast defenders of free speech,' but now, they inflate free expression 'with 'violence' and 'harm' and making people feel 'unsafe.''
And they 'prize goals like fighting climate change, procedural justice, and protecting identity groups above prosperity.'
'So can today's progressives be considered 'progressive' when they don't really support free speech, cultural pluralism and the open society? They cannot and voters, especially working class voters, are unlikely to consider them so.'
Campus watch: Columbia's 'Message of Hope'
'Because Trump took a stand — and took the heat from progressives and the news media — things may finally change for the better at Columbia,' prays USA Today's Nicole Russell.
'Columbia University has agreed to pay [a] $200 million fine to the federal government to settle accusations that the school failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism on campus.'
Trump was 'standing against a culture on university campuses that promoted progressive values to the exclusion of dissenting opinions': 'Conservative students were shunned. And Jewish students were targeted because of Israel's defense of its citizens.'
'Institutions that accept taxpayer dollars must be held accountable.'
'This is a win for Trump, a scathing reprimand of higher education and a message of hope for American Jews.'
Economy: Middle Class' Historic Gains
'Six months into his second term, President Donald Trump is delivering on his promise to create another middle-class economic boom,' cheers W.J. Lee at the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Indeed, 'a new Treasury Department report reveals that middle-class and blue-collar workers are experiencing real-wage gains not seen in nearly 60 years': From December 2024 to May 2025, average hourly earnings for middle-class workers rose 1.7%, outpacing inflation.
That 'translates to the most impressive half-year real-wage gain at the outset of a presidency' since Richard Nixon's 0.8% increase almost six decades ago.
'The only other time it came close to that? Eight years ago, during Trump's first term.'
From the right: Climate Alarms Fall Flat
'The climate alarmists regularly seize on weather events they believe will help them exploit their narrative' but 'ignore contradictory information,' quips the Issues & Insights editorial board.
Examples? 'The Northwest Passage is experiencing its third-highest level of sea ice extent in the last two decades,' despite Al Gore's 2009 warning that 'the Arctic polar ice cap could be gone during summer within five to seven years.'
Similarly, 'efforts to attribute the deadly Texas flood . . . to human carbon dioxide emissions have been debunked,' and though 'a Tampa, Fla., meteorologist blamed 'climate change' . . . for 90-degree days having doubled in the city,' the average number of days reaching 95°F or higher in the state of Florida has not increased since 1895.
Science beat: Fund University Research Locally
'Given the Trump administration's funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the US must rethink how it endows innovation at American universities,' argue Thomas D. Lehrman and George Gilder at The Wall Street Journal.
Publicly funded university research 'has fostered such innovations as the Global Positioning System, cancer therapies, recombinant DNA, and magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.'
That history shows that 'US technological leadership depends on creativity from our campuses.' States looking 'to lead in research and innovation should follow the school-choice playbook and establish a class of nonprofit organizations.'
It falls on state leaders to support and 'accelerate the scientific research essential to competing with global rivals and inventing lifesaving technologies.'
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board