Feb
23
2026

It's a Tooth For a Tooth and an Eye For an Eye, and a "V" for a V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

Yes, I looked up the lyrics to the "V for Villanova" Fight Song. It's very feral! And faculty member Gabriel Rockhill says the quiet part out loud in this "new to me" 2016 video:

Stu Smith's synopsis:

Use the university in every way, shape, and form” — Villanova professor calls academia a “Trojan horse” to “advance our cause.”

Listen to Gabriel Rockhill, a professor at @VillanovaU , describe using the university as a Trojan horse for political organizing and ideological training.

Rockhill frames higher ed as a tactical site for “counter-hegemonic” work, cites his own Critical Theory Workshop, and then makes the end goal unmistakable.

“We need to go in a socialist direction” to build what he praises elsewhere as a socialist “intellectual apparatus” like the ones in Cuba and China, because that’s where he says you get the “real state power necessary to fully educate the people.”

For the record, Rockhill's words here are protected expression, he shouldn't be fired, but geez, what parent would want their kid to go to Villanova (Undergrad Tuition and Fees around $74K) just to be Trojan-Horse indoctrinated by this guy and his ilk?

Ah well, at least Rockhill's being honest. I assume for every Rockhill, there are ten or so facules at Villanova and elsewhere who agree with him and manage to not say the quiet part out loud.

Also of note:

  • Another good question. And it's from Noah Smith, who wonders: Does anyone know why we're still doing tariffs?

    What was the point of these tariffs? It has never really been clear. Trump’s official justification was that they were about reducing America’s chronic trade deficit. In fact, the initial “Liberation Day” tariffs were set according to a formula based on America’s bilateral trade deficits with various countries.1 But trade deficits are not so easy to banish, and although America’s trade deficit bounced around a lot and shifted somewhat from China to other countries, it stayed more or less the same overall:

    Economists don’t actually have a good handle on what causes trade deficits, but whatever it is, it’s clear that tariffs have a hard time getting rid of them without causing severe damage to the economy. Trump seemed to sense this when stock markets fell and money started fleeing America, which is why he backed off on much of his tariff agenda.

    Trump also seemed to believe that tariffs would lead to a renaissance in American manufacturing. Economists did know something about that — namely, they recognized that tariffs are taxes on intermediate goods, and would therefore hurt American manufacturing more than they helped. The car industry and the construction industry and other industries all use steel, so if you put taxes on imported steel, you protect the domestic market for American steel manufacturers, but you hurt all those other industries by making their inputs more expensive.

    And guess what? The economists were right. […]

    (Note: clicking on the graph will take you to FRED, where you can examine the data for yourself.)

    So the answer to Noah's question? After more graphs and speculation, his best guess rings true to me:

    […] the explanation I find most convincing is power. If all Trump wanted was to kick out against global trade, the Section 122 tariffs and all the other alternatives would surely suffice. Instead, he was very specifically attached to the IEEPA tariffs that SCOTUS struck down. Those tariffs allowed Trump to levy tariffs on specific countries, at rates of his own choosing, as well as to grant specific exemptions. That gave Trump an enormous amount of negotiating leverage with countries that value America’s big market.

    This is the kind of personal power that no President had before Trump. It allowed him to conduct foreign policy entirely on his own. It allowed him to enrich himself and his family. It allowed him to gain influence domestically, by holding out the promise of tariff exemptions for businesses that toe his political line. And it allowed him to act as a sort of haphazard economic central planner, using tariffs like a scalpel to discourage the kinds of trade and production that he didn’t personally like.

    Unfortunately, Trump fans kind of dig his power trip, man.

  • I'm picturing Congress in Frankenstein's lab… George Will says: Stand back, Congress needs a second Supreme Court jolt. (WaPo gifted link)

    By curtailing the president regarding tariffs, the Supreme Court on Friday perhaps applied a defibrillator to Congress. Its weak contemporary heartbeat threatens the constitutional architecture of powers separated, checked and balanced. But Congress’s fluttering pulse requires a stronger jolt than last week’s 6-3 decision. It addressed only part of the problem that Congress has created by behavior that fuels today’s rampant presidency.

    By curtailing the president regarding tariffs, the Supreme Court on Friday perhaps applied a defibrillator to Congress. Its weak contemporary heartbeat threatens the constitutional architecture of powers separated, checked and balanced. But Congress’s fluttering pulse requires a stronger jolt than last week’s 6-3 decision. It addressed only part of the problem that Congress has created by behavior that fuels today’s rampant presidency.

    The MQD, which the court created, summons Congress to seriousness about its primacy in our constitutional system, and about the craft of legislating. It says that if Congress intends to surrender to the executive some powers with substantial political or economic consequences, Congress must clearly say so.

    But the MQD entails, as a primary consideration, something the court has been dilatory about elaborating and timid about enforcing: a nondelegation doctrine. That is, criteria for deciding when Congress may properly divest itself, however eagerly it wants to, of powers the Constitution vests in it.

    GFW goes on to point out Justice Gorsuch's lonely advocacy of nondelegation. (And sadly, Amy Coney Barrett's attack on it.)

  • Is there any awful thing Trump can't make awfuler? I mentioned Susan Rice's advocacy of escalating lawfare if/when Democrats get back into power yesterday. Matthew Hennessey, in the WSJ's "Free Expression" newsletter notes some retaliation: Trump Fries Susan Rice. (WSJ gifted link)

    On Saturday, Mr. Trump took to his Truth Social platform to urge Netflix to remove Susan Rice from its board:

    Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences. She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

    Ms. Rice, in case you’ve forgotten, is a Democratic Party stalwart. She was Barack Obama’s first-term U.N. ambassador and second-term national security adviser. She led Joe Biden’s domestic policy council. She was a member of Netflix’s board of directors 2018-20. She rejoined in 2023.

    Only a few weeks ago Mr. Trump told NBC he’d stay out of the Justice Department’s antitrust review of Netflix’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. But now he’s taking it back, because Ms. Rice went on a podcast and said something political[…]

    See above for Noah Smith's observation about Trump's power lust.

  • Easy question with an easy answer. Bryan Theunissen wonders at FEE: Why Is American Healthcare So Expensive? And doesn't wait to provide the answer in his seven-word subhed: Because it doesn’t operate as a market. RTWT, but in bullet points:

    Across the system, the structure repeats:

    • Patients are insulated from price signals.
    • Providers face litigation risk that rewards excess.
    • Entry barriers restrict supply.
    • Regulatory and capital hurdles entrench incumbents.
    • Administrative layers raise fixed costs.
    • Market concentration amplifies pricing leverage.

    None of these forces require bad actors—only predictable behavior in distorted incentives.

    Unfortunately, market-based reforms are easy to demagogue.

Recently on the book blog:
Recently on the movie blog: