Anti-Trump Screed on Syllabus of Ken Mayer, University of Wisconsin Professor

UW Madison Political Scientist Kenneth Mayer has been a tolerably reputable political scientist, but has lately gone off the deep end with Democratic partisanship.

First, there was a very badly conducted study of Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which claimed it has disenfranchised 2,400 voters in Milwaukee and Dane counties.

When subjected to scrutiny, it was torn apart.

And now we have an anti-Trump screed on Kenneth Mayer’s course syllabus on the presidency. See below.

Trump derangement syndrome has deeply corrupted the mainstream media. Is it now corrupting political science, which has traditionally been a bit more “professional” than disciplines like sociology, which tend to attract undisciplined leftists? It’s not that political scientists don’t have, on average, leftist biases. They do. But they also usually seek to keep their biases in check.

Is Kenneth Mayer a bellwether, merely the forerunner of an increasingly corrupted discipline, or an outlier?

The full syllabus is here.

A lot is conventional, but several random swipes at Trump are inserted. For example:

Can Trump pardon himself? Can a sitting president be indicted? Nobody knows, in part because the questions have never seriously arisen. But we may find out.

Trump is contemptuous of traditional governing practices and famously uninterested in policy details. From what we can observe, there are no policy processes in the White House and what emerges seems largely the result of presidential whims. Trump’s leadership of public opinion is a combination of tweets (many of which can, quite fairly, be characterized as unhinged) and campaign-like rallies in front of enthusiastic supporters. Is this the new standard?

And, finally, we must consider the question of how presidencies end (or are ended). Two presidents have been impeached but not convicted (Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton), and one forced from office (Richard Nixon). Impeachment is an extraordinary remedy. Are we in that territory?

Then there are readings such as:

“Hostile Sexism, Racism Denial, and the Historic Education Gap in Support for Trump.”

“How Rural Resentment Helps Explain the Surprising Victory of Donald Trump.”

“Will Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency?”

“Russia Won”

“For Trump, ‘a War Every Day’,” Waged Increasingly Alone.”

And finally a single reading favorable to Trump:

“Breaking Norms Will Renew Democracy, Not Ruin It — Most of President Trump’s alleged transgressions offend against the etiquette of modern liberal governance, not the Constitution.”

Mayer, certainly, can structure his course as he wants. But other people can point out that he’s becoming unhinged about Donald Trump.

Vicki McKenna Bullied, Insulted by Thugs on Madison Campus

This confrontation was in the wake of a speech by Ben Shapiro at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Leftist students disrupted the speech, as is typical on college campuses these days.

The black thugs in this video remind one of the bullies at the University of Missouri. Presumably, these black students are not typical of black students at Madison. But on a modern college campus, there is a sense of racial entitlement among black students. The idea seems to be “we are victims, so the rules don’t apply to us.”

But that attitude, unfortunately, is toxic.

A University in Wisconsin With a Vital Catholic Ministry (not Marquette)

A few days ago with blogged about the very vital Catholic campus ministry at Texas A & M University. A commenter on that post pointed out yet another public university with an active and successful Catholic presence.

The St. Paul’s center in Madison has daily Masses, some of them in Latin, daily Rosary, long lines for confessions, uses Gregorian chant in some of the liturgies, etc. The homilies are frank and address topics like moral relativism, salvation, etc.

Most kids coming to college never got any of this in their Catholic childhoods at home, they are having an encounter with stuff they had only heard about (and were often told was bad, old-fashioned, backward, rigid, judgmental etc.) Sure this may turn some people off, but it attracts others, at St. Paul’s they are experiencing growth.

Kids don’t want to be patronized, they want to learn something.

We wondered whether this was in fact all true, and e-mailed Scott Hacki of St. Paul’s and asked him to comment. His response:

The campus ministry at St. Paul’s is indeed thriving. I wouldn’t necessarily say there are long lines for confession. We have two daily Masses and four Sunday Masses with confession heard thirty minutes before Mass every day. There is a line everyday but it depends on what you call long. Usually it’s about 5-10 people waiting in line before each Mass. On Ash Wed and Good Friday we have priests in the confessional the entire day and students coming in and out the entire day as well.

On a better note we also have about 300 students involved weekly in our bible studies all over campus and a Thursday night weekly program that usually brings in another 200 or so. St. Paul’s is truly a very exciting Catholic place that has experienced a tremendous amount of growth. Ten years ago we had one Bible study with ten students, now we have 72 weekly studies with 300+ involved. I would say the rest of this persons comments are accurate.

So why is it that public universities can have a more vital and active Catholic campus ministry than the nominally Catholic Marquette?

We would suggest it’s the “established religion syndrome.” The bland assumption is that since Marquette is “Catholic” evangelism is really out of place. Somehow not needed. And besides, who would want students to be the sort of traditional Catholics who might want to celebrate a Latin Mass, or might actually believe church teaching on sexuality?

But it follows from this that a job at Marquette is a rather bland sinecure. It is not the sort of place where people with any missionary zeal would particularly want to be.

But places like Marquette are attractive to people whose agenda is more political than spiritual. Thus Marquette’s campus ministry seems more interested in opposing Church teaching on homosexuality and demonstrating at the School of the Americas than in gaining converts. Or deepening the faith of merely nominal Catholic students (unless “deepening” is interpreted in terms of leftist political activism).

But ironically, the percentage of entering Marquette Freshmen who call themselves “Catholic” has declined to the point that (among the class entering in the fall of 2010) only 44% will claim to be Catholic.

Ironically, for parents who want a Catholic college experience for their children, Marquette and similar institutions may be about the worst places to send them, inferior not only to newer, smaller schools that take their Catholicism seriously, but to public universities.

UW Bureaucrats Use Confidential Student Records for Political Purposes

Check it out on Sykes blog.