The Cathedral Must Fall: Trump’s War on Higher Ed Is No Culture War—It’s a Regime Change
When Donald Trump froze over $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard this spring, it wasn’t just retaliation—it was a declaration. Days earlier, the university had pushed back on the administration’s sweeping demands: to crack down on campus protests, accept federal monitors in departments like Middle Eastern Studies, and publicly align with the White House’s agenda. Trump’s response was swift and punishing: threats to revoke Harvard’s nonprofit status, suspend its ability to sponsor international students, and investigate its foreign funding.
Harvard resisted. Columbia complied. And the message was clear: fall in line, or fall apart.
This isn’t a culture war. It’s a coordinated attempt to dismantle the institutions that shape public thought. And if you’ve read Curtis Yarvin—the reactionary theorist behind the “Dark Enlightenment”—you’ll recognize the blueprint.
Yarvin doesn’t believe in reforming democracy. He wants to replace it. His central idea is that the real power in society lies in what he calls “The Cathedral”: the alliance of elite universities, media, and bureaucracy that manufactures liberal consensus and resists strong executive authority. In Yarvin’s view, the system isn’t broken—it’s rigged. And the only solution is a sovereign leader, unencumbered by public opinion or institutional constraints, who governs like a CEO.
To Yarvin, Harvard isn’t a university. It’s enemy infrastructure.
Trump, whether by instinct or design, is following Yarvin’s playbook to the letter. His assault on higher education is the domestic front of a broader authoritarian project:
Step one: Delegitimize. Accuse Harvard of antisemitism, corruption, and elitism—not to debate, but to isolate.
Step two: Punish resistance. Harvard’s refusal to yield was met with funding cuts and legal threats.
Step three: Reward compliance. Columbia, after ousting its president and altering protest policies, saw its $400 million in federal funds restored.
That’s not policymaking. That’s coercion.
Trump doesn’t need new laws to reshape higher education. He’s using the federal purse, the IRS, and the immigration system as levers of control. Academic freedom isn’t being undermined because universities are failing—it’s being targeted because they still have the power to push back.
And it won’t stop with Harvard. The Department of Education is auditing other institutions. International students—once a $40 billion asset to the U.S. economy—are now political pawns. Research labs, like the one led by Don Ingber at Harvard, have had multimillion-dollar projects frozen midstream. The lesson is simple: dissent has a price.
This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a campaign. Yarvin’s Dark Enlightenment calls for a post-democratic, anti-institutional order ruled by a sovereign executive. Trump is making that theory real. The Cathedral isn’t just under attack—it’s being dismantled.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about Harvard. It’s about whether we still believe in independent institutions in a functioning democracy. It’s about whether the executive branch now dictates what can be taught, who can teach it, and what happens when someone refuses.
The crackdown on universities is only the beginning. In future essays, I’ll examine how Trump’s alliance with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, his weaponization of immigration enforcement, and his defiance of the courts all point to the same conclusion: Yarvin’s vision is no longer a fringe idea.
The war on the Cathedral isn’t coming. It’s already here.