In a colorful commentary for the Los Angeles Times, Matt K. Lewis argued that callousness is a central feature of the second Trump administration, particularly its policies of deportation and bureaucratic cutbacks. “Once you normalize cruelty,” Lewis concluded in the piece, “the hammer eventually swings for everyone. Even the ones who thought they were swinging it.”

Lewis’ word wasn’t the last, however. As they have with opinion pieces the past several weeks, Times online readers had the option to click on a button labeled “Insights,” which judged the column politically as “center-left.” Then it offers an AI-generated synopsis — a CliffsNotes version of the column — and a similarly-produced opposing viewpoint.

One dissenting argument reads: “Restricting birthright citizenship and refugee admissions is framed as correcting alleged exploitation of immigration loopholes, with proponents arguing these steps protect American workers and resources.”

The feature symbolizes changes to opinion coverage ordered over the past six months by Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who’s said he wants the famously liberal opinion pages to reflect different points of view. Critics accuse him of trying to curry favor with President Donald Trump.

Publisher says he doesn’t want an “echo chamber”

Soon-Shiong, a medical innovator who bought the Times in 2018, blocked his newspaper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president last fall and said he wanted to overhaul its editorial board, which is responsible for researching and writing Times editorials.

“If you just have the one side, it’s just going to be an echo chamber,” Soon-Shiong told Fox News last fall. He said broadening the outlook is “going to be risky and it’s going to be difficult. I’m going to take a lot of heat, which I already am, but I come from the position that it’s really important that all voices be heard.”

Three of the six people who researched and wrote Times editorials, including editorials editor Mariel Garza, resigned in protest after the Harris non-endorsement. The other three have since left with the last holdout, Carla Hall, exiting after writing a last column that ran March 30 about homeless people she met while covering the issue. Soon-Shiong’s decision caused a similar unrest with subscribers as happened when Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided the newspaper would not back a presidential candidate.

The Times used to run unsigned editorials — reflecting a newspaper’s institutional opinion — six days a week. The paper lists only two editorial board members, Soon-Shiong and executive editor Terry Tang. They’re usually too busy to write editorials. Soon-Shiong has said he will appoint new board members, but it’s unclear when.

He also said he was seeking more conservative or moderate columnists to appear in the paper. Lewis, a self-described Reagan Republican who just began as a columnist, believes he’s part of that effort. Soon-Shiong has also brought up CNN commentator Scott Jennings, a Republican consultant who has already contributed columns for a few years.

Los Angeles Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning was asked recently about editorial policy, but reportedly lost her job in a round of layoffs before she could answer. There has been no reply to other attempts at seeking comment from Times management, including how readers are responding to “Insights.”

There were some initial questions about whether a “bias meter” as described by Soon-Shiong would apply to news articles as well as opinion pieces. But the publisher told Times reporter James Rainey in December it would only be included on commentary, as it has remained since “Insights” was introduced to readers on March 3.

A gimmick that insults the intelligence of readers?

In practice, the idea feels like a gimmick, Garza, the former editorials editor, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“I think it could be offensive both to readers ... and the writers themselves who object to being categorized in simple and not necessarily helpful terms,” she said. “The idea of having a bias meter just in and of itself is kind of an insult to intelligence and I’ve always thought that the readers of the opinion page were really smart.”

The online feature created problems instantly when it was applied to columnist Gustavo Arellano’s piece about the little-noticed 100th anniversary of a Ku Klux Klan rally that drew more than 20,000 people to a park in Anaheim, California.

One of the AI-generated “Insights” said that “local historical accounts occasionally frame the 1920s Klan as a product of ‘white Protestant culture’ responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement.” Another said that “critics argue that focusing on past Klan influence distracts from Anaheim’s identity as a diverse city.”

Some at the Times believe an ensuing backlash — Times defends Klan! — was inaccurate and overblown. Still, the perspectives were removed.

Often, “Insights” have the flat, bloodless tone of early AI. After contributor David Helvarg’s column about potential cuts to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the opposing viewpoint noted that Trump supporters “say it aligns with broader efforts to shrink government and eliminate programs deemed nonessential.”

A better way to improve opinion offerings is to hire more journalists and put them to work, said Paul Thornton, former letters editor for the Times’ opinion section.

Media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued in The Guardian that Soon-Shiong talks about promoting viewpoint diversity but really wants to push the newspaper toward Trump. “His bias meter should — quickly — go the way of hot type, the manual typewriter and the dodo,” Sullivan wrote.

Soon-Shiong, in his interview with Rainey, dismissed claims that he was scared of Trump or trying to appease him. People need to respect different opinions, he said. “It’s really important for us (to) heal the nation,” he said. “We’ve got to stop being so polarized.”

A writer amused by the label attached to him

One writer who doesn’t mind “Insights” is Lewis — with one caveat.

“I like it,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect but I was pretty pleasantly surprised. It does provide additional context for the reader. It provides counterpoints, but I think they’re very fair counterpoints.”

Lewis, who once worked for Tucker Carlson’s “Daily Caller,” was amused to see “Insights” judge his most recent column as “center-left.” He figured it was because he was critical of Trump. Instead, Lewis said it points to the relative meaninglessness of such labels.

“I guess I’m a center-left columnist,” he said. “At least for a week.”

___

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social

Professors, students, Bostonians — we all benefit from our universities in the realm of higher education today, but our institutions are doomed to fall unless we fight for them. 

You may be healthy today because of treatment at a Boston hospital relying on research funded by the National Institutes of Health. You may love and care for the New England coastal and oceanic ecosystems, which research funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration helps to protect. You may even rely on our National Science Foundation-funded cybersecurity research to protect your personal data without even knowing it.

As professors at Northeastern University, we are members of the same community. Faculty speak at community events, including “Meet a Scientist” at the Boston Museum of Science. We watch the same Red Sox games and drink the same iced coffee. Our students turn out by the hundreds to scream their lungs out for every runner racing from Hopkinton to Boston on Patriots Day. We are your neighbors, and you are our family.

As members of the Northeastern community, you need to know that we — and our institutions — are under attack. Federal funding cuts and freezes have halted our work on topics from generative artificial intelligence to cancer research simply because the grants contain terms such as “women,” “socioeconomic” or “discrimination.” The dismantling of the Department of Education threatens financial aid like Pell Grants, which provide vital pathways to unlocking the American dream for many students. The most vulnerable now live in daily terror from the Trump administration’s merciless targeting of immigrants and transgender Americans. 

Beyond these immediate impacts, attacks by the Trump administration pose an existential threat to universities, communities and American democracy itself. Even top private universities struggle to produce world-changing research without federal funding. Corporate funding will not save us, because it can take decades to develop the revolutionary Ozempic drug from the exploratory research on Gila monster venom. 

Most university leaders have remained silent amid these attacks. Innovation relies on university research, however, industry leaders haven’t spoken up. Universities are essential to our community, however, political leaders say little.

Many university leaders nationwide believe that we can survive by complying to reduce the impact of cuts or by staying silent to avoid becoming a priority target. This blatantly ignores the immigrant and transgender students who are afraid for their safety, worrying their university will not protect them. This ignores the faculty whose research has already been made impossible merely because it mentions a now-banned phrase. It ignores the irreparable loss of reputation when our universities sacrifice fundamentally American values like freedom of speech. We must work together to ensure this doesn’t happen here at Northeastern.

 We must learn from the fate of Columbia University. We must learn that no amount of appeasement will satisfy Donald Trump’s regime. Columbia’s administration believed they could save their institution by obeying his anti-American demands, from banning face masks and shuttering departments to allowing political commissars to dictate university policy. Now, Columbia will continue to exist in name only, a mere shadow of its former self.

 If we do not learn from Columbia, then the Trump administration will come for our institutions one by one, and each of our universities will fall prey to the same attack. Our leaders’ silence may temporarily delay the inevitable, but it also enables it tenfold. To borrow a phrase from the flags flown by America’s founders, now is the time for our universities to “join or die.” Together, the universities and communities of New England are one of the most powerful coalitions in the world.

 Even when legal protection is beyond their capability, the words of our leaders absolutely matter; Tufts University President Sunil Kumar’s “Declaration for Rümeysa Öztürk” shows us that. Freedom of speech is one of our most fundamental civil rights in America. The powerful speech of legal residents including Rümeysa Öztürk, Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung and others seems to be enough for the Trump administration to violate their rights of due process in attempts to make them “disappear.” Powerful speech must then also be enough to threaten the Trump administration’s attempts to erode our democratic institutions.

Therefore, we ask the Northeastern and Boston community to join us in calling on our university, industry and political leaders to stand together. We must acknowledge the unfolding crisis, resolve to protect our most vulnerable community members and mutually pledge to fight for our country’s research, our country’s education and our foundational American freedoms. 

Boston doesn’t bow to kings. Our universities are worth fighting for.

Kylie Ariel Bemis, Rahul Bhargava, Alexandra To, Richard Daynard, Rachel Rosenbloom and Laura Edelson are Northeastern professors. You can reach them at <a href="mailto:k.bemis@northeastern.edu">k.bemis@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:bhargava.rah@northeastern.edu">bhargava.rah@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:a.to@northeastern.edu">a.to@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:r.daynard@northeastern.edu">r.daynard@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:R.Rosenbloom@northeastern.edu">R.Rosenbloom@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:l.edelson@northeastern.edu">l.edelson@northeastern.edu</a>.

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Fittingly, it was the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who declared the official time of death.

The global economy is fundamentally different today than it was yesterday. The system of global trade anchored on the United States, that Canada has relied on since the end of the Second World War—a system that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for our country for decades—is over.

Our old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the United States is over.

The eighty-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership—when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect, and championed the free and open exchange of good and services—is over.

While this is a tragedy, it is also the new reality.

And just like that, the age of American empire, the great Pax Americana, ended.

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We cannot overstate what has just happened. It took just 71 days for Donald Trump to wreck the American economy, mortally wound NATO, and destroy the American-led world order.

He did this with the enthusiastic support of the entire Republican party and conservative movement.

He did it with the support of a plurality of American voters.

He did not hide his intentions. He campaigned on them. He made them the central thrust of his election. He told Americans that he would betray our allies and give up our leadership position in the world.

There are only three possible explanations as to why Americans voted for this man:

1. they wanted what he promised;

2. they didn’t believe what he promised; or

3. they didn’t understand what he promised.

Pick whichever rationale you want, because it doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason was, it exposed half of the electorate—the 77 million people who voted for Trump—as either fundamentally unserious, decadent, or weak.

And no empire can survive the degeneration of its people.

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Understand this: There is no going back.

If, tomorrow, Donald Trump revoked his entire regime of tariffs, it would not matter. It might temporarily delay some economic pain, but the rest of the world now understands that it must move forward without America.

If, tomorrow, Donald Trump abandoned his quest to annex Greenland and committed himself to the defense of Ukraine and the perpetuation of NATO, it would not matter. The free world now understands that its long-term security plans must be made with the understanding that America is a potential adversary, not an ally.

This realization may be painful for Americans. But we should know that the rest of the world understands us more clearly than we understand ourselves.

Vladimir Putin bet his life that American voters would be weak and decadent enough to return Donald Trump to the presidency. He was right.

Europeans are moving ahead with their own security plans because they realize, as a French minister put it, “We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every four years.” He was right.

The Canadian prime minister declared the age of American leadership over. He was right.

Instead of arguing with this reality, or denying it, we should face it.

It’s bad enough being a failing empire. Let’s not also be a delusional failing empire. Let’s at least have some dignity about our situation.

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The world will move on without us.

Economically this means that international trade will reorganize without the United States as the central hub. Relationships will be forged without concern as to our preferences. The dollar may well be displaced as the world’s reserve currency. American innovation will depart for other shores as the best and brightest choose to make their lives in countries where the rule of law is solid, secret police do not disappear people from the streets, and the government does not discourage research and make economic war on universities.

There’s a reason why countries like Belarus and El Salvador aren’t tech hubs.

All of this will mean slower growth at home and declining economic mobility. The pie will shrink and people will become more desperate to hold on to their slices.

If you want a small preview, look at what has happened to the British economy since Brexit.

The drag we experience will be much greater, because we had much further to fall.

In the security space, Europe will organize apart from us. The Europeans will create a separate nuclear umbrella and will likely include Canada, Japan, and Australia in their alliance. The “free world” as we have understood it for the entirety of our lifetimes will no longer include America.

As a result, America will either drift, or find itself becoming more closely allied with the world’s authoritarians. We may become closer with Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China. We may find that we need them—Russia as a counterweight to democratic Europe and China as a source of cheap manufacturing to relieve some of the price pressure on American consumers.

The end of the American era doesn’t mean everything will become chaos overnight. We aren’t going to wake up tomorrow to the sound of the blaring war rig horn from Mad Max. We are still a rich country, with momentum carrying us forward. But in ways that will soon be perceptible and eventually be undeniable, things will get worse. And facts about America and the world that we have taken for granted since the end of the Second World War will no longer hold true.

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On the day that Trump’s tariffs collapsed America’s position in the world, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went to Brussels to demand that NATO allies increase defense spending to 5 percent of their budgets.

But here is how utterly stupid and unserious our government is:

Europe is going to rearm. And they are going to do so by building up their internal defense industries so that they do not have to rely on America, which is in the process of threatening military action against a NATO member.

And the American response to this has been to cry foul.

U.S. officials have told European allies they want them to keep buying American-made arms, amid recent moves by the European Union to limit U.S. manufacturers’ participation in weapons tenders, five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The messages delivered by Washington in recent weeks come as the EU takes steps to boost Europe's weapons industry, while potentially limiting purchases of certain types of U.S. arms.

Our government thinks it can simultaneously:

• demand that Europe re-arm;

• threaten our European allies with territorial annexation; and

• demand that Europe buy American weapons.

We have a deeply stupid government—from our economically illiterate president to our craven and foolish secretary of state, from the freelancing billionaire dilettante who is gutting American soft power to the vaccine-denying health secretary who is firing as much talent as he can. From the senior economics advisor who thinks comic books are good investments, to the senators who voted to confirm this cabinet of hacks, to the representatives who stumble over themselves justifying each new inane MAGA pronouncement.

But also, we have the government we deserve.

The American age is over. And it ended because the American people were no longer worthy of it.

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