PROF GIORDANO: The far-reaching consequences of radical indoctrination

Nicholas Giordano is a professor of Political Science, the host of The P.A.S. Report Podcast, and a fellow at Campus Reform’s Higher Education Fellowship. With 2 decades of teaching experience and over a decade of experience in the emergency management/homeland security arena, Professor Giordano is regularly called on to speak about issues related to government, politics, and international relations. 

If one wonders about the extreme far-left shift of corporate giants and government institutions, look no further than the influence exerted by our college campuses. Since 2009, the Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform has persistently sounded the alarm on the perils of far-left indoctrination. Today, we witness the consequences as this radical indoctrination infiltrates every facet of our society, reshaping cultural norms, policies, and values. 

Gone are the days when America’s colleges and universities nurtured independent-minded individuals, primed for the challenges of the workforce. Instead, they produce ideological zealots who infect the public and private sectors with rigid beliefs. Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s former VP of Marketing and 2013 Wharton graduate, serves as an example, with her ill-fated Dylan Mulvaney marketing strategy. Heinerscheid, driven by her political beliefs, disregarded the first rule of business – know your customers – costing Anheuser-Busch $27 billion in market value. 

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Whether it is Disney promoting a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” to impressionable children or Coca-Cola urging its employees to participate in a controversial “try to be less white” training seminar, the rise of woke corporations is a reflection of the students our colleges are graduating. Fortunately, when it comes to corporate America, consumers possess the power to make deliberate choices about where they spend their hard-earned money.

As a political scientist, my greatest concern is the dangerous trend of ideological bureaucrats politicizing institutions and targeting their political opponents. The government’s deliberate censorship campaign- mostly directed at conservatives- brazenly aims to stifle Americans’ voices under the pretext of combating “disinformation.” We witnessed this with the response to the pandemic. The government aggressively suppressed critical information from scientists and other experts on social media, labeling content as disinformation, when ironically much of what they censored turned out to be accurate. 

The escalating hostility witnessed on college campuses, where guest speakers are frequently shouted down and silenced, aligns with these censorship efforts. This, combined with the lack of consequences for disruptive students and limited understanding of American government, results in an ignorance of the fundamental principles of liberty enshrined in our Constitution.

As narrow-minded graduates enter government positions, intrusive programs like those monitoring Americans and labeling parents as potential domestic terrorists occur with minimal internal pushback. Retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst and whistleblower, George Hill, personally witnessed this phenomenon.

In a recent conversation, Hill explained how he voiced his concerns to Director Comey, pointing out that “newly minted college graduates” were contributing to a “young, immature, and entitled workforce,” where ideology often took precedence over objectivity. When Hill suggested waiving the four-year degree requirement for returning veterans to “ensure a workforce with a proven record of working in high stress, team environments,” Comey acolytes vehemently opposed this and ensured the college to FBI pipeline would continue.

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Activist bureaucrats erode the integrity of our system. When I was an emergency manager with the New York State Office of Emergency Management, I prioritized the demands of the position over my political beliefs. Our mission was clear, and I never entertained the idea of favoring Republican or Democrat areas during events like Hurricane Sandy.

Our Founding Fathers’ worst nightmare has become a grim reality – a once-limited government has morphed into an all-powerful entity, tainted by ideological corruption. As Madison noted in Federalist #51, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

To restore faith in our institutions, they must operate above reproach and free from political bias. Remedying this requires real accountability for any bureaucrat who exploits his position to advance their political beliefs. Congress must leverage its power of oversight and the purse. However, only by reclaiming our higher education institutions as beacons of true intellectual exploration and open debate can we hope to counteract the corrosive effects of ideological corruption.