I am sad to say: My time at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is coming to a close. (My stomach turns as I type.) It’s not as much sadness but more a mix of uncertainty and shock. You know what I mean, fear for the future and disbelief that my time at this Ivy League institution is over.
Speaking of institutions, I strolled around Central Park today and laid down on a boulder, which was sizzling from the sun, to read “Surviving Autocracy” by Masha Gessen. On the topic of Trump, Gessen says, he undermines institutions and publicly bashes players who disagree with him. Remind you of anyone? Maybe Putin, for one.
“To them, power is the beginning and the end of government, the presidency, politics — and public politics is only the performance of power,” says Gessen.
Trump does not aspire to make America great again, or even make it anything, because his goal is self-serving. He just wants power.
Born in Jamaica Estates, an affluent gated-community in southeastern Queens, Trump was raised to remember: white is right and money is honey.
Just down the road, Jelani Cobb, dean of the journalism school at Columbia, was born and raised in South Jamaica, a working-class community with folks of all shades.
“When Trump was growing up in Queens, it was among the whitest places in New York City, and it was that way intentionally,” Cobb said during an interview with PBS Frontline ahead of the 2020 election. “There was a great deal of housing segregation, some of which the Trump family was involved in enforcing.”
Queens is the largest borough in New York and the most linguistically diverse place in the world. It’s easy to see how wealthy, white blocks spawned citizens ripe with xenophobic ideology.
Ashley Elizabeth Miller 
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