It must be challenging to be a liberal. At the very least, it must be confusing.

Questions like, “What is the definition of a woman;” or “Who can get pregnant,” can discombobulate seemingly intelligent and well-educated liberals. 

Free expression also creates conundrums for liberals. People with opinions distasteful to liberals or the current administration have been regularly booted from social media platforms. 

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, we’ve learned that government officials at the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and the White House have used their influence and “information” to push social media companies to censor posts.

Conservative speakers are regularly chased off or heckled down on college campuses. In fact, a survey shows that 70 percent of Harvard students believe that shouting down a speaker is acceptable behavior.

Misgendering or using the wrong pronouns is considered abuse or hate speech on some campuses, including Harvard. These are part of efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

However, when Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, and the presidents of MIT (Sally Kornbluth) and Penn (Liz Magill) testified before Congress, they revealed where DEI stops and that anti-Semitism is permissible on their campuses. (The video is here.)

At several points during the hearing, Gay stated Harvard’s support for freedom of expression but cautioned that if “that expression crosses into conduct that violates our policies around bullying harassment, intimidation, threats, we take action.”

As so often happens in Congressional hearings, many committee members were more concerned with making statements than hearing what the university presidents, particularly Gay, were saying and following up with questions. Then Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was up.

Stefanik asked Gay about calls for “intifada in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict.” Gay acknowledged hearing those calls on campus. That’s when the back and forth between Stefanik and Gay became tense. 

Gay wouldn’t acknowledge that calls for an intifada of Jewish people violated Harvard’s code of conduct. When Stefanik returned to this point, Gay said it would depend on the “context in which the language is used.” 

Other members yielded to Stefanik, who circled back to Gay, asking the same questions for the third time. Gay doubled down on “context.” 

Stefanik asked Kornbluth and Magill the same question about genocide on their campuses. Both responded that it would depend on context.

Finally, in frustration, Stefanik said, “It does not depend on context. The answer is yes. And this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.

The backlash was swift – and rightfully so. 

By the weekend, Magill had resigned as president. However, don’t cry for Liz. She retains her role as a tenured professor at Penn.

Harvard’s board anguished through the weekend before deciding not to act against Gay.

Liberals, including the writers at “Saturday Night Live,” knew who the oppressor was and who the victim(s) was during the hearing: Elise Stefanik was cast as the villain. The university presidents were victims – as portrayed in SNL’s cold open. The skit was the most disgusting SNL has ever aired. Even the live audience in Studio 8H at Rockefeller Plaza sat stunned with little reaction. 

Hat tip to former SNL cast member Cecily Strong. She played Stefanik in the dress rehearsal but opted out of the live broadcast. After the season opener, I wrote that SNL was Saturday Night Dead. For those on the fence, this skit should seal the deal. 

One thing that liberals never count on is their own words coming back to haunt them. The university presidents have provided a cheeky response to the latest attacks on Donald Trump.

Democrats and their accomplices in the media have gone to the most extraordinary efforts to destroy a political foe in the history of the republic. They impeached him once because they knew what he actually meant but did not say in a phone call with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Then, a second time when he had less than two weeks left in office.

They’ve brought four cases with 91 indictments against him as he runs for president again. The first set of indictments in New York is by an ambitious prosecutor who ran on a platform of getting Trump. He’s using novel legal theory to try Trump for federal election law violations in a state trial. If a former president is eventually found guilty of a felony, it shouldn’t be using unproven legal theories.

In the Georgia case, they are trying to do the same thing as the first impeachment. They are literally turning Trump’s actual word “find” into something else: “steal.” 

Jack Smith’s case rests on two paragraphs, the first acknowledging that Trump has First Amendment rights. The following paragraph prosecutes him for exercising those rights.

But the 91 indictments have only helped Trump. Before the first, polling showed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis within reach of Trump for the Republican nomination. Since then, Trump has pulled away to a seemingly insurmountable lead. Further, as the indictments piled up, Trump has gone from just behind Biden to ahead of him by more than the margin of error.

As Biden continued to sink in the polls, Democrats panicked. They needed a new line of attack. They found it with the threat that electing Trump in 2024 will result in the end of democracy. They relentlessly claim it will be the last election, and he’ll appoint himself dictator for life (although at 77, how long could that be?). 

The record tells us something different.

The same people who shouted “Russia, Russia, Russia” for the first two-plus years of Trump’s presidency are the same ones telling us he will be a dictator.

Then there’s Trump. Remember the rally calls of his 2016 rallies? “Lock her up.” We saw many early morning FBI raids (often with CNN in tow), but none involving Hillary Clinton. 

The same people who frequently remind us of promises Trump didn’t keep are telling us to believe the one he will keep is making himself a dictator.

But has Trump promised to be a dictator and all the other horrible acts his enemies warn of? Here is where the university president’s testimony is instructive. “It depends on the context.”

Maybe Trump will be a good dictator – for one day to seal the border and begin drilling – which he’s also said, but the media ignores.

Instead of getting hysterical like liberals who demonstrate their total lack of humor daily, let’s look at what Trump says in context. He makes many statements that are wild exaggerations (some call them lies), including some with a wink and a nod to his base, who get the joke, while driving the liberal media crazy.

Liberal university presidents invented the “context” argument. If they can attach it to the genocide of the Jewish people, Donald Trump can attach it to his “dictator for one day” comment.

Thank you, university president (and a former one), for providing “context.”

Andy Bloom is President of Andy Bloom Communications. He specializes in media training and political communications. He has programmed legendary stations including WIP, WPHT, WYSP/Philadelphia, KLSX, Los Angeles, and WCCO Minneapolis. He was Vice President of Programming for Emmis International, Greater Media Inc., and Coleman Research. Andy also served as communications director for Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio). He can be reached by email at andy@andybloom.com or you can follow him on Twitter @AndyBloomCom.