German intellectuals don’t possess long standing traditions of liberalism and of humanitarianism that they can call upon for inspiration. On the contrary, and the article alludes to it, in the years after WW1 many of their leading minds worked to lay philosophical and intellectual foundations for the rising 3rd Reich. Moreover, they made sure that their universities conformed to its volkish ideals. In contrast, American intellectual life possesses a long tradition of liberalism and of humanitarianism, famously harboring voices against slavery before the Civil War, against US imperial colonialism when the US was putting down a revolt in the Philippines, for civil rights in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, and recently for the rights of Palestinians and the cause of Palestine. It’s this American tradition expressed through its universities that has sparked similar stands in universities around the world. It even reached Germany. But now Germany’s deep and stubborn roots are reasserting themselves. In the case of America, forces both homegrown and external are trying to uproot that intellectual tradition, but I think that in the end they won’t succeed. Those roots run too deep. But still, America today is in a dark place.