Harvard has hired Ballard Partners, one of the top lobbying firms in DC, to defend its interests against Trump. Ballard former lobbyists include Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief-of-staff, and Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General. When the great American sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen was casting about for a subtitle for his study of the American academy, one of the ones he came up with was: “A Study in Total Depravity.”