Observations about civil unrest, January 6th, the college campus protests, and the 2024 presidential election.
MAGA was furious that Ukraine flags were waved in the halls of congress after a constitutionally enacted bill was passed to fund/fight for democracy.
However......these very same people glorify Jan 6th "hostages"...
...many of whom waved "other" flags while violently overrunning the halls of congress to undemocratically/unconstitutionally subvert an election in order to keep a lying, traitorous, sociopathic narcissist in power.
Unfortunately, human beings experience something called recency bias:
Recency bias is a cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones; a memory bias. Recency bias gives greater importance to the most recent event.
As a result, what is happening on college campuses is what some people are going to remember......
....not January 6th.....
....but "radical", "Leftist", "pro-Hamas/terrorist", "Woke Extremism".
This election will be won on the margins.
And, moderates/independents, and even Republicans/Conservatives who are disgusted by Trump will be more likely to vote for him because of the perception that the country/world is in chaos.....
....and the belief of a need for a "tough", "law and order" president.
I've previous written about this:
...there has been a concerted effort through the manipulation/exploitation of neuropsychological fear responses...…to not only create the perception of chaos, but to create literal chaos. Because when people sense/fear chaos, they will vote for, or in extreme cases, violently install a “strong man” to restore “order”.
Bill Kristol has written about the anti-Biden "horseshoe effect".
There's an "unfair" asymmetrical component:
The January 6th extremists loved Trump and stormed the Capitol for him....
...whereas, the campus extremists hate Biden and are doing it to protest him.
The expected extremism on the Right is predictably driven by tribalism:
"Our guy (Trump) can do no wrong, their guy (Biden) can do nothing right."
Much of the reaction on the "horseshoe" Left is by young people who are searching for purpose, meaning, identity, and a sense of belonging...
...which they're finding in membership in a collective group of people that is fighting for a seemingly righteous cause...
Many of the "horseshoe" Left became politically aware during the last 3-4 years.
They may not have been plugged in during high school when Trump was destroying the country.
Or they may be experiencing their own form of recency bias.
Either way, they're doing what young people often do:
They are reflexively rebelling against authority....whoever happens to be in power at the moment:
Joe Biden
It's "unfair". But fairness is irrelevant. And this chaos is exactly what can/will hand the election to Trump.
David Frum once said: "If the Left doesn't control the border, the country will elect a fascist who will".
There are parallels: If the Left doesn't police their own...the country will elect a fascist who will.
We've also seen this before:
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Below......I've included some of the reactions to this article, and my response to them:
A 19 year old college student was 10 years old when Trump came down the escalator... Seeing a concern is one thing, and appropriately reacting to it is another.....the inability/unwillingness to make the distinction between the Israeli government who was prosecuting the war, and Jewish Americans and students whose safety they are threatening.... Is inexcusable.
Even George Bush came out to make a similar distinction about Muslims/Arabs after 9/11.
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Another point about civil unrest..
Remember when the Right was incensed about how the trucker convoy was dealt with when protesting what they believed was a righteous cause?
Did the Left support the trucker convoy?
Do those truckers support the college protests?
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To focus on Benjamin Netanyahu/Israel to the exclusion of the criminal/treasonous acts of Trump... ...plays right into the hands of Trump, and bad actors like Russian/China/Iran... ...who use this issue to divide the country and turn young voters against Biden:
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The Right Wing Media Echo Chamber is weaponizing/propagandizing the protests. It fuels the belief that Trump is the only hope to save what's left of the country they remember. Especially older voters.
It's not about constitutionally protected protesting.....it's about the perception that is created when violence/destruction of property occurs...and fuels Right Wing/MAGA narratives. The effect of the college campus protests parallel the George Floyd protests.....which have been used to create a false/moral equivalency for January 6th:
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My intent is to not get sucked into the issue....to take a partisan side on who is right, who is wrong, etc.........because when emotions are high, and violence occurs....it gets complex, morality/ethics are compromised, and justifications are made for doing so.
Add in two competing religious components, and it's only going to get more emotional and less rational. (Anyone whose followed me over the years knows that I have absolutely zero dogs in any religious fight).
My intent is to point out the effect the protests will have on the presidential election. That is the most important "consideration".
Do the protesters really think the situation is going to get better for brown/muslim Palestinians if Trump wins?
As far as the lessons of 1968, I included an interview of @JonahDispatch speaking about that, and it resulted in Nixon getting elected and five more years of Vietnam war.
The fourth paragraph of the Columbia College Student Council's statement describing university action , "This was only the beginning of what would become a pattern of executive overreach".
The irony of complaining about executive overreach.....
....while threatening to stay home on election day....
....or threatening to vote for Trump is mind-numbingly short-sided because this country has never witnessed executive overreach as severely as it did under Trump....
...and he's only threatening to escalate that with a second term....as his interview with TIME Magazine exposed:
The other aspect of all of this is just how predictable we are as humans.....the victimhood, the subjectivity, etc. How many of these protestors who are complaining about their right to free speech were either tearing down pictures the Jewish men, women, and children who were or continue to be kidnapped and gang raped..... .....or supported people were tearing down those pictures. The people who put those pictures up were exercising their right to free speech.
I'm also struck by the predictable parallels in the emotional/psychological reaction of both the participants of the college protests and January 6th.....and the ideological/tribal support for them.
In both situations, there was constitutionally protected rights to free speech and protest.....which eventually led to breaking into and "occupying" (the Columbia College Student Council statement defined it as an "autonomous group") buildings.
MAGA refers to the "autonomous group" that broke into the Capitol building on January 6th as political "hostages" who were unfairly/violently victimized by capitol police. And the Left saw the "autonomous group" criminals and praised the police for restoring order.
When the "autonomous group" broke into/occupied Hamilton Hall on Columbia University to protest what they believe to be a righteous cause, the Left perceives the protestors to be victims/"good guys", and the police are described as "inhumane" and "brutalizing".....
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...while the Right/MAGA praise the police and condemn the civil unrest.
I've written about the proliferation of victimhood, and the need for people to believe they are the "good guys" (click here):
To circle back the response above directing me to the Columbian College Student Council statement......
The most effective way that young people/college students can help "restore democracy" (and support innocent Palestinians) is by focusing on getting as many people to vote against Trump as possible.
There is of course, no way of predicting--but "recency bias" may end up HELPING Biden. The Gaza war may drag on and on with more and more casualties and no change in Biden's position (that would enhance the chances of a vote in reaction to him.) OR Biden's diplomacy may eventually reach at least a cease fire and open up humanitarian aid, or Netanyahu may cross the bridge too far and earn actual condemnation by Biden not of Israel per se but of its current government. Rafah may be that bridge, or perhaps increased violence by "settlers" in the West Bank. The move he could make that could quell the protests could require that support for Israel (which is mostly via materiel, not money) NOT include offensive weapons but plenty to beef up defenses.
My reaction to the protests is mostly focused on what I see as a barrage of propaganda aimed at the protestors. They are NOT all Hamas supporters, and they are NOT all out threatening Jewish students. We hear reports that the Jewish students are "afraid" but no details at all about what specifically scares them nor what/how many antisemitic incidents there have been. They have certainly been TOLD to be afraid--but what actual evidence do we have that they are, besides repeated claims that they are in some undefined way.
One of the few cases I've seen which flesh out the fear was a student (not at Columbia) who felt fear because of shouts of Free Palestine, which she interprets as "exterminate Israel." Why does she think that is the meaning? Why can't she see it as exactly what it says--remove Israeli control over Palestinian businesses (that blockade) and the government's support for "settlers" taking over more and more Palestinian property on the West Bank." In sum, a two state solution. Does she simply support Likud's 1977 election manifesto: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." Is it antisemitic for someone to oppose that manifesto? Why?
We don't know. There is no reporting questioning WHY Jewish students are finding pretty much everything the protestors say as antisemitic. I'm sure there has been a rise on antisemitism on campus, as there is everywhere thanks to trump's permission to let long standing prejudices come out in the open and the focus that this war has put on one particular minority. Some explicit support of Hamas's terrorism is truly scary. But how much fear is, as with the "Free Palestine" girl, actually in the eye of the beholder?
I'm not saying that investigation might not produce evidence that there IS a lot of antisemitism in the protests, more than I can currently see. But so far the American people are not being presented with that evidence, just allegations.
The whole idea that the protests are antisemitic arose before they even started, in the "Committee" including Elise Stefanik, that is hounding administrations over their policies and attacking them for even suggesting that whether X is antisemitic is actually something that depends on the circumstances. No wonder in light of all this, that the administrations feel they have to act tough no matter what or be hauled once again before Congress. And immediate calling in of the cops is definitely counterproductive. If Columbia had negotiated as other universities have, agreeing to at least consider looking at their investments, would there have been any NEED on the part of the students to occupy that hall? At those other universities, the protestors have quite literally folded up their tents.
Bottom line, until actual evidence comes in as to the motives of all 2300 arrested students, there is a definite tinge of overreaction, and overreaction by Bibi and his ultra-reactionary supporters is exactly what the protests are about. ARE we being sold a bill of goods, as we were about the "burning cities" of the BLM protests. I live in one of those "burning cities" 5 miles from the center of the protests. Nary a hint of smoke reached my part of the city--some business were burned but it certainly was not a siege of the whole city. Instead we were sold a constant narrative of every protestor being violent. I am sick of such narratives.