Dem
51
GOP
49
Graduation and the end of the school year are around the corner. From the perspective of student protesters, at those universities where things have gotten unpleasant, time may be running short. After all, many of them will be returning home, starting internships, commencing their careers, etc., depriving the protests of significant manpower. From the perspective of administration, time is also running short. They don't want graduation ceremonies to become PR disasters, right at the time that parents are in town, donors are watching, etc. In short, the climax is probably imminent, whatever it might look like.
Unfortunately, in many places, what it looks like is... a police state. Mass arrests have taken place at numerous universities, including USC, the University of Texas at Austin, Columbia and Emerson College. Columbia president Minouche Shafik is in deep trouble at this point, while Gov, Greg Abbott (R-TX) is also getting a lot of blowback. Apparently there ARE limits to what he can get away with.
In total, there are at least 40 universities that have protest encampments. Not all have been targeted by armed force, and in some cases, the administration is actually talking to the protesters and trying to address their concerns. However, in most cases, things are tense, and could certainly go south. Meanwhile, yesterday, USC became the first school to throw in the towel and to cancel its main commencement ceremony. All those baskets woven underwater, and no graduation photos to show for it.
One hopes that, whatever happens between now and the end of the school year, there's no Kent State v2.0. And perhaps, between several months of cooling down and/or positive developments in the Middle East, the campus unrest will fade. But we will see, once regular instruction resumes in August and September. If the campuses once again turn into war zones, just months or weeks before the election, that will not be helpful for Joe Biden's reelection prospects. Lyndon B. Johnson, were he still alive, might have a few insights about that particular problem.
One thing Johnson would also have been aware of had he been around now is the potential parallels with 1968. In that year, campuses were exploding with protests about a war—in that case the one in Vietnam. Many protesters showed up at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 to demonstrate against the war and against the Democratic candidate, Johnson's veep Hubert Humphrey. The police reacted very aggressively to the demonstrations outside the convention center, so much so that some people later described the event as a "police riot." Nevertheless, many people watching at home blamed the Democrats for the rioting and this certainly contributed to Humphrey's defeat. Now there is talk of more demonstrations—again at the Chicago convention. If they get out of hand, history could repeat itself and many people could blame the Democrats and decide to hold their noses and vote for Donald Trump, despite their misgivings about him.
The irony, of course, would be if the demonstrations again led to the election of a president the demonstrators totally despised and who would then do things they considered despicable. Need proof? Jared Kushner has praised the "very valuable" potential of Gaza's "waterfront property" and suggested that Israel remove the civilians while it "cleans up" the strip (i.e., removes the Palestinians). If creating Miami Beach on the Mediterranean requires some war crimes and a true genocide, well, business is business for the Trump family. George Santayana put it more concisely: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (Z)