Photo: Collected
Pro-Palestine protesters on college campuses across the United States are unlikely to produce the same political impact ahead of the presidential election as their Vietnam War-era peers, as their political demands lack vested interests and are influenced rather by the growing radicalization of academia.
Numerous demonstrations have emerged on college campuses across the United States in recent days against the US military, financial and diplomatic support for Israel's military operations in Gaza. Students are calling on their universities to condemn Israel's military campaign, to divest from companies linked to Israel and to discontinue study abroad programs at Israeli universities, among other demands.
"Protesters are demanding politics that have zero to do with their interest. Do these women protesters really want to live under Sharia law in a Hamas-dominated society? Do 'Queers for Palestine' understand how gays are treated in most Muslim societies?" Robert Weissberg, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said.
When asked about how the current crop of student protesters stack up against their predecessors from the 1960s and 1970s, the expert suggested that those who marched for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam had clear vested interests.
"These current protesters have been transformed into useful idiots thanks to the post-modern 'theories' taught by their professors," Weissberg opined.
Similarly, Paul Gottfried, the editor-in-chief of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and Raffensperger professor of Humanities emeritus at Elizabethtown College, pointed to what he described as an increased radicalization of US higher education.
"American universities have become increasingly radicalized since the 1960s, and those who graduated from them back then played a major role in radicalizing our politics and culture, usually to the detriment of traditional morality and constitutional government. What we’re seeing playing out on our campuses is simply the latest expression of a hatred for Western society that has been alive in our academic life for many decades," he explained.
Political analyst Keith Preston, for his part, pointed out similarities between past and present anti-war protests, saying that both cases involved the left protesting a liberal government Lyndon Johnson's in the 1960s and Joe Biden's now in the name of anti-imperialism.
"The protests are student-based and occur on college campuses to the disdain of the full range of ruling class opinion. For example, both liberal and conservative media outlets and Democratic and Republican political figures have denounced the protests. However, a major difference is that the Vietnam War went on for years before there were major protests. The Vietnam War was also a draft war where young American men were subject to conscription," Preston explained.
Protests and presidents
The protests against the Vietnam War have been widely seen as something that helped weaken the Democrats' grip on the White House and paved the way for the Republican administration of Richard Nixon. Preston did not rule out that the current protests could have a similar effect.
"The protests could harm President Biden's reelection in two ways. First, voters who normally voted Democratic but oppose Biden's support for the war in Gaza may refrain from voting for Biden and vote for third-party or independent candidates or not vote at all. On the other hand, those who oppose the protests may be more motivated to vote for a perceived law and order candidate like former President Donald Trump," Preston said.
At the same time, Gottfried is skeptical that the current events will be able to peel off many votes from Biden come November.
"Since most of the protesters are presumably Democrats, the riots may cost them some votes. But I wouldn’t exaggerate the number. Those on the left, including many Jews, will look for excuses to vote for Biden and his party again," Gottfried stated.
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