Don't Blame the College Students

This one is a hard piece to write because it means letting go of some of the anger I have with some of the college kids, and also because some readers do not like nuance.

But look: There are a number of dipshit protestors on college campuses right now who have no idea what they’re even protesting. There are some professional agitators involved, a smattering of antisemitic people who automatically equate Judaism with Israel, and a handful of protestors who legitimately support Hamas. It’s also incongruous to me that most of the students involved in these protests are rich Ivy League kids privileged enough not to worry about being arrested, many of whom will end up being the next generation’s CEOs and political leaders. I mean, the audacity to take over a building on campus and then demand “humanitarian aid” for the protestors, who forgot to pack lunches and water bottles before they took over the English department. Sack up, protestors! You might have to miss a meal or two!

Those are the people getting most of the attention right now, even though they reflect a tiny percentage of the overall protest movement. Almost all are protesting peacefully, at least until the cops show up in riot gear because a terrified college president afraid of being fired is taking cues from bad-faith Republicans who have already ousted the likes of Claudine Gay.

These kids have the right to blow off class and lay waste to their parents’ considerable bank accounts to protest what they appropriately see as an injustice in Gaza. If they attend a public institution, that right is Constitutionally protected. Don’t lose sight of that.

Do they have a full understanding of what they are protesting? Some of them do. Many of them probably do not. But they’re not terrorists for god’s sake. They’re kids on meal plans paid for by their parents. However, there was a piece in the Times yesterday that I thought successfully captured the movement:

But for many, the issues are closer to home and, at the same time, much bigger and broader. In their eyes, the Gaza conflict is a struggle for justice, linked to issues that seem far afield. They say they are motivated by policing, mistreatment of Indigenous people, discrimination toward Black Americans, and the impact of global warming.

In interviews with dozens of students across the country over the last week, they described, to a striking degree, the broad prism through which they see the Gaza conflict, which helps explain their urgency — and recalcitrance.

It’s not just the atrocities being perpetrated against Palestinians by a corrupt, right-wing Israeli government. The students are motivated, like previous generations, by injustices at home. They are protesting against “policing, mistreatment of Indigenous people, discrimination toward Black Americans, and the impact of global warming” while previous generations of privileged, wealthy college kids protested on behalf of feminism, LGBTQ rights, and also against … discrimination against Black Americans.

If this weren’t an election year, I think a lot more of us would feel more sympathetic and see more of ourselves in them. Not all of us understood the nuance of our arguments in our youths, but we could spot an injustice, and that’s what these students are seeing.

But it is an election year, and instead of seeing ourselves in these college students, we see losing an election. It’s a reasonable fear because the right is going to tie Joe Biden to our most extreme elements, just as we tie every Republican to Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The Republicans have an unfair advantage in the Electoral College, which means that Democrats have to pull every possible constituency together to win. Biden is losing support from Hispanic voters, and the situation in Gaza alone cuts into the Black vote necessary to win in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Muslim vote needed in Michigan, and the youth vote we need to win everywhere.

But for some reason, liberals are finding it easier to blame the college protestors than the man running for President. Joe Biden’s answer to this mess seems to be to cut more student debt, which is great, but he seems to be hiding from the issue in front of him. I know that a lot of Democrats will be like, “But what can Joe Biden even do? He’s not the leader of Israel. He’s not the President of an Ivy League school. He’s not Mayor Adams calling in the riot police.”

No, but he’s not saying much, either. He’s not being a leader on these issues, because — I assume — he’s thinking as a Presidential candidate instead of a President. His campaign is trying to figure out how to triangulate the situation and determine which moves or statements will cost him the least amount of votes. And they’ve apparently settled on silence with an occasional nod toward “not tolerating antisemitism.” Obama would have led. Clinton would have led. They’d have said something to at least let us know that they’re in the ballgame. Biden is sitting on the sidelines instead of addressing the nation.

I was happy when Joe Biden delivered a forceful State of the Union speech that renewed my faith in the President’s ability as a leader. I felt good about his chances. But on the biggest issue of the moment, he’s hiding and presumably hoping that Trump’s criminal trial will dominate the headlines. It’s not, and it should be.

There are six more months until the election. Lots of things — both good and terrible — will happen between now and then. The college year will end in a few weeks, and the President will be confronted with other issues. People will forget about what happened in May, just as they forgot about what happened in September in the previous two elections. America has a tiny attention span (reflected in polls that show way too many people have a rosy view of the first Trump term). Biden has to step up his game. He’s losing right now, and the Biden faithful are blaming a bunch of 20-year-olds fighting what they see as injustice instead of taking issue with the injustice itself.

Democrats want to emphasize the existential threat to democracy that Donald Trump poses, and we should. But roughly half the voters know he’s an existential threat to democracy and still plan to vote for him. I don’t understand why. It makes no logical sense to me. But it’s not on you — the Democrats, the people who read this site — to make the case for Biden. You’re carrying a lot of weight right now, and feeling a lot of responsibility for something that is out of your hands. You’re trying to assert control over something you have no control over because you want what’s best for the country. I get it. But for your own mental health, you need to let some of that go. It’s not your responsibility. Biden needs to make the case for himself. He can’t rely on Trump to hang himself because Trump has done everything terrible under the sun, and millions of people still want to vote for him. Biden needs to take a stand, any stand, and give us something to rally behind.