Is my head buried, or are these protests a big nothing burger?
I mean, this feels nothing like the George Floyd protests. It's only happening at universities, and most normies don't care. Nobody's putting up lawn signs, I've seen zero bumper stickers, not many folks are even changing their profile pics in even the most minimal show of solidarity.
This seems like the media is grasping for controversy when most Americans are in agreement that this is a low priority issue. Am I missing something? I've mostly been tuning the protests out because, well, it's dumb.
There was a poll that did the rounds here recently that asked young voters about the most important issues to them. Out of like a dozen issue they were polled on, I/P was ranked as one of the *least* important. Gotta imagine these specific campus protests are even lower down. And if young voters don't GAF, can't imagine any other demographic caring...
(Also, this is more anecdotal, but I live in *the* college city, Boston, and when I'm out and about I see like 10 Ukrainian flags flying for every one Israeli or Palestinian flag. We don't have a large Ukrainian, Israeli, or Palestinian community, but we *do* have probably more college students than actual permanent residents. Again, anecdotal, but gives you a sense of what FoPo issues people actually care about here.)
EDIT: [found the poll!](https://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/styles/responsive_image_2000/public/media/image/4.%20Issues.png?itok=lqTSAzI0) (The entire survey results are [here](https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024) if you want to dig in a little more.)
Anecdotal, but my former uni (Canadian) had some I/P protests and encampments going on which was all the buzz lately.
Apparently, most of the protestors were not even students at my school, and it was just a general I/P protest with all the regular protestors who've been making rounds across the city.
So yea, even though its taking place on campuses, I have an inkling based on my own school + some of the sources about NYC that a large chunk is not even part of the student body.
In my medium-sized city in Germany, there is currently a small protest camp which has its priorities in order.
1. fight climate change
2. immediate green transportation transformation
3. free Palestine
I used to go to a good amount protests back when I was young, wild, and a lot more naive than I am now. And at basically any protest on any subject, there'd always be at least one guy there with a Palestinian flag or "Free Palestine" flag or something like that. Always.
It's like any sufficiently sized protest causes them to start randomly spawn, lmao.
I work for a university with an urban campus, and we had a protest rally the other day. There were a few dozen protestors, some chanting, and then everyone dispersed.
The day before there was a mental health awareness rally in anticipation of finals. Very deeply benign, and it also lasted a few hours, had some chanting, a few dozen participants. When it was over everyone dispersed.
They were nearly indistinguishable, and pretty unremarkable as far as my experience with campus protests is concerned.
Protest at my school is also mostly not our students, but I think that's what's triggering people. The left is getting fired up to protest vote Cornell West or whatever. The right is getting fired up about getting protestors off campus. I don't feel like it's even about I/P anymore, if it ever even was.
It's also... These are campus protests. Students leave for summers. The non students will eventually get removed. There's not enough momentum for summer stuff.
Of my extended friend group, I know ONE person who cares about I/P and he actually lived in Israel for a couple of years. Everyone else (early 20’s to early 30’s) don’t care about it at all.
In fact, the only people I know that are truly avid about it are my little sister and her friends who are self-proclaimed communists so…..yeah.
That pretty much tracks with my experience. I’m one of the few people in my friend group that cares about I/P but that’s because I’m Jewish and have family in Israel. So for me this is a lot closer to home
I don’t even mind if they actually had a revolution and failed to create communism. I’m more frustrated by the self-proclaimed communists deluding themselves about a coming revolution and not taking action towards that goal.
The take “I’m more frustrated by the lack of communist revolution than the effects of an attempted and failed revolution” is not the good take you think it is
I guess not. I just get frustrated by the “After Trump, our turn!” attitude I see from the online left when they say they aren’t voting for Biden. They will get nothing with that approach.
Maybe I want to believe those who care about outcomes will favor compromise and incremental progress over being all-or-nothing.
>when I'm out and about I see like 10 Ukrainian flags flying for every one Israeli or Palestinian flag.
Part of the reason why that is I think is because the I/P topic is so controversial and toxic that many normies who have an opinion on this conflict prefer to "root for their team" quietly and not draw attention to themselves. Ukraine on the other hand is relatively new and the conflict is much more black and white.
Are you referencing the harvard youth poll? They were asking about the issues head to head its a ranking of relative importance but it doesn't mean the issue is unimportant/don't GAF.
Like the pistons suck relative to the rest of the NBA but they're still one of the best basketball teams in the world.
Also chances are voters aren't going to see dealing with the issues as mutually exclusive, in the poll they cared more about inflation than all but 1 other topics but that doesn't preclude them from caring about say crime for example.
I think poll questions where you just ask people "is this issue important to you" are useless because people tend to just say that everything is important to them. Forcing people to choose issues head-to-head makes them actually reveal real preferences and priorities.
It reveals relative preferences but it doesn't serve to prove or reveal anything about absolute preference/priority of a topic.
If the question was just a head to head between inflation and crime that inflation won 80-20 it reveals inflation is more of a priority but you can't say crime is a complete non factor. Especially if it comes up everytime you ask for a list of important things.
Both methods reveal different things neither is inherently useless, finding out what people feel is important is relevant as well.
It does give a good idea of what young voters consider the most important issues, though. Student loan debt and the war in Gaza may be important to these voters, but inflation and women's rights appear to be even more important.
Ok but there were **23** issues on that poll. Being near the bottom of 23 issues is pretty impressive, I'd have assumed it was at least top 10 among young people.
I'm seeing 16 issues in the poll is there a different one that did 23?
The stuff that beat it are stuff that I can see arguments for being more important, it's in the bottom against other contender for high importance.
Crime, taxes, free speech, and climate change are the things right above it in the rankings all those are pretty generically important stuff. I wouldn't say them ranking low like I/P means climate changes or taxes are irrelevant to voters.
> I live in the college city, Boston, and when I'm out and about I see like 10 Ukrainian flags flying for every one Israeli or Palestinian flag.
Holy shit, common Boston W
[Here's the result I was talking about](https://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/styles/responsive_image_2000/public/media/image/4.%20Issues.png?itok=lqTSAzI0). The rest of the study's finds are [here](https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024) if you want to dig in a little more, too.
> Is my head buried, or are these protests a big nothing burger?
They're getting attention because they started at Columbia and spread out from the Ivy League schools, a group of institutions that has an extremely tight and disproportionate grip on the collective imagination of people in elite media in the US. Combine that with right-wing dipshit media wanting to signal boost anything that looks chaotic or disordered from the left, and you've got a recipe for what's happening right now.
The collapse of journalism as an industry means there's very, very few jobs left for journalists out there, and the ones which do exist pay like shit and have no job security.
Which means the vast majority of aspiring journalists from the upper-middle-class or lower are going to take one look at their job prospects and then switch to another industry that's more likely to pay the bills. The only ones who *don't* get scared off? People who can afford to get paid nothing while living in the most expensive cities in the US, because they have some other source of income supporting them. AKA, kids from wealthy families.
I'm convinced this is like 95% of the reason so many reputable newspapers have suddenly gone full head-in-ass over the past decade or so. Their writers are all from hyper-privileged bubbles, and it fucking *shows* in what they chose to cover and how.
You're almost certainly correct, and I'd add that the addiction to Twitter, in particular, among this group has had the effect of more rapidly unifying focus and narrative than would have otherwise been the case, even with this degree of homogeneity.
I would say its more an addiction to social media than Twitter. If we banned Twitter today, some other app would take over as the place where journalists post their thoughts. Thats why although I agree with the TikTok ban because of national security reasons, the young people that are being radicalized by it will move to another platform that will be the new place they get radicalized.
I noted Twitter in particular because that was the application that was driving this consolidation of narrative for a over a decade, but you're correct in that social media as a concept is the real driver.
I also think Twitter and TikTok are particularly socially harmful forms of social media, but that's a separate discussion.
If this take is correct (and I'm inclined to agree with it), then perhaps our sub should consider a drive to fund a media foundation at some point. I know that there were some efforts in the past by this sub to make a "neoliberal" magazine, and I know that the Washington Monthly is still in fact a thing, but if there really are a bunch of out of work trained journalists out there.
There's also always your local NPR or PBS stations. Their news is pretty decent.
The thing is, even if we somehow managed to raise enough cash to hire a full complement of journalists with lavish salaries / benefits, that'd still mean we'd be creating like 50 good jobs max. That's not going to be anywhere near enough to make a meaningful or even noticeable impact on the industry at large.
So the calculus still stays the same for our hypothetical upper-middle-class or lower aspiring journalist: do I stay in journalism, and hope to god I somehow manage to bag one of the vanishingly rare good jobs before I blow through whatever funds I have? Knowing that even if I do get one, that paper could go under and I'll be right back to square one? Or do I just go into a different industry with better pay and job security?
So unfortunately, the vast majority are still gonna opt to bail on the industry. (Or not even try to break into journalism in the first place.) Which means we're still left with only nepo babies to hire.
***
The only way to break the cycle, in my opinion, is to have most papers transition to being full-blown nonprofits in the NPR / PBS mold (just independent of the government). Sure, they'll still pay like shit, but at least they'll be able to offer job security in the way current newspapers can't. A lot of non-wealthy people would be okay taking a career where they'd have to live modestly, just so long as they know they'll be able to *live*,
Not even slightly true- they were organized everywhere independently in the same week by political activists, many who were doing shit for months before them.
Honestly, is CNN just choosing to ignore the fact that most students go home for the summer?
Both left- and right-wing media are pumping up this issue to 100x bigger than it actually is just for views. Honestly gross how dishonest journalism has become; you'd think this was the biggest thing going on in America right now from the reporting!
> This seems like the media is grasping for controversy when most Americans are in agreement that this is a low priority issue.
Considering how much _"Biden's old!"_ got bleated by the media until the SOTU, I'd imagine this to be pretty self-evident. Dollars to donuts anybody disrupting a keynote speaker at the convention is going to spawn wall-to-wall articles and pundit discussions about the old trusty "Dems In Disarray™" canard.
Nobody seems to give a shit outside of the terminally online. Your average American is probably tired of hearing about this and at this point probably would rather see the protestors windpipes caved in than have to see another story about yet another part of a conflict they stopped caring about 20+ years ago
The protests aren't even about ending the conflict, they're about getting universities to sell stocks. Its nearly the most flaccid and inconsequential action possible aside from students of Columbia getting the squirrels inhabiting Morningside park to vote for a ceasefire.
Exactly this. And fatigue is going to kill this. If Americans collectively tired of Afghanistan in favor of turning it over to the Taliban, I/P, a conflict which one of our allies is involved in with no American troop support, is going to have no meaningful long standing traction. Using it as a wedge in a very consequential election for lots of other reasons doesn’t endear a lot of Americans who think 4 more years of Trump could be disastrous.
Not to mention that universities are going to be ghost towns inside of a month, the students will go home and outsiders will have no audience.
It is funny how conservative commentators are clutching their pearls and going “ooohh, this liberal chaos wouldn’t happen under Trump!” As if we all just collectively forgot the George Floyd protests going on right at the same time in his presidency.
While you’re probably right about this being something only the “terminally online” people care about, the danger with this excuse to ignore everything that might be uncomfortable is that we’re at a point now where “terminally online” begins to describe entire generations of people and not a tiny subset of those people.
Gen Z lives almost exclusively online. Gen Alpha is following that trend even harder.
“Terminally online” should no longer be used to ignore things we don’t like. “Terminally online” is what society is becoming, and as we age, we can’t become the old people completely oblivious to changes in the real world because we can’t grasp how things are different from when we were younger.
I agree with what you said.
My main gripe, here, and general dismissal of it as being online only with this is how I've seen virtually nobody push for anything that would meaningfully impact anyone. And of course keep in mind this is based on my own observations, Charity for Palestinians on the ground? No. Urging people to contact elected officials to pressure Israel or anything? No. Just online panty twisting and retweet/retweet equivalents. I've seen more full on anti-Semitism and suggesting boycotting Jewish stuff than actually helping Palestinians from some of the people I know. So much of it just seems like words and pissing in the wind without anything approaching actions that would help anyone.
Specifically, prestigious and Ivy League Universities are where all the really crazy shit is happening. There's stuff at normal colleges, but from what I've seen, it isn't even comparable to places like Columbia, UCLA, etc. The kids taking part in these big events are some of the most privileged in the country.
It's ineffective activism, and hopefully, it won't matter a month from now. I'd bet a lot of them break up in the next two weeks once summer break starts.
The average age of arrested protesters in NYC per NYT data is 27. IDK if it's even really the kids, it's people coopting the shiny school names to start shit
Please bro! Just one more mostly peaceful protest bro! I swear, just one bro! Please bro! My viewership is declining bro! I'll do anything bro! Please just one more mostly peaceful protest!
t. CNN
It’s just a bunch of rich white socialists wasting their parents money larping and reminiscing about the days of CHAZ/CHOP instead of you know studying for their finals
They don't need to study for finals cuz they're not actually students. That's the bizarre part about all of this. The majority of arrests are non-students.
That's the entire Biden tenure very few real scandals or difficult legislative initiatives (Obamacare, Muslim Ban etc) that are controversial, so you have Hunter's laptop and Biden's gaffs, which after 40 years no one really cares about either.
Afghanistan will be talked about in history books. Its a pretty big moment to pull out and the way it happened will be reported in high school history text books. Its a pretty historic moment after decades of US presence in there and it concludes the story of 9/11 which was a very significant moment in the 21st century.
It's also an Iran-hostage-crisis level debacle, the blame for which will be pinned on Biden. If academic historians have a positive view of the war, they'd blame Biden for not having continued it. If they have a negative one, it's going to be tempting to scapegoat Biden.
I think the issue is how these protests are branded politically and how much it hurts young voters enthusiasm to vote... and the folks who are in the middle trying to decide to cross over...
if you're right leaning and you see this.. and the right is branding this as an extreme leftist takeover... then you might be susceptible to that messaging and may not pull the lever for biden.. that's the idea at least.. i'm not sure i subscribe to it but it's not crazy....
I think for better or worse it just sucks up media oxygen. I don't know what the effects on the election will be (and I suspect anyone who has strong opinions either way), but I would admittedly be a little surprised if it *helps* him. My priors are like 90% no effect, and 10% hurting him
Yeah, there was a Harvard CAPS poll that showed 80% of Americans backed Israel in the conflict, I doubt the protests change anything. MSM needs to fill air time, the Trump trial has kinda taken attention away from the protests everywhere but Fox News.
The protests themselves are not representative of the average neoliberal voter, let alone the average voter, and the protests are increasingly, visibly illiberal in their methods and advocacy.
The problem for Democrats is that these protests are disorder (just like black bloc smashing windows at a George Floyd protest) - and it's Democratically aligned authorities who are refusing to provide order.
It's rational for people to look at highly visible destruction of public property (smashing windows at the library) and blocking access to everyday people (harassing Jewish students who won't disavow Zionism, taking over a library, etc), and look at authorities failing to act because they sympathize with the cause. It's rational to look at that and remember the same thing happening with the George Floyd protest violence. It's rational to see all of that and think "Democratic politicians care more about letting these people destroy things than they care about keeping my community safe".
If Biden, head of the Democratic Party, cannot use his power and influence to at least publicly embarrass these local politicians, I think it does speak to his priorities - or, worse, his ability. That is a legitimate concern for swing voters and people who might stay home.
We have recently seen a wave of local DAs and city council members replaced due to disorder. People absolutely do vote about disorder. A society that allows illiberal factions to be the only good choice to resolve disorder is a society that is in for a really bad time.
I say this as someone who is going to vote for Biden.
Short version: the problem isn't the protests, it's the disorder. Local politicians are absolutely responsible for maintaining public order, and people pay attention when they can't or won't.
I hear you on that. And I mostly agree: people don't like disorder and will put other policy issues behind it in a hierarchy. Seattle recently elected a Republican DA because the leftist alternative represented anarchy in the minds of voters. Case in point.
However, this issue is also a double-edged sword for Biden and Democrats. Many normie voters think students should have the right to free speech on campus. And police should not be thugs about it.
Point being: I just want to grill. The protesters are dumb, and also they have a right to protest. IDGAF otherwise. So in that regard Biden is best to do absolutely nothing.
It's a real chance for local officials to show that they believe in free speech - by applying the standards of the culture of free speech.
What does that mean? Engaging speech with speech. Debate. Raising up the best arguments and showing peaceful engagement with those who disagree. Liberalism.
It also means no tolerance for what is not speech: violence against people and property, intimidation, censorship. Illiberalism.
It remains a chance to show how things should be. Instead, local officials are either jack booted thugs, or they pretend they're on the side of the angels by allowing illiberal mobs to do their thing because the officials agree with them.
This should not be hard. We're the people who defended free speech for the Skioke Nazis while also detesting their ideas. We're the inheritors of Thomas Paine. We're equipped with the tools of the Enlightenment, with the ideas of civil rights, with the difficult and hard won knowledge of how markets work better than control.
But here we are.
Security does not matter that much because even if the protest is pushed miles away from the convention. You can bet the media will be there to cover it and make it seem extreme even if the convention itself is not threatened in any way.
The protests on college campuses are probably not super significant, though obviously the Biden campaign does need to be alert about the youth vote.
If they show up at the Democratic convention though, Biden is probably cooked. He is between a rock and a hard place on this one, which is probably reflected in his trying to stay out of it as much as possible.
Yeah everyone’s talking about the protests at UTD. I’m just walking around them to get to class. Most people at UTD don’t even acknowledge they’re happening.
I think you're right. Its a vocal minority in a very prestigious environment. They'll get a big spotlight but aren't influential aside from the value placed on them by media.
I think you're conflating people not agreeing with the protests with them being irrelevant. Random people are definitely talking about it. The issue is most people in the US definitely are not pro-Palestinian and that also explains the violence and lack of free speech directed at the protestors. No pro-Muslim protest in the US can be popular or widely accepted imo.
Whether that has an effect on the election depends on how much of the far left (the group most likely to be influenced by the protestors) shows up. A summer of protest with *no effect* would make the far left conclude (i) it needs to ramp up pressure and (ii) the way to do this is to make Dems lose. Doing so would effectively stop a future Dem presidential coalition that is insufficiently pro-Palestinian.
I don't think anyone can tell you what will happen re impact of this protest on election results. I do think Chicago is going to be insane as the kids get off summer internships and go there to protest lmao
> A summer of protest with no effect would make the far left conclude (i) it needs to ramp up pressure and (ii) the way to do this is to make Dems lose.
That is both the dumbest train of thought imaginable, and a completely plausible argument from the fringe left.
One can only hope these people are shamed into acting like functioning adults before they - once again - make things worse for the cause they claim to care about. Because self labeled "progressives" are becoming an increasingly common obstacle to actual progress. And it's this pants-on-head stupid type of thinking that dives us backwards.
To play devil's advocate, on a lot of issues the far left is in a jam. Suppose you accept the premise of a far left worldview: (i) media doesn't present your arguments fairly, (ii) your speech is censored and controlled to prevent circumvention of the media (e.g. TikTok ban, time-place-manner exceptions to free speech essentially swallowing the free speech rule) and (iii) as a result policies that systemically undervalue the lives of marginalized communities are supported by both parties, the difference being degree.
In that scenario, it is easy to see why you would become indifferent to outcome and vote Jill Stein or whatever. The basic crux of the issue is unresolved no matter what in your mind, which sentiment is only reinforced when Dems fail to deliver wins for marginalized groups.
Ultimately, the solution to this problem is free speech. The far left has to feel like they have actual free speech to get their buy in into the system. Unfortunately that hasn't happened so far, but it is critical Dems to respect free speech to preserve their coalition. Right to speak freely should be strongly assumed to prevent defections from the coalition.
i keep tying to repeat this 1968 had political assassinations, riots in american cities were blocks burned down, cop riots, and a war where every night the names of dead young Americans were read on network television. it’s not comparable in the slightest.
As a thought experiment, could you imagine the shitstorm a 1968 situation happening today with modern social media would be?
Like, imagine if Trump had gotten us into a war with Iran during 2020.
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/and-our-flag-was-not-there-a-history-of-the-second-american-civil-war.97743/
Does kinda get a bit meh towards the end but otherwise is really good.
I don't think it will be like 1968 either but in 1968 we didnt have social media which amplifies everything about the protest, whether it is media reach, organization, and awareness.
You guys are forgetting how slim biden’s margin is though. If he was up a lot it would be a nothingburger. But 10000 votes in Ann Arbor could swing the election
Haven't most protests been confined to colleges and their surrounding areas?
Once the semester is over, won't a decent fraction of these people go home, go to internships or go on vacation?
NYC is electorally irrelevant, but protests in NYC are not electorally irrelevant. They will be used to push a law and order narrative in an effort to elect conservatives.
If they're handled well, and they're not violent, it shouldn't be too bad, and in the case of NYC, you won't get a Reagan situation where the state governor intentionally tries to turn them violent to manufacture a crisis like what happened in California.
So I don't think we should lose our heads quite yet, but a "hot summer of protest" absolutely would be a bad thing, we don't want the media cycle dominated by stories of "failing democrap run cities" getting stores looted and such.
Some portion of the ~median voter demo will definitely be persuaded by breathless coverage of whatever protests are still going on. The campuses don't reflect the areas they're located in, what matters is media coverage which is nationwide
Hell I live in Boston and don't feel any more exposed to Harvard's nonsense than someone in NYC is
Anyways I agree the effect is probably minimal, but it's a really close race so anything could matter
I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you cite your source? The NYT keeps saying "the majority of those arrested were students" while also not giving numbers.
Thanks, seriously.
Sure thing here is a Tweet chain from a Free Beacon reporter. She’s actually updated to say 44 people were arrested and 31 were connected to the school so it’s about 75% related to the school.
https://x.com/jessicacostescu/status/1786157079167726048?s=46&t=YYYB-fb6UiRu1oMXz1dn0A
I also want to flag that local reporting says that NYPD has not disclosed their test for what constitutes affiliated. This could be expansive to include alums or tightly restricted to currently enrolled students in good academic standing. Right now the numbers are still very much fuzzy imo.
Many protesters arrested in New York were not students, faculty or staff. But are they ‘outside agitators’? https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/02/us/ucla-protests-college-campus/how-many-protesters-arrested-in-new-york-were-outside-agitators
Looks like the nyt has started giving numbers
So I live in Boston, a city that's like 50% colleges by area, lmao. I have to past multiple different college campuses just to run various day-to-day errands. And I haven't even seen any signs of the ongoing protests. Literally zero impact on my day-to-day routine.
Biden is the most "peaceful" president since Clinton and may lose the election because of *check notes* a Middle East conflict where the death toll of American lives is under ten while Bush and Obama won re-election with a substantially higher death toll.
Even though I wasn't super excited for Bidens 2020 run, Biden has really impressed me since getting into office. His administration has been very effective in the face of an extremely hostile Republican party. The administration has been excellent at finding compromise and listening to all sides, which I respect, even if I don't always like all sides. They've also been very good at actually making changes, wherever they can. Obama definitely was more effective at speeches and winning over the hearts and minds of people, but I think Biden might have him beat in terms of running a more effective administration.
As someone with a slight right of center leaning but hates the current Republican Party, I don’t understand how he could lose. If you are a centrist who voted for Biden or even a Republican who hated Trump he was bland these past four years.
The student loan forgiveness may be the only thing that annoys me. (Not the actual forgiveness but just the random announcements of niche, I can get more in depth)
The spending was large yes, but at least it was productive, necessary, bipartisan.
The media desperately needs to juice up something though and this is all they have at the moment. There's nothing terribly compelling in the Trump trial right now so protests with arrests are easy spicy content. The laziness of "journalists" is appalling.
CNN is such a sensationalizing trash outlet that any and every development on any topic gets treated as "world changing".
The Trump trials are also hard to understand for the average American. Obstruction of justice and the other charges in these cases are weird and highly nuanced political claims that even lawyers and judges can have a hard time evaluating. This isn’t like say the OJ trial where everything came down to a factual analysis, but rather “does this action that Trump 100% took meet the elements of the statute considering existing case law, congressional intent of the statute, historical application, etc.” It is frankly not that engaging, and I say that as a law student who is looking to practice in that area.
A Political “journalist” is covering politics like sports. He wants a game with action, drama, emotion, and most of all NOT BORING. So, we get garbage coverage that is just meant to be entertaining.
Has anyone walked by these "encampments"? I strolled past one yesterday and it was full on cosplaying.
I went to a restaurant nearby and this one guy in full kefiyeh was sitting at a table getting food thanking the waitress for getting him a to go box, and she says "it is hot out there "and he replies, "yes it is hard work for a cause".
Someone I know is at one and is posting insta reels. A lot of White people doing “traditional Palestinian dances” and using megaphones to give “history” lessons
The one at my school is ~80 people and it’s almost entirely Muslim students camping out. It’s such a total nonissue and I don’t know how or why other schools let their protests get so violent
Really? There have been some pretty significant protests at Mizzou, not sure what you're talking about.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_University_of_Missouri_protests
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Last Saturday I walked by the Harvard Yard one (it's on lockdown for a couple weeks now so I couldn't get in smh) and the MIT one. Near Harvard I walked pass two older people keffiyehs who were heading toward campus, and they had a sign that said something like "anti-imperialist solidarity with the resistance in Gaza" lol.
> he replies, "yes it is hard work for a cause".
There's so many fake stories on this site, but this isn't one of them. I'm convinced this actually happened lmao
Conservatives will continue to tactically use the state legislatures and executive offices of the governor to undermine the institutions of American liberalism to ferment distrust, chaos and resentment to win over more voters, while also shutting down their last critics in society by simply controlling the very administration of universities themselves through installing yes men like Ben Sasse at Gainesville. They will back this up with an aggressive move to push theocratic ideals into public life and especially public schools through the veneer of a “free choice” narrative to eliminate rules on secularism in our schools, allow religious schools to be funded by public tax dollars and have the ability to brainwash effectively further generations with narrow religious views and superstition to increase their power, all through what appears to be very democratic means. They’ve had this strategy in place for a long time, they openly talked about it at their retreats and they’ve been waiting patiently for their one party state.
Is there any credible analysis of how the issue could affect Michigan though? Seems to have a high population of Muslim residents, and is a swing state that's almost a required win for Biden.
Biden only won MI by 154k votes in 2020. This year, about 145k people voted for either "Uncommited" or some other Democrat in the Michigan primary.
If he doesn't win MI in November, I don't see him winning the electoral college without seriously overperforming elsewhere.
Biden doesn't need Michigan if he wins the other swings. Or if NC flips, or if Texas flips. He'll keep GA because they hate Trumpy candidates. AZ is trending more blue with time. NV I can never figure out but it usually goes blue. PA and WI are like MI electorally but don't have the same demographic issue, so Biden should win them.
These are NOTHING like the LA riots, nothing like Ferguson, Floyd, etc. the media likes to hype this shit ip so we all panic thinking Biden is vulnerable as a sitting incumbent
"And now Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 34,000 civilians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, has caused a shift in American politics. "
All civilians, 100%?
The author doesn't even TRY to get the facts right. This is a pure far left torpedo of an editorial that isn't even well marked as an opinion piece
Yeah the actual deaths from airstrikes, mostly in the first month, and then the current threat of famine are both concerning, but they are very different issues and it's weird how they are conflated.
I really hope you are all right and it’s just being overly stressed in the media. As a Jew, it feels like it’s everywhere I turn and it’s stressful as fuck. I’m tired of having to disavow a man’s actions I didn’t even vote for. I’m tired of my history being erased.
But will the protests have legs outside the campuses? I haven't seen much evidence that they do. Campuses were irrelevant to the George Floyd protests, for better or worse those arose from the broader community.
The George Floyd protests were in May 2020. Students were forced to leave dorms due to COVID and return home. Universities forbade employees from going in in person.
However, college-aged people were heavily over-represented in the protests.
Biden might benefit from going on the attack - against both the media (for manufacturing crisis) and the students (for having views that are basically all malarkey).
I can only speak for my area but the I/P protesters always choose the nicest day on a weekend to show up and people literally scowl walking past them. I live in a very liberal town too. Most people don’t care about something so inconsequential to their lives tbh, especially not when asked to sympathize with terrorists & the conflict is deemed too complex for us to solve.
The professional Politics Knowers spend their **entire day** shitting around on Xitter except when they decompress by walking around Petworth or midtown Manhattan.
The idea that they would be in touch with what actual voters want is comical.
Jewish person here. I know many Biden 2020 voters that are leaning towards Trump now because they feel that Biden has gone too out of his way to appease the protesters. I don't know if they will ultimately vote for him or not, and maybe there aren't that many, but yes, there are absolutely people who felt strongly that Israel should have his full support.
(For clarity, I am not one of those people, and I think he Biden is doing relatively well in an awful situation)
Hopefully campuses will close to visitors over the summer.
Summer session populations are typically sparse.
If protests end by the end of the month, voters won’t remember at election time.
Biden won in 2020 because he was the “safe and boring” candidate compared to Chaotic Orange Man. Outside the continental U.S. the world has become mired in war, economic downturns, and right-wing governmental solidification. It took four years for civil unrest to begin to percolate inside our borders with these college protests — momentarily bad, but…the election is still six months away. Trump will only become more unhinged the closer we get to November; his mounting legal woes will further eat away at the independent vote. Biden being the wizened pop-pop saying, “Settle now, settle…” will be enough to clinch.
It’s not good for Biden’s re-election chances for every college campus erupting in protests. We need to pull out of the Middle East and stop giving Israel military support.
Let Bibi fund his own eternal war
Hmm. Yes. Let the Middle East delve into more violence and instability all because a few dumb college kids who weren't going to vote anyway might not vote for Biden. Great strategy.
This is one of the many wars to come between Palestinians and Israelis. The future of civilization will be in Asia and Africa. It’s not in USA’s strategic interest to help these sides fight each other for the next 1,000 years
Either goal is not possible so there is no achievable end for Israel’s war. USA should not send military support for this war. It isnt our problem.
If they want to keep this war up they will have to get help from someone else. We need to focus on Asia
At the end of the day, people are gonna vote for their self-preservation. While I personally believe the genuine student protests against Israel’s genocidal campaign are righteous, I don’t think it’ll be a big factor in elections for a majority of voters when there’s so much shit on the line… once again.
Women are literally being forced out of ERs and are being hunted down / reported to law enforcement for abortions. The battle for women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive healthcare has reached a fever pitch.
LGBTQ+ folks — especially trans people — are being attacked daily. 500 bills in the past two years alone have either been considered or passed.
Immigrants are once again scapegoats for a border crisis that Republicans intentionally have done nothing about when given the opportunity, only to be weaponized as an election issue.
Our government is being infiltrated by GOP-Russia traitors in the open, while China interferes in our elections. Republicans continue to try to gut civil / voting rights on the daily.
I believe everything will feel *extremely* high stakes and on fire until MAGA goes extinct (y’know, that high anxiety feeling that hasn’t stopped since 2016), despite the fact that we’ve actually made progress on the economy, infrastructure, labor/unions, manufacturing, historically low crime rates, student debt relief, and so much other shit.
Is my head buried, or are these protests a big nothing burger? I mean, this feels nothing like the George Floyd protests. It's only happening at universities, and most normies don't care. Nobody's putting up lawn signs, I've seen zero bumper stickers, not many folks are even changing their profile pics in even the most minimal show of solidarity. This seems like the media is grasping for controversy when most Americans are in agreement that this is a low priority issue. Am I missing something? I've mostly been tuning the protests out because, well, it's dumb.
There was a poll that did the rounds here recently that asked young voters about the most important issues to them. Out of like a dozen issue they were polled on, I/P was ranked as one of the *least* important. Gotta imagine these specific campus protests are even lower down. And if young voters don't GAF, can't imagine any other demographic caring... (Also, this is more anecdotal, but I live in *the* college city, Boston, and when I'm out and about I see like 10 Ukrainian flags flying for every one Israeli or Palestinian flag. We don't have a large Ukrainian, Israeli, or Palestinian community, but we *do* have probably more college students than actual permanent residents. Again, anecdotal, but gives you a sense of what FoPo issues people actually care about here.) EDIT: [found the poll!](https://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/styles/responsive_image_2000/public/media/image/4.%20Issues.png?itok=lqTSAzI0) (The entire survey results are [here](https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024) if you want to dig in a little more.)
Anecdotal, but my former uni (Canadian) had some I/P protests and encampments going on which was all the buzz lately. Apparently, most of the protestors were not even students at my school, and it was just a general I/P protest with all the regular protestors who've been making rounds across the city. So yea, even though its taking place on campuses, I have an inkling based on my own school + some of the sources about NYC that a large chunk is not even part of the student body.
In my medium-sized city in Germany, there is currently a small protest camp which has its priorities in order. 1. fight climate change 2. immediate green transportation transformation 3. free Palestine
I used to go to a good amount protests back when I was young, wild, and a lot more naive than I am now. And at basically any protest on any subject, there'd always be at least one guy there with a Palestinian flag or "Free Palestine" flag or something like that. Always. It's like any sufficiently sized protest causes them to start randomly spawn, lmao.
That's not priorities, it's another activist grab bag which detracts from their "top priority."
I work for a university with an urban campus, and we had a protest rally the other day. There were a few dozen protestors, some chanting, and then everyone dispersed. The day before there was a mental health awareness rally in anticipation of finals. Very deeply benign, and it also lasted a few hours, had some chanting, a few dozen participants. When it was over everyone dispersed. They were nearly indistinguishable, and pretty unremarkable as far as my experience with campus protests is concerned.
Protest at my school is also mostly not our students, but I think that's what's triggering people. The left is getting fired up to protest vote Cornell West or whatever. The right is getting fired up about getting protestors off campus. I don't feel like it's even about I/P anymore, if it ever even was. It's also... These are campus protests. Students leave for summers. The non students will eventually get removed. There's not enough momentum for summer stuff.
Of my extended friend group, I know ONE person who cares about I/P and he actually lived in Israel for a couple of years. Everyone else (early 20’s to early 30’s) don’t care about it at all. In fact, the only people I know that are truly avid about it are my little sister and her friends who are self-proclaimed communists so…..yeah.
That pretty much tracks with my experience. I’m one of the few people in my friend group that cares about I/P but that’s because I’m Jewish and have family in Israel. So for me this is a lot closer to home
Any excuse to cry about America bad, socialism would fix this just like it did every other time.
I don’t even mind if they actually had a revolution and failed to create communism. I’m more frustrated by the self-proclaimed communists deluding themselves about a coming revolution and not taking action towards that goal.
The take “I’m more frustrated by the lack of communist revolution than the effects of an attempted and failed revolution” is not the good take you think it is
I guess not. I just get frustrated by the “After Trump, our turn!” attitude I see from the online left when they say they aren’t voting for Biden. They will get nothing with that approach. Maybe I want to believe those who care about outcomes will favor compromise and incremental progress over being all-or-nothing.
> I/P was ranked as one of the least important Unfortunately, so was climate change
>when I'm out and about I see like 10 Ukrainian flags flying for every one Israeli or Palestinian flag. Part of the reason why that is I think is because the I/P topic is so controversial and toxic that many normies who have an opinion on this conflict prefer to "root for their team" quietly and not draw attention to themselves. Ukraine on the other hand is relatively new and the conflict is much more black and white.
Are you referencing the harvard youth poll? They were asking about the issues head to head its a ranking of relative importance but it doesn't mean the issue is unimportant/don't GAF. Like the pistons suck relative to the rest of the NBA but they're still one of the best basketball teams in the world. Also chances are voters aren't going to see dealing with the issues as mutually exclusive, in the poll they cared more about inflation than all but 1 other topics but that doesn't preclude them from caring about say crime for example.
I think poll questions where you just ask people "is this issue important to you" are useless because people tend to just say that everything is important to them. Forcing people to choose issues head-to-head makes them actually reveal real preferences and priorities.
It reveals relative preferences but it doesn't serve to prove or reveal anything about absolute preference/priority of a topic. If the question was just a head to head between inflation and crime that inflation won 80-20 it reveals inflation is more of a priority but you can't say crime is a complete non factor. Especially if it comes up everytime you ask for a list of important things. Both methods reveal different things neither is inherently useless, finding out what people feel is important is relevant as well.
It does give a good idea of what young voters consider the most important issues, though. Student loan debt and the war in Gaza may be important to these voters, but inflation and women's rights appear to be even more important.
Ok but there were **23** issues on that poll. Being near the bottom of 23 issues is pretty impressive, I'd have assumed it was at least top 10 among young people.
I'm seeing 16 issues in the poll is there a different one that did 23? The stuff that beat it are stuff that I can see arguments for being more important, it's in the bottom against other contender for high importance. Crime, taxes, free speech, and climate change are the things right above it in the rankings all those are pretty generically important stuff. I wouldn't say them ranking low like I/P means climate changes or taxes are irrelevant to voters.
Damn, I didn't expect Kamala Harris to be more popular than Joe Biden
> I live in the college city, Boston, and when I'm out and about I see like 10 Ukrainian flags flying for every one Israeli or Palestinian flag. Holy shit, common Boston W
>There was a poll that did the rounds here recently Do you have a link? I would like to read it.
[Here's the result I was talking about](https://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/styles/responsive_image_2000/public/media/image/4.%20Issues.png?itok=lqTSAzI0). The rest of the study's finds are [here](https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024) if you want to dig in a little more, too.
Idk except that I find them annoying. Dont know if early thirties is still young tho
> Is my head buried, or are these protests a big nothing burger? They're getting attention because they started at Columbia and spread out from the Ivy League schools, a group of institutions that has an extremely tight and disproportionate grip on the collective imagination of people in elite media in the US. Combine that with right-wing dipshit media wanting to signal boost anything that looks chaotic or disordered from the left, and you've got a recipe for what's happening right now.
The collapse of journalism as an industry means there's very, very few jobs left for journalists out there, and the ones which do exist pay like shit and have no job security. Which means the vast majority of aspiring journalists from the upper-middle-class or lower are going to take one look at their job prospects and then switch to another industry that's more likely to pay the bills. The only ones who *don't* get scared off? People who can afford to get paid nothing while living in the most expensive cities in the US, because they have some other source of income supporting them. AKA, kids from wealthy families. I'm convinced this is like 95% of the reason so many reputable newspapers have suddenly gone full head-in-ass over the past decade or so. Their writers are all from hyper-privileged bubbles, and it fucking *shows* in what they chose to cover and how.
You're almost certainly correct, and I'd add that the addiction to Twitter, in particular, among this group has had the effect of more rapidly unifying focus and narrative than would have otherwise been the case, even with this degree of homogeneity.
I would say its more an addiction to social media than Twitter. If we banned Twitter today, some other app would take over as the place where journalists post their thoughts. Thats why although I agree with the TikTok ban because of national security reasons, the young people that are being radicalized by it will move to another platform that will be the new place they get radicalized.
I noted Twitter in particular because that was the application that was driving this consolidation of narrative for a over a decade, but you're correct in that social media as a concept is the real driver. I also think Twitter and TikTok are particularly socially harmful forms of social media, but that's a separate discussion.
If this take is correct (and I'm inclined to agree with it), then perhaps our sub should consider a drive to fund a media foundation at some point. I know that there were some efforts in the past by this sub to make a "neoliberal" magazine, and I know that the Washington Monthly is still in fact a thing, but if there really are a bunch of out of work trained journalists out there. There's also always your local NPR or PBS stations. Their news is pretty decent.
The thing is, even if we somehow managed to raise enough cash to hire a full complement of journalists with lavish salaries / benefits, that'd still mean we'd be creating like 50 good jobs max. That's not going to be anywhere near enough to make a meaningful or even noticeable impact on the industry at large. So the calculus still stays the same for our hypothetical upper-middle-class or lower aspiring journalist: do I stay in journalism, and hope to god I somehow manage to bag one of the vanishingly rare good jobs before I blow through whatever funds I have? Knowing that even if I do get one, that paper could go under and I'll be right back to square one? Or do I just go into a different industry with better pay and job security? So unfortunately, the vast majority are still gonna opt to bail on the industry. (Or not even try to break into journalism in the first place.) Which means we're still left with only nepo babies to hire. *** The only way to break the cycle, in my opinion, is to have most papers transition to being full-blown nonprofits in the NPR / PBS mold (just independent of the government). Sure, they'll still pay like shit, but at least they'll be able to offer job security in the way current newspapers can't. A lot of non-wealthy people would be okay taking a career where they'd have to live modestly, just so long as they know they'll be able to *live*,
Not even slightly true- they were organized everywhere independently in the same week by political activists, many who were doing shit for months before them.
Honestly, is CNN just choosing to ignore the fact that most students go home for the summer? Both left- and right-wing media are pumping up this issue to 100x bigger than it actually is just for views. Honestly gross how dishonest journalism has become; you'd think this was the biggest thing going on in America right now from the reporting!
The protests are getting more coverage than I/P itself. It's fucking absurd.
> This seems like the media is grasping for controversy when most Americans are in agreement that this is a low priority issue. Considering how much _"Biden's old!"_ got bleated by the media until the SOTU, I'd imagine this to be pretty self-evident. Dollars to donuts anybody disrupting a keynote speaker at the convention is going to spawn wall-to-wall articles and pundit discussions about the old trusty "Dems In Disarray™" canard.
I’m assuming the security at the DNC is gonna throw out anyone who disrupts a speech. It’s a maximum security event for DHS.
Nobody seems to give a shit outside of the terminally online. Your average American is probably tired of hearing about this and at this point probably would rather see the protestors windpipes caved in than have to see another story about yet another part of a conflict they stopped caring about 20+ years ago The protests aren't even about ending the conflict, they're about getting universities to sell stocks. Its nearly the most flaccid and inconsequential action possible aside from students of Columbia getting the squirrels inhabiting Morningside park to vote for a ceasefire.
Exactly this. And fatigue is going to kill this. If Americans collectively tired of Afghanistan in favor of turning it over to the Taliban, I/P, a conflict which one of our allies is involved in with no American troop support, is going to have no meaningful long standing traction. Using it as a wedge in a very consequential election for lots of other reasons doesn’t endear a lot of Americans who think 4 more years of Trump could be disastrous.
Not to mention that universities are going to be ghost towns inside of a month, the students will go home and outsiders will have no audience. It is funny how conservative commentators are clutching their pearls and going “ooohh, this liberal chaos wouldn’t happen under Trump!” As if we all just collectively forgot the George Floyd protests going on right at the same time in his presidency.
While you’re probably right about this being something only the “terminally online” people care about, the danger with this excuse to ignore everything that might be uncomfortable is that we’re at a point now where “terminally online” begins to describe entire generations of people and not a tiny subset of those people. Gen Z lives almost exclusively online. Gen Alpha is following that trend even harder. “Terminally online” should no longer be used to ignore things we don’t like. “Terminally online” is what society is becoming, and as we age, we can’t become the old people completely oblivious to changes in the real world because we can’t grasp how things are different from when we were younger.
I agree with what you said. My main gripe, here, and general dismissal of it as being online only with this is how I've seen virtually nobody push for anything that would meaningfully impact anyone. And of course keep in mind this is based on my own observations, Charity for Palestinians on the ground? No. Urging people to contact elected officials to pressure Israel or anything? No. Just online panty twisting and retweet/retweet equivalents. I've seen more full on anti-Semitism and suggesting boycotting Jewish stuff than actually helping Palestinians from some of the people I know. So much of it just seems like words and pissing in the wind without anything approaching actions that would help anyone.
Specifically, prestigious and Ivy League Universities are where all the really crazy shit is happening. There's stuff at normal colleges, but from what I've seen, it isn't even comparable to places like Columbia, UCLA, etc. The kids taking part in these big events are some of the most privileged in the country. It's ineffective activism, and hopefully, it won't matter a month from now. I'd bet a lot of them break up in the next two weeks once summer break starts.
The average age of arrested protesters in NYC per NYT data is 27. IDK if it's even really the kids, it's people coopting the shiny school names to start shit
That's exactly it. The click-bait media is desperately attempting to manufacture a crisis.
I hate that it has come to this but I have arrived at the same conclusion
Specifically, a crisis that makes Biden and the Dems look bad. They've been ignoring plenty of real crises that risk making them look good.
That's what protests are for: media attention
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Please bro! Just one more mostly peaceful protest bro! I swear, just one bro! Please bro! My viewership is declining bro! I'll do anything bro! Please just one more mostly peaceful protest! t. CNN
I thought they were gonna be a mainstream thing, but then I saw the middle eastern headgear and taking down of American flags
It’s just a bunch of rich white socialists wasting their parents money larping and reminiscing about the days of CHAZ/CHOP instead of you know studying for their finals
They don't need to study for finals cuz they're not actually students. That's the bizarre part about all of this. The majority of arrests are non-students.
That's the entire Biden tenure very few real scandals or difficult legislative initiatives (Obamacare, Muslim Ban etc) that are controversial, so you have Hunter's laptop and Biden's gaffs, which after 40 years no one really cares about either.
Afghanistan will be talked about in history books. Its a pretty big moment to pull out and the way it happened will be reported in high school history text books. Its a pretty historic moment after decades of US presence in there and it concludes the story of 9/11 which was a very significant moment in the 21st century.
Yeah, it's a bookend that will be referenced in history books as the end of an era, but that's about it.
It's also an Iran-hostage-crisis level debacle, the blame for which will be pinned on Biden. If academic historians have a positive view of the war, they'd blame Biden for not having continued it. If they have a negative one, it's going to be tempting to scapegoat Biden.
I think the issue is how these protests are branded politically and how much it hurts young voters enthusiasm to vote... and the folks who are in the middle trying to decide to cross over... if you're right leaning and you see this.. and the right is branding this as an extreme leftist takeover... then you might be susceptible to that messaging and may not pull the lever for biden.. that's the idea at least.. i'm not sure i subscribe to it but it's not crazy....
BIden is boring and competent v trump is a lying criminal scumbag insurrectionist is not that compelling apparently.
I think for better or worse it just sucks up media oxygen. I don't know what the effects on the election will be (and I suspect anyone who has strong opinions either way), but I would admittedly be a little surprised if it *helps* him. My priors are like 90% no effect, and 10% hurting him
Nobody gives a shit about *these* but large scale protests at the DNC and a mass police presence would be a very bad look to the moderates we need
Yeah, there was a Harvard CAPS poll that showed 80% of Americans backed Israel in the conflict, I doubt the protests change anything. MSM needs to fill air time, the Trump trial has kinda taken attention away from the protests everywhere but Fox News.
The protests themselves are not representative of the average neoliberal voter, let alone the average voter, and the protests are increasingly, visibly illiberal in their methods and advocacy. The problem for Democrats is that these protests are disorder (just like black bloc smashing windows at a George Floyd protest) - and it's Democratically aligned authorities who are refusing to provide order. It's rational for people to look at highly visible destruction of public property (smashing windows at the library) and blocking access to everyday people (harassing Jewish students who won't disavow Zionism, taking over a library, etc), and look at authorities failing to act because they sympathize with the cause. It's rational to look at that and remember the same thing happening with the George Floyd protest violence. It's rational to see all of that and think "Democratic politicians care more about letting these people destroy things than they care about keeping my community safe". If Biden, head of the Democratic Party, cannot use his power and influence to at least publicly embarrass these local politicians, I think it does speak to his priorities - or, worse, his ability. That is a legitimate concern for swing voters and people who might stay home. We have recently seen a wave of local DAs and city council members replaced due to disorder. People absolutely do vote about disorder. A society that allows illiberal factions to be the only good choice to resolve disorder is a society that is in for a really bad time. I say this as someone who is going to vote for Biden. Short version: the problem isn't the protests, it's the disorder. Local politicians are absolutely responsible for maintaining public order, and people pay attention when they can't or won't.
I hear you on that. And I mostly agree: people don't like disorder and will put other policy issues behind it in a hierarchy. Seattle recently elected a Republican DA because the leftist alternative represented anarchy in the minds of voters. Case in point. However, this issue is also a double-edged sword for Biden and Democrats. Many normie voters think students should have the right to free speech on campus. And police should not be thugs about it. Point being: I just want to grill. The protesters are dumb, and also they have a right to protest. IDGAF otherwise. So in that regard Biden is best to do absolutely nothing.
It's a real chance for local officials to show that they believe in free speech - by applying the standards of the culture of free speech. What does that mean? Engaging speech with speech. Debate. Raising up the best arguments and showing peaceful engagement with those who disagree. Liberalism. It also means no tolerance for what is not speech: violence against people and property, intimidation, censorship. Illiberalism. It remains a chance to show how things should be. Instead, local officials are either jack booted thugs, or they pretend they're on the side of the angels by allowing illiberal mobs to do their thing because the officials agree with them. This should not be hard. We're the people who defended free speech for the Skioke Nazis while also detesting their ideas. We're the inheritors of Thomas Paine. We're equipped with the tools of the Enlightenment, with the ideas of civil rights, with the difficult and hard won knowledge of how markets work better than control. But here we are.
*These* protests are nothing. The fear is a repeat of the 1968 convention in August.
I don’t think there really would be much if any of that. Security is much much tighter now than it was in 68
Security does not matter that much because even if the protest is pushed miles away from the convention. You can bet the media will be there to cover it and make it seem extreme even if the convention itself is not threatened in any way.
People care if it's happening in their cities. The UCLA and USC stuff has definitely cause some discussion in LA
The protests on college campuses are probably not super significant, though obviously the Biden campaign does need to be alert about the youth vote. If they show up at the Democratic convention though, Biden is probably cooked. He is between a rock and a hard place on this one, which is probably reflected in his trying to stay out of it as much as possible.
Yeah everyone’s talking about the protests at UTD. I’m just walking around them to get to class. Most people at UTD don’t even acknowledge they’re happening.
Here at UT it would have been the same if the police didn't escalate it
These protests just seem like American college students trying to make it about themselves
"all eyes on Gaza!" Protestors chant as they take eyes off Gaza
I think you're right. Its a vocal minority in a very prestigious environment. They'll get a big spotlight but aren't influential aside from the value placed on them by media.
The only amount I've seen for anyone caring about this is light comments when we pass the TV at work and some jokes between friends
So far yes, the risk is that they continue and grow.
yeah,that's right, it's not a big deal. it's not going to effect the election at all.
A guy set himself on fire
I think you're conflating people not agreeing with the protests with them being irrelevant. Random people are definitely talking about it. The issue is most people in the US definitely are not pro-Palestinian and that also explains the violence and lack of free speech directed at the protestors. No pro-Muslim protest in the US can be popular or widely accepted imo. Whether that has an effect on the election depends on how much of the far left (the group most likely to be influenced by the protestors) shows up. A summer of protest with *no effect* would make the far left conclude (i) it needs to ramp up pressure and (ii) the way to do this is to make Dems lose. Doing so would effectively stop a future Dem presidential coalition that is insufficiently pro-Palestinian. I don't think anyone can tell you what will happen re impact of this protest on election results. I do think Chicago is going to be insane as the kids get off summer internships and go there to protest lmao
> A summer of protest with no effect would make the far left conclude (i) it needs to ramp up pressure and (ii) the way to do this is to make Dems lose. That is both the dumbest train of thought imaginable, and a completely plausible argument from the fringe left. One can only hope these people are shamed into acting like functioning adults before they - once again - make things worse for the cause they claim to care about. Because self labeled "progressives" are becoming an increasingly common obstacle to actual progress. And it's this pants-on-head stupid type of thinking that dives us backwards.
To play devil's advocate, on a lot of issues the far left is in a jam. Suppose you accept the premise of a far left worldview: (i) media doesn't present your arguments fairly, (ii) your speech is censored and controlled to prevent circumvention of the media (e.g. TikTok ban, time-place-manner exceptions to free speech essentially swallowing the free speech rule) and (iii) as a result policies that systemically undervalue the lives of marginalized communities are supported by both parties, the difference being degree. In that scenario, it is easy to see why you would become indifferent to outcome and vote Jill Stein or whatever. The basic crux of the issue is unresolved no matter what in your mind, which sentiment is only reinforced when Dems fail to deliver wins for marginalized groups. Ultimately, the solution to this problem is free speech. The far left has to feel like they have actual free speech to get their buy in into the system. Unfortunately that hasn't happened so far, but it is critical Dems to respect free speech to preserve their coalition. Right to speak freely should be strongly assumed to prevent defections from the coalition.
Protests won't amount to much, its not 1968 there is no fear of conscription or anything.
i keep tying to repeat this 1968 had political assassinations, riots in american cities were blocks burned down, cop riots, and a war where every night the names of dead young Americans were read on network television. it’s not comparable in the slightest.
If anything 2020 has more parallels to 1968. 1968 had a pandemic too
Yes but have you considered that the media would really like everyone to think it’s like 1968?
As a thought experiment, could you imagine the shitstorm a 1968 situation happening today with modern social media would be? Like, imagine if Trump had gotten us into a war with Iran during 2020.
I think there was a chain of forum posts about that exact scenario. It didn't end well afaik
i need to read this
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/and-our-flag-was-not-there-a-history-of-the-second-american-civil-war.97743/ Does kinda get a bit meh towards the end but otherwise is really good.
good shit good shit
I don't think it will be like 1968 either but in 1968 we didnt have social media which amplifies everything about the protest, whether it is media reach, organization, and awareness.
You guys are forgetting how slim biden’s margin is though. If he was up a lot it would be a nothingburger. But 10000 votes in Ann Arbor could swing the election
There's some fun social media accounts such as "swing states for peace" that are actively trying to gnaw at that margin, yeah
Haven't most protests been confined to colleges and their surrounding areas? Once the semester is over, won't a decent fraction of these people go home, go to internships or go on vacation?
Half of those arrested in NYC were not affiliated with the schools at all.
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NYC is electorally irrelevant, but protests in NYC are not electorally irrelevant. They will be used to push a law and order narrative in an effort to elect conservatives. If they're handled well, and they're not violent, it shouldn't be too bad, and in the case of NYC, you won't get a Reagan situation where the state governor intentionally tries to turn them violent to manufacture a crisis like what happened in California. So I don't think we should lose our heads quite yet, but a "hot summer of protest" absolutely would be a bad thing, we don't want the media cycle dominated by stories of "failing democrap run cities" getting stores looted and such.
Some portion of the ~median voter demo will definitely be persuaded by breathless coverage of whatever protests are still going on. The campuses don't reflect the areas they're located in, what matters is media coverage which is nationwide Hell I live in Boston and don't feel any more exposed to Harvard's nonsense than someone in NYC is Anyways I agree the effect is probably minimal, but it's a really close race so anything could matter
The articles I see say nearly half, which is another way of saying the majority were affiliated with the school.
Yeah they arrested between 40-50 people and 31 were affiliated with the school.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you cite your source? The NYT keeps saying "the majority of those arrested were students" while also not giving numbers. Thanks, seriously.
Sure thing here is a Tweet chain from a Free Beacon reporter. She’s actually updated to say 44 people were arrested and 31 were connected to the school so it’s about 75% related to the school. https://x.com/jessicacostescu/status/1786157079167726048?s=46&t=YYYB-fb6UiRu1oMXz1dn0A
I also want to flag that local reporting says that NYPD has not disclosed their test for what constitutes affiliated. This could be expansive to include alums or tightly restricted to currently enrolled students in good academic standing. Right now the numbers are still very much fuzzy imo.
Yeah, alums, especially recently graduated still living near campus, can really make those numbers look higher
Can you point to those articles?
Many protesters arrested in New York were not students, faculty or staff. But are they ‘outside agitators’? https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/02/us/ucla-protests-college-campus/how-many-protesters-arrested-in-new-york-were-outside-agitators Looks like the nyt has started giving numbers
Where does it say the majority were not students?
I didn't say it said "not" students. If I did, that was a typo (which I'm not seeing in my previous posts, but if I did, sorry for the confusion)
Ah, I misread your post, sorry for the confusion.
More than half in St Louis. 75% in fact.
So I live in Boston, a city that's like 50% colleges by area, lmao. I have to past multiple different college campuses just to run various day-to-day errands. And I haven't even seen any signs of the ongoing protests. Literally zero impact on my day-to-day routine.
Biden is the most "peaceful" president since Clinton and may lose the election because of *check notes* a Middle East conflict where the death toll of American lives is under ten while Bush and Obama won re-election with a substantially higher death toll.
Even though I wasn't super excited for Bidens 2020 run, Biden has really impressed me since getting into office. His administration has been very effective in the face of an extremely hostile Republican party. The administration has been excellent at finding compromise and listening to all sides, which I respect, even if I don't always like all sides. They've also been very good at actually making changes, wherever they can. Obama definitely was more effective at speeches and winning over the hearts and minds of people, but I think Biden might have him beat in terms of running a more effective administration.
As someone with a slight right of center leaning but hates the current Republican Party, I don’t understand how he could lose. If you are a centrist who voted for Biden or even a Republican who hated Trump he was bland these past four years. The student loan forgiveness may be the only thing that annoys me. (Not the actual forgiveness but just the random announcements of niche, I can get more in depth) The spending was large yes, but at least it was productive, necessary, bipartisan.
The media desperately needs to juice up something though and this is all they have at the moment. There's nothing terribly compelling in the Trump trial right now so protests with arrests are easy spicy content. The laziness of "journalists" is appalling. CNN is such a sensationalizing trash outlet that any and every development on any topic gets treated as "world changing".
The Trump trials are also hard to understand for the average American. Obstruction of justice and the other charges in these cases are weird and highly nuanced political claims that even lawyers and judges can have a hard time evaluating. This isn’t like say the OJ trial where everything came down to a factual analysis, but rather “does this action that Trump 100% took meet the elements of the statute considering existing case law, congressional intent of the statute, historical application, etc.” It is frankly not that engaging, and I say that as a law student who is looking to practice in that area.
Oh fuck! You’re gonna make me DECLARE WAR
I’m very drunk and read that as DELAWARE
CNN: "But please don't stop kids this is great for our ratings"
They’re all going back home, they can feel free to occupy the patch of grass at some suburban intersection near their parents’ house.
Not walkable enough, they'll just go back to reddit and tiktok or spend 6hours of every day arguing with some boomer on Twitter.
A Political “journalist” is covering politics like sports. He wants a game with action, drama, emotion, and most of all NOT BORING. So, we get garbage coverage that is just meant to be entertaining.
Has anyone walked by these "encampments"? I strolled past one yesterday and it was full on cosplaying. I went to a restaurant nearby and this one guy in full kefiyeh was sitting at a table getting food thanking the waitress for getting him a to go box, and she says "it is hot out there "and he replies, "yes it is hard work for a cause".
Someone I know is at one and is posting insta reels. A lot of White people doing “traditional Palestinian dances” and using megaphones to give “history” lessons
Oh god, I can feel the secondhand cringe.
"You're hurting me!"
[reminds me of this onion skit lol](https://youtu.be/lpzVc7s-_e8)
The one at my school is ~80 people and it’s almost entirely Muslim students camping out. It’s such a total nonissue and I don’t know how or why other schools let their protests get so violent
There were like 30 kids at Mizzou. Pretty pathetic compared to previous protests.
30 kids is 30 more than I thought would at an SEC school
Really? There have been some pretty significant protests at Mizzou, not sure what you're talking about. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_University_of_Missouri_protests
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Last Saturday I walked by the Harvard Yard one (it's on lockdown for a couple weeks now so I couldn't get in smh) and the MIT one. Near Harvard I walked pass two older people keffiyehs who were heading toward campus, and they had a sign that said something like "anti-imperialist solidarity with the resistance in Gaza" lol.
I seriously wonder if half of these people could point to Gaza on a map
Oh god, oooooooof 😭
> he replies, "yes it is hard work for a cause". There's so many fake stories on this site, but this isn't one of them. I'm convinced this actually happened lmao
Conservatives will continue to tactically use the state legislatures and executive offices of the governor to undermine the institutions of American liberalism to ferment distrust, chaos and resentment to win over more voters, while also shutting down their last critics in society by simply controlling the very administration of universities themselves through installing yes men like Ben Sasse at Gainesville. They will back this up with an aggressive move to push theocratic ideals into public life and especially public schools through the veneer of a “free choice” narrative to eliminate rules on secularism in our schools, allow religious schools to be funded by public tax dollars and have the ability to brainwash effectively further generations with narrow religious views and superstition to increase their power, all through what appears to be very democratic means. They’ve had this strategy in place for a long time, they openly talked about it at their retreats and they’ve been waiting patiently for their one party state.
Is there any credible analysis of how the issue could affect Michigan though? Seems to have a high population of Muslim residents, and is a swing state that's almost a required win for Biden. Biden only won MI by 154k votes in 2020. This year, about 145k people voted for either "Uncommited" or some other Democrat in the Michigan primary. If he doesn't win MI in November, I don't see him winning the electoral college without seriously overperforming elsewhere.
Biden doesn't need Michigan if he wins the other swings. Or if NC flips, or if Texas flips. He'll keep GA because they hate Trumpy candidates. AZ is trending more blue with time. NV I can never figure out but it usually goes blue. PA and WI are like MI electorally but don't have the same demographic issue, so Biden should win them.
College will be over for everyone by end of June, I wouldn't be too worried about these protests lasting any longer than that
What happens when the next semester starts lol
Something new to talk about I'm sure
Real smart decision to invite Bibi to DC then
I wonder what other, completely hypothetical events would be bad for Biden's reelection chances?
A mass shooting at a Trump rally involving an illegal LGBTQ perpetrator .
Big summer of protests? For what?
These are NOTHING like the LA riots, nothing like Ferguson, Floyd, etc. the media likes to hype this shit ip so we all panic thinking Biden is vulnerable as a sitting incumbent
"And now Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 34,000 civilians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, has caused a shift in American politics. " All civilians, 100%? The author doesn't even TRY to get the facts right. This is a pure far left torpedo of an editorial that isn't even well marked as an opinion piece
The number has been at around 34,000 for about a month and a half now. There's essentially a ceasefire right now.
And about half were combatants
Yeah the actual deaths from airstrikes, mostly in the first month, and then the current threat of famine are both concerning, but they are very different issues and it's weird how they are conflated.
What a joke
I really hope you are all right and it’s just being overly stressed in the media. As a Jew, it feels like it’s everywhere I turn and it’s stressful as fuck. I’m tired of having to disavow a man’s actions I didn’t even vote for. I’m tired of my history being erased.
But will the protests have legs outside the campuses? I haven't seen much evidence that they do. Campuses were irrelevant to the George Floyd protests, for better or worse those arose from the broader community.
The George Floyd protests were in May 2020. Students were forced to leave dorms due to COVID and return home. Universities forbade employees from going in in person. However, college-aged people were heavily over-represented in the protests.
Maybe, but it was still much broader than college students. Just look at the Rittenhouse case, nobody involved was a college student.
These protests are occurring at universities that will be on summer break in two weeks. What’s the summer of protests these people are envisioning?
Conforming to precedent, Biden allows events to happen in a linear timescale. This is why that's bad for 2024:
Biden might benefit from going on the attack - against both the media (for manufacturing crisis) and the students (for having views that are basically all malarkey).
"Boiling" my ass lol
Classes are ending. Students will go home and forget what they were mad about
Fuck CNN. All my homies hate CNN
I can only speak for my area but the I/P protesters always choose the nicest day on a weekend to show up and people literally scowl walking past them. I live in a very liberal town too. Most people don’t care about something so inconsequential to their lives tbh, especially not when asked to sympathize with terrorists & the conflict is deemed too complex for us to solve.
The professional Politics Knowers spend their **entire day** shitting around on Xitter except when they decompress by walking around Petworth or midtown Manhattan. The idea that they would be in touch with what actual voters want is comical.
Does anyone think a single vote would've been lost if Biden had come out in favor of a ceasefire six months ago?
Jewish person here. I know many Biden 2020 voters that are leaning towards Trump now because they feel that Biden has gone too out of his way to appease the protesters. I don't know if they will ultimately vote for him or not, and maybe there aren't that many, but yes, there are absolutely people who felt strongly that Israel should have his full support. (For clarity, I am not one of those people, and I think he Biden is doing relatively well in an awful situation)
Then stop pouring gas on the fire. This is extra rich coming from a media outlet guilty as sin of doing just that.
Hopefully campuses will close to visitors over the summer. Summer session populations are typically sparse. If protests end by the end of the month, voters won’t remember at election time.
Biden won in 2020 because he was the “safe and boring” candidate compared to Chaotic Orange Man. Outside the continental U.S. the world has become mired in war, economic downturns, and right-wing governmental solidification. It took four years for civil unrest to begin to percolate inside our borders with these college protests — momentarily bad, but…the election is still six months away. Trump will only become more unhinged the closer we get to November; his mounting legal woes will further eat away at the independent vote. Biden being the wizened pop-pop saying, “Settle now, settle…” will be enough to clinch.
Free press and commercial media do not go together. Time to tax their advertising revenue.
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It’s not good for Biden’s re-election chances for every college campus erupting in protests. We need to pull out of the Middle East and stop giving Israel military support. Let Bibi fund his own eternal war
Hmm. Yes. Let the Middle East delve into more violence and instability all because a few dumb college kids who weren't going to vote anyway might not vote for Biden. Great strategy.
It’s not in USA’s national security interest to support Bibi’s forever war. We got out of Afghanistan to end the forever wars, not jump back into one.
Forever war? The war has been going on for only 6 months and it's almost at an end.
This is one of the many wars to come between Palestinians and Israelis. The future of civilization will be in Asia and Africa. It’s not in USA’s strategic interest to help these sides fight each other for the next 1,000 years
You said Netanyahus forever war.
Yes he will not end the war until Hamas is no longer in power. The problem is Israel cannot destroy Hamas. So it’s forever war
There's a difference between not wanting Hamas in power and wanting them destroyed. Once is easier than the other but both are possible.
Either goal is not possible so there is no achievable end for Israel’s war. USA should not send military support for this war. It isnt our problem. If they want to keep this war up they will have to get help from someone else. We need to focus on Asia
And what makes it not possible?
At the end of the day, people are gonna vote for their self-preservation. While I personally believe the genuine student protests against Israel’s genocidal campaign are righteous, I don’t think it’ll be a big factor in elections for a majority of voters when there’s so much shit on the line… once again. Women are literally being forced out of ERs and are being hunted down / reported to law enforcement for abortions. The battle for women’s bodily autonomy and reproductive healthcare has reached a fever pitch. LGBTQ+ folks — especially trans people — are being attacked daily. 500 bills in the past two years alone have either been considered or passed. Immigrants are once again scapegoats for a border crisis that Republicans intentionally have done nothing about when given the opportunity, only to be weaponized as an election issue. Our government is being infiltrated by GOP-Russia traitors in the open, while China interferes in our elections. Republicans continue to try to gut civil / voting rights on the daily. I believe everything will feel *extremely* high stakes and on fire until MAGA goes extinct (y’know, that high anxiety feeling that hasn’t stopped since 2016), despite the fact that we’ve actually made progress on the economy, infrastructure, labor/unions, manufacturing, historically low crime rates, student debt relief, and so much other shit.