Dispatches From The Protests

 The early reporting on these type of incidents is almost universally crap. How many protestors were students? Did police use tear gas? It's almost always fog of war type situations. 

There have been some good articles today that I think help clarify what is happening. 

First, it seems pretty clear that a lot of college administrators overreacted or looked at Columbia as a blueprint of what to do instead of what to avoid. As Tyler Austin Harper writes at The Atlantic, universities have marketed themselves as places were student activism is lauded and encouraged...right up until it isn't. Under my new mantra "Administrators Mostly Suck", the incentive for administrators is not a pedagogical response, but one that "makes the problem go away" which inevitably makes the problem worse. By trying to find a short cut they manage to piss off everyone. Excellent job, give yourself a raise!

Second, Nick Kristoff makes the, I think unassailable, point that the romanticism of 1968 clouds the fact that massive student unrest likely contributed to Nixon's election that year, and Nixon prolonged and even expanded the war. In sheer tactical terms, those protests didn't work - even if they were right on the overall merits of the futility and therefore immorality of the Vietnam War.

Kristoff writes:

I think that history is worth remembering today. Good intentions are not enough. Empathy is not enough. I’m sure we all agree that it’s outcomes that matter. So the question I would ask you to ask yourselves is: Are your encampments and sacrifices — more than 1,000 protesters have been arrested so far, and unknown numbers have been suspended or expelled — actually helping Gazans?

Of course, most protestors aren't really thinking about outcomes - or if they are, it's largely wishcasting. It reminds me of the woman arrested for threatening the Bakersfield (I think) city council, because they wouldn't issue a call for a ceasefire in Gaza. How - exactly - was Bakersfield the linchpin in a ceasefire strategy when it has largely been Hamas who have turned their back on ceasefire negotiations? In fact, I could see Hamas seeing the protests in the US as an incentive to NOT negotiate a ceasefire. Since the hostages are likely dead, they can vaguely hand waive away actual plans for a ceasefire, Israel will invade Rafah and thousands more martyrs will be created, and Israel will get the blame.

As usual, Josh Marshall makes the most sense. He relates an episode from his college days when there was a protest and discussion turned to breaking into and seizing an administration building. One person argued for using some sort of noxious gas to empty the building and a few agreed with this position before others shouted the dumb idea down. I'll return to Kristoff:

A thought: Humility is an essential tool in persuasion (not that I always get this right!). The challenge is to take an unflinching moral stance while acknowledging that one may eventually be proved wrong. Holding onto that contradiction curbs the tendency toward self-righteousness and the impulse to shout down others — both of which have persuaded exactly zero people ever.

Many students are peacefully calling attention to injustice in Gaza, combining passion with humility, and I believe that unnecessary violence from the police is also inexcusable and makes it harder to resolve this campus crisis.

Still. At Yale, protesters set up tents and blocked off a “liberated zone” in a public space that for a time people were allowed to enter only if they committed “to Palestinian liberation” and related principles, according to The Yale Daily News. It strikes me as ironic that one of those principles was zero tolerance for discrimination of any sort.

The natural idealistic ardor of young people can very easily curdle into its own form of intolerance. There can only be one true church, after all. 

Marshall concludes with an observation that echoes Kristoff's concern about what the protestors think they are accomplishing:

In any case, images of public disorder seldom redound to the benefit of parties of liberalism or the center-left. And they basically never “heighten the contradictions” and lead to a new revolutionary millennium. They almost always redound to the benefit of the political forces of reaction. They also play a necessary role in our society and our politics. The devil is in the details.

Erik Loomis thinks we shouldn't frame the protests as what impact they have on the coming election, but he's the worst sort of Ivory Tower leftist. The most important thing in America right now is whether we degenerate into democratic backsliding. If these protests help elect Trump, then that is objectively bad for Gaza, Palestine and Muslim Americans in general.

The romance of protest movements is what makes them seductive to a rootless population of young people craving a place where they feel both at home and important. That romance, however, needs to be tempered by knowing what you are actually trying to accomplish. No matter how many student are arrested, it's not going to lead to a revolution. It might actually prolong the fighting in Gaza and help elect Trump.