Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The current radical and often violent protests on mostly blue-state, supposedly elite campuses have exposed in toxic fashion what the left has become. And yet, in a paradoxical fashion, the campus insanity has offered the nation some moral clarity.
What’s surprising is not that the demonstrators are violent and nihilist, but that they are, on the one hand, so openly and crudely anti-Semitic, racist, and anti-American, and yet on the other hand, so passive-aggressive, narcissistic, and weepy.
Nevertheless, the antics of the campus cry-bullies have exploded myths that were for so long foisted on the American people by politicos and the media.
#1. Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic: We have been lectured ad nauseam that hating Israel has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The last month has blown up that old shibboleth for good. The left makes no distinction in their eliminationist chants between Israel and Jews. “Go back to Poland” is a homonym for “From the River to the Sea.” Both are shorthand for eliminating Jews—aside from the explicit threats to kill Jews and occasional praise for Hitler and the Final Solution.
When pro-Hamas thugs chase Jews into libraries, block their entrances on campus, and scream “beat the Jew” as they hit piñatas, they do not first ask Jews whether they support Israel—because they could care less. For the Islamist Middle Easterner on a student visa or green card and his useful American student, it is enough that their targets are Jewish—period.
Remember, the protests started on October 7, not on October 27, when the IDF went into Gaza. At that point, campus and street protests merely changed from euphoric triumphalism on the news that Hamas had slaughtered, decapitated, mutilated, raped, or kidnapped hundreds of Jews (“exhilarated,” a Cornell professor gushed of the carnage), to furor and violence. So after three weeks of celebrating dead Jews, the street protests grew furious only when the IDF finally began fighting back and destroying Hamas, even as its terrorists cowardly hid beneath mosques, hospitals, and schools to ensure enough collateral damage to incite pro-Hamas Western throngs.
#2. Pro-Palestinian/Pro-Hamas: The left also blew up the ancient pretense that being “pro-Palestine” was not “pro-Hamas.” But the campus and street demonstrations now make no distinction between the two. The calls for the destruction of Israel and “death to America” come right out of the Hamas credo. Hamas (and Hezbollah as well) logos and flags are easy to find among the protestors. Interviews with the protesters repeatedly reveal massive support for Hamas, to the extent of staging lessons in hand-to-hand combat.
Polls in the Middle East still show strong Gazan support for their one-election/one-time Hamas autocracy. Apparently, any anger that Gazans bear toward Hamas for destroying the peace on October 7, wrecking their state, and getting civilians killed by using them as human shields is outweighed by the plus side on their ledger of the murder of 1200 Jewish civilians. In other words, the campus protests promote the fascistic, terrorist Hamas clique because of, not despite, its murder of Jewish civilians.
#3. “Elite universities.” The Ivy League, the premier UC campuses, Stanford, MIT, and others that considered themselves coveted brands that guaranteed elites their envisioned lucrative career trajectories are sadly becoming the stuff of jest. Ivy-League identification is in a CNN/Bud Lite/Disney freefall. America is getting a bellyful of mollycoddled students’ hatred of Jews, contempt for cops, janitors, and maintenance workers of the middle class, and the racist drivel they shout at African-American law enforcement. At George Washington University, a faculty member, Zein El-Amine, in racist fashion, smeared visiting African-American congressman Byron Donalds (R-Fl) as an “Uncle Tom,” a “bastard,” and a “race traitor.”
The protesting students, in their interviews with the toadish media, sound ignorant and arrogant. As wannabe Bolsheviks, they destroy property and vandalize classrooms and university facilities. The UCLA campus, like the buildings at Columbia and Portland State, was left a fetid mess after the students were cleared out. But then, as helicoptered children, they expect food delivery and catering to fuel their gluten-free nihilism and hoi polloi to clean up after them. Is the message something like, “As we trash your campus buildings, can you please send in some vegan dishes to fuel our destructiveness?”
The moment students speak to cameras, they become reflections of the ongoing wastage of the universities by political indoctrination of the faculty and DEI admissions that dropped the SAT and ignored the comparative high school GPA ranking. Half the shouting student body could not find the Jordan River on a map, define Transjordan, or know that Jews have been in “Palestine” for two millennia prior to the arrival of nomadic Arab invaders.
Universities quietly accept that most of their current students are not qualified to take the very courses these campuses used to brag as proof of their preeminence.
Such ignorance on elite campuses explains the grade inflation of 60-80 percent A’s, new gut classes, and watered-down existing courses. We are learning that at our “elite” campus, roughly a third of undergraduate and graduate students are full-paying foreign students on student visas. Most immigrants arrive from illiberal regimes with generous state funding and are the tip of the spear, fomenting violence and screaming venom at their hosts. They expect exemption from the consequences of their lawlessness and yet seem to harbor nothing but contempt for the accommodating, naïve leniency of universities.
Still, these foreign students’ trademark is, for all their campus braggadocio, abject fright that they might be expelled, deported, and thus have to return to the very Middle East medievalism they now praise from a safe distance.
Add up these days of embarrassing campus rage and Hamas pawns and fronts, and parents and employers are quietly concluding that elite campuses are becoming sources of mediocrity, not prestige, well apart from the violence and the likelihood that classes and graduations can be cancelled at any moment to appease violent protestors. Good students may increasingly avoid these often disturbing places and forego investing $90,000 a year to ensure their own sons and daughters will return home unrecognizable.
#4. “The Left-wing Democrat Base”: The old idea that Antifa, BLM, the Squad, the Obamas, the green extremists, the radical transgendered, and the Hamas/Hezbollah, anti-Semitic base threatened the Democrat Party has been exposed as a sort of fraud. No major Democrat politicians, Joe Biden, especially, can simply condemn the anti-Semitic violence and hate speech— constituting 99 percent of the protestors’ creed—without citing the mythic danger of Islamophobia, of which there is little sign on these campuses. In other words, Democrats would rather airbrush anti-Semitism with moral equivalence blather than dare suggest the pro-Palestinian movement is anti-Semitic.
So the violence at universities continues because left-wing faculty, left-wing administrators, left-wing mayors and city governments, and left-wing governors in these blue states and cities sympathize with the students. They are beginning to clamp down not because of the venomous and overt Jew hatred but because the media optics are terrible.
Their campuses have been turned into trash dumps, analogous to homeless camps—or much worse, given pampered rich kids battle blue-collar police on the premise that injuring cops won’t earn them any jail time, but more likely a campus cachet.
Democrats are terrified the entire revelatory circus will get Trump reelected. The Democrat Party is the Squad. Biden is the most radical president of the last half-century. He and his associates in the Senate want to replace the elected government of Israel; they favor Iran over the moderate Arab regimes. DEI, ESG, abortion on demand, radical transgenderism, open borders, and reparations have now become mainstream Democratic agendas.
#5. “Immigration is Our Strength”: It always has been, and can be again. But the left has misused immigration, legal and illegal, to create new constituencies that too often identify as victims, arrive with claims against their host, and see little need to quickly assimilate.
So in 2024, America has reached an impasse. Nearly 15 percent of the population was not born in the U.S., perhaps over 50 million residents, illegal aliens, and citizens—a record in both percentages and numbers. But the melting-pot’s task of integrating and assimilating newcomers has been all but disappeared, replaced by tribalism, salad-bowl separatism, and convenient and careerist venom expressed at their hosts.
Most immigrants, legal and illegal, now arrive from anti-American and illiberal regimes in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Upon arrival, too many sense American self-loathing and the left’s Marxist binaries of oppressor/oppressed, and thus find victimhood a convenient entry to the American rat race.
Sometimes the failure of both massive illegal and legal immigration is expressed by illegal aliens critiquing their free hotels and food in New York; sometimes with immigrants in Dearborn, led no less by the “Al-Quds Committee, Detroit” chanting “Death to America”; sometimes by Middle Eastern student and opportunistic activists barricading Jewish students in the library at the Cooper Union and banging on the doors screaming anti-Israel expletives—or yet another international soccer match between the U.S. and Mexico, held in Las Vegas or Los Angeles, disrupted and eventually cancelled due to unruly pro-Mexico fans (either illegal aliens, green-card holders, or U.S. citizens), screaming homophobic taunts at American players, supposedly their fellow citizens or fellow residents.
We are now well beyond the dangers of open borders, ten million illegal aliens arriving since the Biden inauguration, or 100,000 fentanyl deaths facilitated by an open border. There are nearly one million foreign students residing in the US, most of them unvetted. At the most recent violent protests, flag burnings, anti-Semitic rantings, and hate America fests, many Middle East students are at the center, assured their lawbreaking is exempt, and claiming they deserve entry into DEI intersectional victimhood.
We need an immigration timeout. That would mean an end to open borders and illegal immigration, but also a reduction of legal immigration to somewhere around 250,000 diverse, self-supporting, educated, and pro-American immigrants admitted on meritocratic criteria who can be quickly integrated into the U.S. body politic.
Joe Biden recently insulted India and Japan as “xenophobic” and said that “they don’t want immigrants.” Some in those libeled nations retorted that if our chaotic open border, 100,000 fentanyl deaths, two million illegal entries a year, and fifty million recent immigrants are the American exemplars, now expressed with daily illegal immigrant violence and campuses hijacked by Hamas agendas, they want no part of it.
In sum, the disastrous last year of the Biden presidency has ripped off the left’s disingenuous veneer. On matters of the Middle East, most protestors on American soil do not distinguish hating Israel from hating Jews. They are unapologetically pro-Hamas, not just pro-Palestinian but pro-terrorist. And the Democrat Party seems fine with all that.
Americans, thanks to the anti-Semitic takeover of their “elite campuses,” realize these prestige universities are by any fair measure no longer hallowed, but rather dens of mediocrity, spoiled and entitled students and faculty, hatred of Jews, disdain for the working class, and home to thousands of racist, foreign students who despise the United States, but not to the degree of returning to their own homelands.
As for the new Democrat Party, it cannot simply condemn anti-Semitism without its wishy-washy tic of citing both-sides “Islamophobia.” In truth, its racial obsessions have now reached full fruition with endemic anti-Semitism, the ultimate expression of a racist DEI industry that sought victimhood and thus found it could spew hatred with impunity.
Finally, the Biden administration has destroyed all support for open borders by welcoming in ten million illegal aliens, shrugging off 100,000 American deaths from imported Mexican fentanyl, and hosting thousands of anti-Semitic, racist Middle East students.
The one-eyed Jack American Left has been flipped over, and what turned up proved frightening.
It becomes a suspend-disbelief territory when you hear that the Pali peops are dying from starvation. How can it be that the Ham’s Ass can import thousands of pounds of concrete to create tunnels, and import thousands of rockets — even today — yet not get food in? It takes a compliant media to report only the side of terrorists. A sick, perverted media
Oh the food gets IN there, alright, container loads of it. IDF have been discovering YUUUUUGE caches of it underneath the hospitals and community centres Hamas have built, and carefully staged for quick and easy access when HAMAS are hungry.
I am also fairly certain that Dopey Joey’s new portable instaport will be another conduit through which massive amounts of our tax dollars, converted into food and “humanitarian aid” will enter Gaza and be added to what Hamas already have sequestered as their own “insurance”policy.
Ok, now that is a brilliant analysis. I might add that Nazi Kristallnacht saw far fewer deaths than October 7th and yet lookhow that turned out. These whiney heathens would be content with wiping out far more Jews than Hitler ever dreamed of while claiming that it is their free speech right to do so.
On the bright side, the progressive left has managed to eliminate religious messages/themes from the White House Easter egg roll and we can’t be too far away from being liable to be arrested for wishing someone a “Merry Christmas”. This is sarcasm. My next thought is not. What starts with going after the Jews seldom if ever ends when the Jews are in extremis. The sooner America wakes up to the notion that they ( Jews) are only an interim target the better your chances of defeating them.
Yes, Jews, then Catholics, then all Christians and the beat goes on. These liberal elites, extremists and terrorist thugs need to be be stopped now.
Also: the left wing BIG money groups that fund these protests: eg the Soros’, the Tides.
Well, come on, a huge donater to Soros is Anthony Blinken’s parents. And Blinken hired known Iranian agents to nefotiate for USA vis a vis Iran. (Wonder how that went). It is the Soros’/Obamas/Dems/Progs whose same money went into funding the Ukranian revolution and govt overthrow in 2014.
Excellent column. If I could be so bold as to add one myth that has been exploded I would add the myth that the biggest threat to American Jewry comes from the far right.
Let them destroy these universities. It would be a hidden blessing.
Maybe not so hidden. Just a blessing
Spot on, as usual, Victor.
On point as usual. Thank you VDH.
Victor – thank you for your continued defense of the truth! Nothing you have said is even remotely debatable. The “protestors” and the entire democratic left are despicable individuals. American citizens detest this marxist assault! Their actions confirm they are truly worthy of the label “deplorable”.
The left is a cancer. Their purpose is to kill the host. America is the host.
If we allow this then perhaps we should succumb to this obvious assault.
Words are the predecessors of action.
When will we see action?
What would happen if they started executing American Jews? Would we stand idly by and do nothing?
If you hesitated, then you know how serious this situation is.
Home of the brave. Home of the free. Home of the observing wimps.
Home of the losers. Yes, we are all losers with no ability to act in a courageous manner.
It is all just talk. That’s the safe way to go as we recline into old age.
You paint with a te mile wide brush. I trust you are using hyperbole as a tool here.
I am already “old” but by no means reclining yet. Working full time with my hands and back to build a better life. My retirement plan is a pine box. Then I shall begin the mastery of “reclining”. Not until.
Everything makes sense in light of your first line, Jim Reynolds–the goal is the destruction of the US.
It DOES seem as if little is being done to combat this, but let’s consider the movement as a “cancer” (which is a perfectly apt analogy) and consider the treatment options.
If we follow the approach of the “sickness industry” (which, incidently, is also collapsing due to it’s unwillingness to adhere to the dictates of its founders–“first, do no harm”), we could attempt to cut out what we can of the cancer and then subject the remaining cells to poison which is as much a threat to the body as it is to the cancer, hoping that, during this all out assault, somehow enough healthy cells in critical organs survive to carry the body onward. I will point out, however, the poor quality of life experienced by a high percentage of those accepting this approach in the final months of their lives. As I understand it, the efficacy of this approach is still not much higher than doing nothing., although the approach continues to fund an entire industry.
Some success is being experienced with treatments like focused radiation, hitting tumors directly without the widespread damge of blanket treatments. With the cancer as deeply established as it is, some focused irradiation seems necessary.
However, for the “body” to have the highest chance of a healthy future, the naturopathic approach seems more appropriate and less destructive of everything the body holds dear. Pro
More than frightening. In fact, devastating. With respect, I saw no mention of China. Surely when uncontrolled immigration and foreign drug cartels are being discussed, China has earned at least a mention–?
Outstanding analysis of the current situation on elite college campuses! How much can be blamed on George Soros?
Most of this (can be blamed on George Soros)
Should have added a line demanding deportation. Only the very ones we’re fighting will complain. It’s time to take those complaints as a signal to triple down. We have to become hardened to the pleas for compassion that have only the purpose to derail the hard things that have to be done. We need to serve some bitter deterrence.
>> Should have added a line demanding deportation. Only the very ones we’re fighting will complain. <<
Not only them — also the ones running the government, who want to bring in new voters to replace the ones who don't comply with their agenda. Unfortunately, they have power to block deportation.
Excellent summary, sir. As far as I am concerned, every one of the protestors who hate America and its citizenry should pack up and go back to the homes they apparently love.
I did not, and will never, vote to give taxpayer funds to the illegal aliens and their enablers…..
It seems the Left has what they consider a surefire method to avoid a conflict with our major adversaries. We let our minor adversaries overtake the country and destroy our infrastructure from within.
I’m on the fence about whether it’s good or bad that our ‘elite’ colleges are so openly proven almost worthless. I feel that’s already proven beyond any shadow of doubt, but I want to deny what is in front of me. That’s either nostalgia, or I’ve got gas.
Yes, the exposure is the silver lining to the madness.
Yes, an immigration timeout, perhaps a rather lengthy one is needed. There is no such thing as the idea that every peasant in the world has the “right” to “migrate” to A-mair-ee-ka. That notion needs to be put to rest.
Unfortunately the business owners want their cheap labor and the politicians want to build their ethnic voting blocs. So the “timeout” will probably never happen.
A humdinger here Professor!
Not the same words, but the same thoughts of everything you wrote here has been echoed by many of us, however,
our elected officials do not hear us or, like most of the media, ‘do not want to offend’.
Thank you for your excellent writing which I forward to everyone on my list – maybe, just maybe, your words will reach enough
people and instead of sadness, we will have hope.
Like it or not, Patriot or coward, you and I are in the midst of a revolution, an invasion, and an outright attack on the American Constitution. It is very possible that we shall in the very near future be called upon to actually defend our freedom and liberty, as occurred in 1775. It is time to exercise our rights as Americans under the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, to remove the tyrannical government in Washington, D.C. before the drive us all onto the Road To Serfdom.
On Day One, President Trump should suspend all student visas from countries opposed to American values. In addition to reducing the numbers of radical students, this will hit universities in the pocketbook by eliminating fully paid tuitions. Also, any arrested and charged foreign student holding a student visa should have his visa withdrawn and be told to leave the USA within 7 days, otherwise immediate imprisonment. American students similarly arrested and charges should be expelled and sent back home to Mommy. Participatingfaculty and administrators should be fired. There MUST be consequences.
Which American values do you have in mind? The ones that have to do with forcing natives to leave their lands and live on reservations? Or the ones that say it is okay to spend trillions of dollars killing people in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Serbia, Vietnam, …
Well stated Charlie. Whatever one rewards one gets.
VDH is right as usual. His commentary is a sober warning that America is dancing on the edge of the abyss.
Excellent piece, and Victor doesn’t even get into the further humiliation the Hamas sympathy has done to the American press and what little reputation it still had. The moral equivalence, the desperate need to promote the “protests’ as “peaceful”, oh, and the AP “reporters” embedded with Hamas on Oct 7th, with advanced knowledge of what was coming.
Victor may or may not have known it but he distilled several points down into a perfect Trump ad for the coming election. He really just needs to say the following “The Democrat Party IS the Squad. Biden is the most radical president of the last half-century. He and his associates in the Senate want to replace the elected government of Israel; they favor Iran over the moderate Arab regimes. DEI, ESG, abortion on demand, radical transgenderism, open borders, and reparations have now become mainstream Democratic agendas”………Then simply follow it with, “its time to take back our country before it’s too late”.
Nothing was going to happened at UCLA until there was resistance. If we watch and wait nothing will happen and they will continue marching. A soul satisfying wish would be to mark them, spraying them with paint or dye not easily removed, maybe in Israel Blue, then plant a big swastika on their forehead. But I digress.
Everything touched by progressivism ends in death, poverty and destruction. This fact is immutable.. Great article. Thanx
I thank you for your absolute clarity and integrity…
The irony is a large number of the left “progressives” who are now behind the anti Israel/anti Semitic riots were/are themselves Jewish. Wonder how they feel now, and can/will they abandon the “progressives” in November to vote for the hated Republicans? Like it or not the US political system is essentially binary; third parties seldom win and certainly have never gathered the “critical mass” to make any meaningful changes.