Liberals hope to place campus lawlessness off-limits for political debate.

It's not hard to figure out why

In the paper edition of the Washington Post, this piece is called “In a troubled era, a cloud of chaos.” It shows that left-liberals seem to be as unhappy with the current state of affairs in America as conservatives are.

That’s a good thing, I suppose. In any case, it reinforces my belief that political engagement is less than a zero sum game.

Early on, the authors express the standard liberal puzzlement that “unemployment is at its lowest level in decades, yet voters continue to register their displeasure with President Biden’s handling of the economy.” Here’s a clue. Marginal gains in employment are not felt by most people. Sharp increases in food, fuel, and housing costs are felt by nearly everyone.

Much of the article focuses on students who, the Post found, are stressed out about our “troubled era” and the current “cloud of chaos.” More about them later.

The Post also turned to a NYU history professor, Robert Cohen, who studies radical student politics. Cohen criticizes “far-right” Republicans for “politicizing” the current student protests.

I would have thought that anti-Israel protests, especially ones that call, effectively, for the demise of the Jewish state, “politicize” themselves. These students aren’t demonstrating against restrictions on alcohol.

What Cohen means, though, is that conservatives are “accusing liberal university leaders of allowing far-left students to run amok” — the same charge Ronald Reagan leveled when he campaigned for governor by promising to ‘clean up the mess at Berkeley.’ “They always want to conflate the liberal university’s leadership with the radicals who are disobeying leadership — it’s an old playbook,” Cohen moans.

In my view, it’s Cohen who’s resorting to an old playbook — the failure of most liberals to take responsibility for their actions (or inaction, in this case). It’s true that, in many cases, far-left protesters are “disobeying” school leadership. But the question isn’t what leadership is saying; it’s what leadership is doing (or not doing) when students disobey.

If university leaders aren’t doing enough to prevent serious disruption on campus, then it’s fair to criticize them. And it’s clear that at some high-profile campuses, leaders haven’t done enough.

But even if we focus solely on what leaders say, there is still plenty of room for criticism. In response to questions from Rep. Stefanik, three presidents of prestigious universities couldn’t say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates their school’s rules or code of conduct. Is it somehow off-limits to criticize such “leadership”?

Cohen ignores the fact that the liberal view of the current wave of protests differs from the conservative one. The liberal approach is embodied in the column by David Leonhardt of the New York Times that I discussed here. Leonhardt sees the protests as putting college leaders in a dilemma. On the one hand, they want to preserve order. On the other hand, they view the protesters as fighters for the oppressed — the successors to students (among whom were future college leaders) who fought against Jim Crow, the Vietnam War, and apartheid in South Africa. (Professor Cohen compares the current protests to those against South Africa.)

This on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand approach leaves liberal college administrators conflicted. This, in turn, often leads to mixed signals and a mixed (and ineffective) response.

Conservatives don’t see the protests this way. We are not conflicted. We have little or no sympathy for the protests and, accordingly, none for college leaders who tolerate them when they violate the rules.

Clearly, this difference is fair ground for political debate. But because most Americans see the matter the conservative way, liberals resort to their old playbook — they denounce conservatives for “politicizing” a political debate liberals are losing.

And the debate here isn’t just between college administrators and conservatives. It’s also between Democrats and Republicans.

Recall Rep. Stefanik’s questioning of those three college presidents. This occurred at a House hearing. There have been no comparable hearings in the Senate.

Why? Because Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate. Democrats want to bury this issue because they don’t want to alienate the left, which supports the over-the-top protests, but don’t want to be viewed as sympathizing with radical lawbreakers who hate Israel.

Like the New York Times and many college presidents, Democrats are conflicted about the anti-Israel protests and about the war in Gaza, itself. Joe Biden certainly is. Republicans are not.

In sum, the “politicization” of the campus protests isn’t the result of Republicans unfairly resorting to “an old playbook.” It’s the result of clear differences between liberals and conservatives over a political issue.

Finally, a word about the students the Post says are stressed out by current events. According to the Post, it has gotten to the point that students are talking about not wanting to have children.

The Post points to a student who says the only two times she feels a sense of calm are when she’s thinking about her summer internship in Milan and when she’s in bed, “grateful she made it to the end of another day.” I guess even Play-Doh doesn’t help.

“It’s like, ‘Thank goodness I can go to bed and sleep,’” [this student] said. “Because when I’m sleeping, I’m not thinking. When I’m sleeping, I don’t have to think about any of this.”

Is this problem typical? If so, it’s a good thing these kids weren’t around in 1968. That year, two of the most important men in America were assassinated, a man hated nearly as much as Donald Trump is today won the presidency, inner-cities including the nation’s capital, were plagued by race riots, a chaos reigned at the Democratic National Convention, and 17,000 young Americans were killed in Vietnam with no end to that war in sight.

Somehow, the students of that era still mostly enjoyed life and still wanted to have kids. And hardly any of us had an internship in Europe to look forward to.

If today’s students are as stressed out as the Post says, then America has failed to equip our youths with what it takes. And might well end up failing America.