AMAC EXCLUSIVE
As college campuses across the nation continue to reel from anti-Israel protests marked by left-wing rage, violent clashes with law enforcement, and sprawling encampments resembling homeless tent cities, recent polling indicates the American people are strongly opposed to the campus chaos.
Yet in a high-stakes election year with a crisis on the southern border, ruinous inflation, and war raging on multiple continents overseas, why, one might ask, would the average voter care about campus protests? After all, the radical anti-Israel “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” (BDS) movement has been a fixture of campus politics for years.
The answer may be that Americans have seen this show before, with the same cast of characters. BDS is giving us BLM PTSD.
Four years ago, Americans watched as Black Lives Matter rioters laid waste to the country—many of the rioters young, white liberals coming out of the very same elite universities now in turmoil with demonstrations.
Four years ago, we saw cities and communities subjected to months of looting, street violence, and other bedlam instigated by this left-wing activist class.
Storefronts were vandalized and burned, statues toppled, law enforcement officers disparaged, slandered, assaulted, and killed, and innocent civilians beaten and robbed, all while Democrats bent the knee to the mob. Entire neighborhoods of cities—most notably Seattle—were illegally occupied as “autonomous zones” by liberal activists.
We saw how the privileged agitators were let off scot-free after causing billions of dollars in damage, destroying local businesses, and wrecking innocent lives.
We saw how their idiocy infected our government and gutted our local police forces, causing a crime wave like we had not seen in a generation. Many American cities have not recovered to this day.
We recall how the radicals took over H.R. departments, elementary schools, and every aspect of our social life. We remember their preposterous lists of “demands,” how they tyrannized us with their extreme ideology and tried to assassinate the reputations of anyone who stood in their way.
Now, Americans are watching the same class of entitled children throw temper tantrums on their campuses, make ludicrous demands, and call for revolution—and we’re not having it.
Recent polling data from Winning the Issues shows that 53 percent of voters disapprove of how college campuses have handled the protests—including 57 percent of Independents, 62 percent of Republicans, and 41 percent of Democrats.
This pattern was further evidenced by a recent YouGov poll which found that “Americans are more likely to strongly or somewhat oppose (47%) than support (28%) pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses throughout the country.”
These numbers stand in stark contrast to the early days of the BLM protests four years ago. Bludgeoned by propaganda surrounding the death of George Floyd and rhetoric about “systemic racism” and police brutality, public support for BLM was initially strong despite the violence. In June 2020, 67 percent of Americans said they supported the movement.
But naturally, in the years since, Americans have come to see those riots with perspective. By August 2023, support for BLM had declined to 51 percent. Today it is almost certainly even lower.
Though the vast majority of Americans are not currently attending a college or university and have no direct connection to a college campus, it is not difficult to understand why voters are uncomfortable with the situation now unfolding on campuses throughout the nation.
Even Joe Biden seems aware of the shift in mood.
As this year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago fast approaches, reports show that Democrat leaders are already preparing to shift at least parts of their convention to an online format out of concern for potential disruptions wrought by anti-Israel activists.
But growing evidence also suggests these activists are threatening more than just the DNC Convention. Recent swing state polling from the New York Times shows Donald Trump defeating Joe Biden in key swing states. And national polls show Trump beating Biden by a margin as high as six points—cementing the former president’s status as the odds-on favorite to win the White House this November.
It’s likely no coincidence that Trump’s polling edge has grown as the public has been reminded of the strain of extremism that runs through the base of the Democrat Party.
Whether or not the Biden team can manage to quell the anti-Israel protests enough to allow the issue to recede in the public mind remains to be seen. But as convention season approaches and Americans brace for a summer of even more left-wing chaos, Democrats can be certain that voters have not forgotten what happened in 2020—and that Americans’ BLM PTSD could provoke a reckoning this fall.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
