(Daily Signal)—My colleague Tony Kinnett captured a rather revealing declaration at the anti-Israel protests in Chicago ahead of the Democratic National Convention this past week. A protester shouted, “Reproductive justice means Palestinian liberation.”
This leftist gobbledygook is nonsensical on its face (abortion isn’t exactly legal under Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and legal protections on abortion in the U.S. will have no impact on civilians in Gaza), but it reveals a nihilism at the root of much leftist protesting. The protests aren’t really about the omni-cause of climate alarmism, LGBTQ+ demands, abortion, Palestine, or whatever the college kids are into these days. Instead, they represent a challenge to authority, an attempt to “stick it to the man,” regardless of the consequences.
These protests echo a culture that has lost faith in itself and is committing suicide.
Former CIA analyst Martin Gurri examines this phenomenon in his superb book “The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium.” Gurri explains that while modern protesters often coalesce around a specific issue, they have little interest in policy solutions or actual governance. These protests often devolve into a sort of nihilism, where protesters—who usually have actually benefitted from the capitalistic system they loudly condemn—attempt to saw off the tree branch on which they sit.
What better example than the DNC protesters, many of whom wore pins reading, “Make it great like 68”?
Button on several of the marchers. A bit on the nose, tbh. pic.twitter.com/umc32qgPf8
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) August 19, 2024
As my colleague Jarrett Stepman noted, the 1968 Democratic National Convention saw hordes of anti-Vietnam War and far-left protesters descend on the Windy City, making an already negative mood even more sour.
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Parallels to 2024 are indeed rather eery. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had dropped out of the race amid criticism in his party (sound familiar?) and his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, eventually won the Democratic nomination. Anti-war protests rocked the convention, a former Democrat launched a third-party bid, and high-profile assassinations (of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy) shocked the nation.
In 2024, President Joe Biden fills the shoes of Lyndon Johnson, Vice President Kamala Harris those of Hubert Humphrey, and anti-Israel protesters take the place of Vietnam War peaceniks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the man assassinated in 1968, mounted a third-party bid (before dropping out and endorsing Trump Friday), and the near-assassination of Donald Trump echoes in the minds of many voters.
If there’s one thing Democrats don’t want, it’s a repeat of 1968, when Nixon won the presidency due in part to the split in the Democratic Party.
Yet the 2024 protesters consciously echoed the troubles of 1968, and they actually succeeded in breaking through the Secret Service barrier—however briefly—on the first day of the convention.
The protesters also openly condemned Harris, portraying her as an enemy of “Palestine” and with blood on her hands.
Effigy of Kamala Harris with blood on her hands less than a mile from the DNC, here in Chicago @DailySignal @MarchOnDNC2024 pic.twitter.com/I9EPpauLHY
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyJr1) August 19, 2024
Yet if 2024 were a binary choice between the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, and Harris, Harris would be far more likely to support the Palestinian cause. Harris has openly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, a policy critics say will enable Hamas to regroup and stage another terrorist attack like the attacks Hamas carried out in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Biden-Harris administration has loosened sanctions on Iran, which has likely enabled Tehran to send more money to Hamas. The Trump administration, meanwhile, had tightened those sanctions, weakening Hamas’s sponsor in the Middle East.
Harris may be an imperfect candidate for anti-Israel voters, but she represents their interests more than Trump. So why are these protesters targeting Harris and the DNC?
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It seems they just want to watch the world burn. Either that, or they have a financial incentive to be there.
Martin Gurri notes that many of the 2011 protests—from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the Indignado protests in Spain and even housing protests in Israel—involved middle-class leaders who benefitted from the system but nonetheless had unrealistically high expectations of government. He attributes the modern protest movement, in part, to the exaggerated promises of politicians, who believe technocratic government will enable them to bring about a utopia, and the dashed hopes of the people who take those promises seriously.
Gurri’s work reveals a latent nihilism in the West. Francis Fukuyama’s much-criticized book “The End of History and the Last Man,” noted that the fall of Communism left free-market capitalism and representative government triumphant and predicted capitalism would reign supreme. Yet Gurri notes that there is always an alternative to the ruling ideology—the rejection of the entire system. Late-empire Rome didn’t lose out to the competing ideology of feudalism; it collapsed from within, and feudalism rose from the ashes.
The death wish of nihilism represents a most insidious foe, and only a wake-up call to reality can defeat it. Contrary to the Left’s demonization, the West has what Psalm 16:6 calls a “goodly heritage” and we all richly benefit from the system these protesters rail against.
Many leftist protesters may believe the system is evil, but that does not change the fact that they themselves benefit within it. These people have conveniences our remote ancestors could only dream about. From running water to electricity to washing machines, microwaves, and the tiny computers that fit in the palm of their hands, they enjoy an embarrassment of wealth and knowledge. Yet many of them claim that the entire system is unjust, rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, anti-LGBT animus, or whatever the hip complaint is today.
The Left’s causes are often bundled into one chaotic mess, with protesters claiming that helping Susie get an abortion in Michigan will somehow improve the life of a toddler in Gaza, or that Tom’s decision to drive an electric vehicle in Georgia will somehow prevent a tsunami from drowning the Maldives beneath the waves of the Indian Ocean. It doesn’t matter that none of it makes sense—the point is to condemn the system.
Of course, a vast network of far-left donors props up pressure groups on all these issues, sending a message to the elites in power that they should yield to the activists’ wishes, or else. This also provides a handy excuse for the government to favor radical causes—the people are “demanding it.”
Ultimately, however, these protesters’ revolt isn’t about implementing a specific policy, it’s about railing against “the system” and sending a message. Martin Gurri astutely notes the real root of that message—cultural suicide.
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