A lot of older Democrats are amazed and appalled at how pro-Palestinian many of the young are, wondering how this could be. They are less surprised, but still have a bit of amazement at how socialist young liberals are. The uneasy truce in America has been a hybrid system that leans more to safety net than socialism, and to free market rather than capitalism per se. A lot of blame gets placed on social media, TikTok in particular because it is run by a foreign government, as the manipulative evil force
Let me make some guesses. A lot of people just want to be outraged, and show the world how outraged they are for the status points. On the left, many of the young are outraged because the Biden administration is so milk-and-water. In 2020 they could get outraged about George Floyd, facts be damned. (And you got to go outside and protest in the open air, which the conservatives couldn't, so double bonus.) I guess that's solved itself, huh? No more police misbehavior anymore, at least, not worth mentioning. Then there was getting rid of Trump! Now there's a cause you can get behind! Then there was a lull around covid, because some lefties and righties got mixed up as to which stereotype they were supposed to be enacting, so it wasn't really satisfying. Then Ukraine was really a mess, because it was also sort of ambiguous, what with war and communists, oppression and plucky freedom fighters. What are our lines here? But you could squint and say that Putin was really a conservative because he was all status quo and just felt conservativey, and Trump had spoken admiringly about his political skill, so you knew that (wink wink) behind closed doors they were fast friends.
But really, it wasn't that much fun. So they were just itching to find something to get outraged about.
A Quinnipiac poll shows age 18-34 as having a majority in favor of the Palestinians. That is a big increase since October 7. That's everyone, not just liberals or Democrats of that age. The older generations, especially the oldest, still have no use for Hamas, so the country as a whole still favors Israel. But old people die, even old Jews, and votes are still one per person. In the conscious lifetimes of young leftists, Israel has had conservative governments, and everyone knows that conservative = bad. They don't like them. Older people remember a far more mixed Israel, with socialists, social liberals, ultraconservative parties on the fringe mostly. Those are all still there, but people like their narratives simple, so Israel = conservative has taken hold in that group. The Oppressed Palestinian narrative has also been around on the left for a long time - I recall reading about it in Tikkun in the early 80s - so they aren't starting de novo on this.
It doesn't pay to attribute too much reasoning to fanatics, but it also is a mistake to see it all a manipulation by a few dark forces. If the young left has been talked into supporting Palestine, rather than South Sudan or Tibetans or whatever, that is largely because they were looking for an outrage ticket. That was pre-installed.
Tangentially related: Are those who have children more likely to be nationalist? It makes intuitive sense, but I don't know about it.
The leftist protest archipelago of organizations has very old ties with each other, and the PFLP built its relationships many years ago. They set the terms on which the whole Western left understands Palestine, terms on which Israel has no right to exist. It is to be interpreted as another sort of "colonial" project, and fits right into the Marxist worldview in which such projects are (as Lenin argued) an attempt by late capitalist society to extend its survival and put off the inevitable socialist revolution. As such, it must be destroyed -- not be made the partner of a peace process, not accomodated or bargained with, but destroyed by revolution.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be that the leftist protest movements were fringe actors and thinkers, but in the last thirty years they have really prospered. Figures who studied under them have come into the leadership of much of academia, and trained many others; and many of those, younger ones, are now providing the fodder for that social media that is so influential among the young.
I suppose the decline of Christianity in the West has something important to do with it also. It hardly makes sense for a nation that is poised to celebrate the birth of "Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum" in Bethlehem to talk about Israel as being a colonial enterprise for the Jews. It used to be understood that the Jews had been there at least that long, and belonged there if they belonged anywhere. Some even read the Old Testament, which has somewhat more to say on the subject.
Grim...very good.
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