Republicans have identified recent college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza as the core of a narrative of election campaign chaos they hope can be used to sink Joe Biden’s presidency.
The approach was clearly crystallized by Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, in a recent television interview, when he mocked the camps that have sprung up in recent weeks as “little Gazas” and criticized the president for an apparent failure to unequivocally report cases of anti-Semitism. . .
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“Democrats have deep philosophical divisions on Israel,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week. “That’s why we see all those little Gazas on campuses where we see people chanting vile anti-Semitic slogans… For two weeks, Joe Biden refused to come out and denounce him. This is the 2024 election.”
In fact, Biden condemned anti-Semitism in a White House statement criticizing the May Day protests, but he also spoke out against Islamophobia and other forms of prejudice.
Cotton’s comments followed weeks of turmoil in the college campuses in the USA which saw riot police forcibly dismantle pro-Palestinian camps in widely televised scenes reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of the 1960s.
His labeling of the camps as “little Gazas” was denounced as dehumanizing by some who praised the protesters for drawing attention to the death toll in Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. While relatively few Americans identify the war in Gaza as influencing their vote, Republicans seek to capitalize on the minority who express discontent over it.
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo explained the approach in a recent article on Substack.
“This escalation of the camp divides the left, alienates influential supporters, and creates a sense of chaos that will turn people against it,” he wrote. “The correct response… is to create the conditions for these protests to flourish in blue [Democratic-run] cities and campuses, avoiding them in red [Republican] cities and campuses.”
The Republican Party’s intention was signaled by visits by delegations, including Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, to Columbia University – the epicenter of recent protests – and to George Washington University (GWU) in Washington DC, where protesters painted graffiti and hung a Palestinian flag on a statue of the US founder of the same name.
“It’s what the protests say about American political society and culture that Republicans are trying to capture,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University think tank.
“Biden tried to make this election a referendum on what happened during the Trump administration, with his focus being ‘we don’t want to go back to the chaos of the Trump years.’ That argument could be undermined if people see the chaos on college campuses on their television screens — Republicans are trying to say there is no more stability and calm under Biden than there was under Trump.”
Republicans are also expanding congressional investigations into allegations of anti-Semitism at the protests, an approach that has already reaped political dividends after the presidents of two elite colleges, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, were forced to resign. after criticism of his testimonies in previous hearings.
In addition to the House education and workforce committee – whose hearings led to the firings, and which has now invited three more university directors to testify – three other GOP-led committees have announced procedures to examine the protests.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to investigate universities for possible violations of the Civil Rights Act, a supposed protection against discrimination, while the oversight committee has called hearings into Democratic-run Washington’s response to the GWU protests.
Meanwhile, Jim Jordan, chairman of the House judiciary committee, asked Antony Blinken, the secretary of State, and Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, whether any foreign students’ visas had been revoked for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
The message is clear: Even as the impending college summer break ushers in a likely period of calm on campus, Republicans will strive to keep the issue in the public eye.
Related: US public school officials backtrack on congressional hearing on anti-Semitism
The historical model is 1968, when mass protests against the Vietnam War fueled bitter Democratic divisions, fueled violent clashes with police at the party convention in Chicago (coincidentally the site of this year’s convention) and ultimately led to Republican nominee Richard Nixon to win that year’s competition. presidential election.
“I think Republicans can make this an issue and I don’t think they need to do much to be successful,” said Alvin Felzenberg, a veteran former Republican operative and historian who served in both Bush administrations.
“Just like in 1968, there are no Republicans in this play. The Democratic coalition appears threatened and possibly out of control. I see a lot of parallels and I think the Trump campaign is paying a lot of attention to what Nixon did then.”
The decisive factor in whether history repeats itself could be Biden, who Felzenberg says has given the impression of “being surprised by events” as he strikes a balance between supporting Israel and pacifying progressive and pro-Democrat voters alienated by rising Palestinian casualties in Gaza .
With almost six months until Election Day, Biden has time to assert control.
In its favor is the fact that the current unrest is so far less violent than in 1968, a year marked by political assassinations and race riots. Although police action to break up recent protests produced negative headlines and more than 2,000 arrests, it did not result in serious casualties — an outcome Felzenberg said Biden should have celebrated publicly.
“Biden gave a speech last week that was the perfect opportunity for him to say that the police did a great job – and he didn’t, which made it seem like he wasn’t in charge and is scared of all the people around him. around. his own side yelling at him,” Felzenberg said. “If I were one of the people around Joe Biden, I would spend the next few months showing that he can lead.”
