In America, the 'clear and present danger' to the fabled progress that most Americans claim they want are conservatives - full stop.
What they tend to miss out on is the fact that Big C Conservatives™ are outnumbered but they 'win' because neo-liberals, moderates, and Big C Centrists™ worry/care more about being seen as partisan, biased, or weak on certain subjects that they'll gladly over-correct and help turn over institutions toward conservative thought/practices.
What's happening at Columbia is a prime example.
We already can assume how the right-wing commentary machine is going to be addressing the protests and how neo-liberal media personalities will hem and haw about 'the right way to protest'...
... but the kids are doing it in those 'right ways'. Peacefully. Hell, non-disruptive (they're not in the street but on the lawn and not disrupting the every day practice of the campus), yet they're STILL getting 5-0 called on them.
It's even to the point that the NYPD police chief - who routinely saber rattles about protestors and criticisms about officers - couldn't find any real wrong-doing by the protesting student body.
And, yet, the university prez still presented them as a 'clear and present danger' requiring removal.
All to suspend them and get them charged with trespassing, obstruction, and lead to their swift eviction from the campus.
Mayor Eric Adams, alongside top New York Police Department officials, announced during a press conference on Thursday afternoon that police had made more than 108 arrests during the <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04/18/shafik-authorizes-nypd-to-sweep-gaza-solidarity-encampment-as-officers-in-riot-gear-arrest-dozens/">sweep</a> of the “<a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04/17/dozens-of-protesters-occupy-south-lawn-call-for-divestment-from-israel-ahead-of-shafik-testimony/">Gaza Solidarity Encamp</a><a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04/17/dozens-of-protesters-occupy-south-lawn-call-for-divestment-from-israel-ahead-of-shafik-testimony/" target="_blank">ment</a>” on South Lawn.
Whenever this happens - whenever 'liberals' over-correct to try and satisfy the POTENTIAL for being seen as biased by conservatives - they gleefully jump on the grenade FOR Big C Conservatives™.
Now? Big C's don't HAVE to be the face of institutional overreach or the iron glove of government/government adjacent bodies cracking down on the little guy.
It's how they managed to maintain control of the 'free speech' narrative...
Conservative run institutions aren't that numerous.
Centrist/Neo-liberal institutions, however, are.
IF you can levy a constant stream of 'liberal bias' accusations at people while throwing the worst of the worst conservative thinkers at the outer walls like a trebuchet, you now have gun-shy (read: chicken shit) administrators feeling forced to let them run roughshod over you lest you be assailed for being against 'free speech'.
ALTERNATIVELY
If you're not cracking down on the, in their words, "crybully, snowflake, pronoun anti-fa warriors that overrun institutions of higher learning with their trigger warnings and anti-conservative, anti-American bias", then they'll threaten your purse strings
That leads to: hateful conservative speech has free reign; anti-establishment, pro-protectionist speech gets cracked down on
While Big C's can smugly sit back and point to your overreaction as overreach
So congratulations.
You've done their work for them because you're afraid of being considered biased.
You've destroyed the public trust in, not just your individual institution, but virtually every institution of higher learning.
You've conceded ground and, thus, helped give way to Big C Conservative infiltration without them firing a single shot.
And you wonder why MLK had words about the "white moderate"...
óÓÒò Spotted Menace óÓÒò