2024-05-02 13:00:07
Republican Lauren Boebert (Colorado), during a visit to the pro-Palestinian student camp on the campus of George Washington University, May 1, in Washington. DREW ANGERER / AFP
The mobilization on many American campuses against the war in Gaza has filled Republicans with ease: the woke scarecrow is back. In their eyes, nothing beats the classic and partisan culture war allowing to attack the Democrats on their supposed laxity and their tolerance towards the violent extreme left. At the very time of the evacuation of the encampment on the site of Columbia University, in New York, on the evening of April 30, the three main news channels were on special edition. CNN even had three reporters on campus. But it was Fox News that seemed most inspired by the event.
The banner on the screen evoked demonstrators “anti-Israel”. On the air, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s shadow advisor, asserted that “This is all because of Joe Biden. He and his party are fanning the embers of anti-Semitism. » According to Mr. Miller, the campuses would have fallen “in tyranny and anarchy”, and free access to classrooms would be in danger. Famous presenter Sean Hannity had the deep voice of tragic days. “America doesn’t seem to have moral clarity”he said, when welcoming on the phone an unexpected guest, busy that day in a Manhattan court as a defendant: Donald Trump. “I really think there are a lot of paid agitators”, affirmed the former president. The proof, according to him: the signs with identical slogans.
Pressed to turn the page on the new military aid to Ukraine, which he had helped to promote, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, was the first to take up the subject. On April 24, he went to the steps of Columbia University to call on its president, Nemat Shafik, to resign if she did not succeed. “immediately to end the chaos”. On Wednesday, by 320 votes to 91, elected officials in the House adopted a text aimed at combating anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial on campuses.
” Mental illness “
While Joe Biden seeks a position of balance, defending freedom of expression while denouncing hateful acts and remarks, Republicans do not bother with nuance. Participating in such camps would be a matter of ” mental illness “, dared Ohio Republican Senator J. D. Vance. We do not remember such vigorous condemnations against Donald Trump, when he had dinner at Mar-a-Lago, in November 2022, with the supremacist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. Since then, the former president has continued to question the loyalty of American Jews. “Any Jew who votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined”he said, on April 10.
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