Near the beginning of my book, Campusland, there is the following scene. It takes place as the president of "Devon University" (located in "Havenport," Connecticut—draw your own conclusions) approaches the building that houses his office:
A small knot of protesters were gathered outside the entrance. It was early in the year for that sort of thing, but having spent the last several decades at Devon, Milton Strauss was more than used to it. He even had sympathy for most of the causes, having himself slept several nights in a shanytown that progressives had constructed during the dark days of apartheid. That had been right there, in the stone expanse of Bingham Plaza. What could they be protesting today? No doubt something well-intentioned.
The protesters spotted Milton and instantly became animated. "Hey, Milton, divest from Israel now! Stop the murder! cried one. "Divest now! Divest now!" Their homemade signs thrust up and down like pistons.
Milton smiled and walked over. "It's great to see everyone. Really great." He began shaking hands, much to the bewilderment of the protesters. "Keep up the good work and welcome back to school!"
Then Milton Strauss, the seventeenth president of Devon University, disappeared into Stockbridge Hall.
Campusland came out in 2019, and I probably wrote those words in 2017 or 2018. In the book, the progressive students are disappointed at their lack of traction with the Israel issue, so they readily move on to something else.
In the real world, they wouldn't have to wait long.
I have been told, many times, that Campusland was "prescient."
It wasn't.
I was just paying more attention than most to what was happening on our campuses for many years, right in front of our eyes. Interestingly, there were a few critics of Campusland that accused the satire of being "over the top."
In reality, I dialed the real world back. There were things happening that were so out there, even then, that I decided no one would buy it, even in the form of a satiric novel.
And now here we are, only a couple of years later, and Campusland seems almost tame, particularly as the anti-semitism that pervades academia has risen to the surface.
In the novel, the fecklessness of Milton Strauss and his inability to impose any sort of discipline on his campus, gives rise to chaos.
Sound familiar?
In fact, it is the Milton Strausses of the world, and more particularly the boards that oversee them, that are the targets of my next novel, All the Lovely People (St. Martins Press, due out next spring).
But that's not really the point I want to make today.
What's going on at Columbia, and Yale, and Harvard, and just about everywhere has nothing to do with Gaza. As many have pointed out, most of the protesters couldn't find Gaza on a map.
I was amused when one journalist approached a student who was chanting, "From the river to the sea..." and asked her exactly what river and sea she was talking about.
Of course, she had no idea.
But this underscores the point I want to make: it's not about Gaza.
Have you noticed that in a mere three years, the animating force behind the street-marching left has morphed from "black lives matter" to "trans rights" and now to "Gaza?"
It wasn't about black lives or trans people then, and it's not about Gaza today. Tomorrow, it will be something else. A bit further back, it was Occupy Wall Street. Does anyone think that was really about the failure of structured mortgage products?
No!
This is about one thing: the tearing down of America, the destruction of our traditions, institutions, and laws. Obama called it the "fundamental transformation of America."
He wasn't kidding.
And it's all the same people, over and over. Their animating influence is a hatred for the very country they live in.
At the heart of this is the radicalization of our education system, all the way down to kindergarten, with DEI at its core. It produces scores of fresh troops for the Movement each and every year.
I have written about this many times, and don't need to make the point again here.
But none of this stops until schools and universities are completely rebooted. If you're giving money, STOP. If you're serving on a board, raise your hand and say WTF! If you're dying for your kid to get into Yale, open your eyes.
Don't sit on your hands and hope others will do the heavy lifting for you.
They won't.
