We’ve seen a lot of disturbing poll results over the course of the last few decades. But I’ve never personally seen a more disturbing poll result than those from the latest Harvard/Harris Poll, out over the weekend.
Now, to be sure, the poll says that the American public is basically in the realm of sanity.
Or at least, most of the American public. The olds are ok.
It’s the kids, Marty. Something has got to be done about your kids.
According to the latest Harvard/Harris poll, while a strong majority of every age group agree that the October 7 terror slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of another 240 was, indeed, a genocidal terror attack, some 60% of people aged 18 to 24 said that genocidal terror attack “can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians.”
That’s correct: While two-thirds of 18- to 24-year-olds agree that Hamas’ terror attacks were genocidal in nature, six in 10 still said they could be justified.
It gets worse.
Every age group in America except for 18- to 24-year-olds sides with Israel against Hamas; the older you are, the less crazy you are, with those 65 and older siding 96 to 4 against Hamas. For the youngs, however, the numbers are split right down the middle: 50/50.
Just wait. It gets worse.
When asked about whether students on campus who call for the genocide of Jews should be punished for violating university rules, most Americans of all age groups say yes — and again, the older you are, the more you agree. That’s not because Americans oppose free speech. It’s because they realize every element of speech is policed on campus for microaggressions and offense-taking — so why precisely would genocidal Jew-haters be exempt?
Everyone agrees with that — except for the 18- to 24-year-olds, who believe that while such speech is “hate speech,” 53% believe students should be “told they are free to call for genocide.”
Yes, we’ve discovered the one thing fragile young people aren’t fragile about: saying the Jews should die.
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You think we’re done? It gets worse.
While a strong majority of young people — seven in 10 — agree that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties and 58% agree that Hamas would like to commit genocide, 76% of young people think Hamas can be negotiated with to create peace, despite their stated and clear goal of Israel’s destruction.
And here’s the kicker: 51% of 18- to 24-year-olds think “the long term answer to the Israel-Palestinian dispute” is for “Israel to be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians.”
That’s right. Young people admit Hamas is genocidal, uses human shields, rapes women, and commits evil atrocities regularly. And they want Israel destroyed and handed over to Hamas.
So, why do all these young people think all of these evil things?
Thankfully, the poll actually spells out the answer. On page 56 of the poll, we learn Americans were asked a simple question: “There is an ideology that white people are oppressors and nonwhite people and people of certain groups have been oppressed and as a result should be favored today at universities and for employment. Do you support or oppose this ideology?”
Pretty easy answer, right? No, of course you can’t simply assume white people are oppressors and non-white people are victims. That’s morally imbecilic. Some white people are oppressors and some are victims. Some non-white people are oppressors and some are victims.
The claim that white people are oppressors and that non-white people are the oppressed is ridiculous on the merits. After all, here is a partial list of ethnicities who earn more, on average, than white Americans do: Indian-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Taiwanese-Americans, Sri Lankan-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Malaysian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Pakistani-Americans … the list goes on.
And, as you might expect, most Americans believe this ideology is quite terrible: 65% oppose this ideology.
Not young people. They support it. Not only do they support it, but they support it 79% to 21%. Eight to two. Only a bare majority of 25- to 34-year-olds disagree with that sentiment, by the way.
Want to know why the younger generation hates Israel? Because, according to those same 18- to 24-year-olds, Jews are part of the oppressor class. Some 67% — two thirds — agree that “Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors.”
The evil of critical race theory — or, as we now call it more innocuously, diversity, equity, and inclusion — rears its head in all the ugliest places.
We shouldn’t be all that shocked by these numbers among young people for the oppressor/oppressed, white-people-versus-everyone-else evil ideology — the Barack Obama coalition of the supposedly marginalized, which for Democrats always meant racial and sexual minorities — is numerically strongest among young people. Just 52% of 18- to 24-year-old Americans are white; similarly about 20% of Generation Z-ers, disproportionately white, say they’re LGBTQ+.
Demographics aren’t destiny, of course. Hispanic voters in Florida, for example, are voting increasingly Republican. It shouldn’t really matter what the demographic breakdown of young people is. They should stop thinking stupid crap no matter their ethnicity.
But the Left’s core oppressor/oppressed philosophy is that all that matters is your group identity. If you are a minority (but not a Jew or an Asian seeking to get into college) then you’re a victim. As the radical Left wins ideologically, it’s no surprise that group minority identity — a demographically growing piece of the American pie — is driving anti-white hatred in larger numbers.
Because young people have been indoctrinated by three generations of this garbage, it’s becoming part and parcel of the Democratic Party playbook. Right now, there’s a battle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party itself, between the moderates and the radicals.
The moderates still think the system can be changed and shaped in order to accommodate the demands of those who feel excluded, but they don’t believe the system ought to be obliterated. The Biden administration is on this team; they wave their hands at equity but don’t actually seek to implement it in the ways the radicals would most like.
The radicals think the moderates are weak and foolish, and they’re happy to use them as their tools. That’s why the New York Times is suddenly all in favor of free speech, but only when it comes to students chanting for Israel’s obliteration. According to the Times in a piece published over the weekend, “Universities are under tremendous pressure to stamp out antisemitism, but some say that is causing fear and curbing free expression.”
Free speech has never been much of a priority to the Times, needless to say. The same weekend the Times ran this rather long piece, former op-ed page editor James Bennet wrote a 16,000 word essay for the Economist slamming the Times for its willingness to destroy him personally for the great sin of platforming Senator Tom Cotton, a sitting senator who advocated in 2020 for using the National Guard to put down violent riots. “The reality is that the Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist,” Bennet wrote. “The Times’s problem has metastasized from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favour one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether.”
But this is the same Times suddenly concerned about free speech.
Or they’re lying—and they don’t care about free speech and they are just radical.
My hunch: They’re lying.
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What the radicals want is to use the tools of liberalism in order to push radical, illiberal evil designed to tear down the West. That is what’s happening with young people, who are now suggesting that in the name of diversity and tolerance, Israel — the only tolerant and diverse country in the Middle East — ought to be destroyed and replaced with the shariah law terrorists of Hamas. That’s why young people are preaching diversity, equity, and inclusion in the United States, when what they really mean is anti-white oppression in the name of “reparative justice.”
This is why we see piece after piece in the mainstream media discussing the generational gap among young Jews, who seem not to understand their foolishly liberal parents, who spent decades telling their kids that they’re all for a variety of viewpoints, while their kids were indoctrinated with hatred of their own parents and civilization.
Take, for example, a story from today’s Wall Street Journal about the Wirtschafter family. Grandma Wirtschafter lived with her husband and children in Jerusalem during the 1973 war and is a Zionist. Her son, David, is a reform rabbi in Lexington, Kentucky, who calls himself a “progressive Zionist.” This is code for “a Jewish guy by birth who cares more about progressivism than Judaism.” He married another “progressive Zionist,” who herself “has studied right-wing religious movements and said she is troubled by ethnonationalism in all its forms.” Both consider themselves believers in the definition-less mush of tikkun olam — a term frequently used by Jews who don’t believe much that’s Jewish but are looking for a Hebrew phrase to hang their anti-Biblical Leftwing social justice politics upon.
So, how did they raise their kids? According to the Journal, “They imparted [that Jewish concept of pursuing social justice] to their two children and encouraged them to think critically and speak up.” Their daughter and son, Emanuelle and Zachariah, now hate Israel and wish it to be disestablished as a Jewish state. Emanuelle said she wouldn’t attend post-October 7 events that featured Israeli flags.
That problem isn’t unique to Jews. It’s a generational problem across the West. Liberal parents breed radical children who use the cowardice of their parents as their leverage to tear down the entire system. Meanwhile, their milksop parents sit there and nod their heads weakly as they explain, as the Wirtschafters do, “I don’t agree with Emanuelle on every political issue, including aspects of this current crisis. But I’m tremendously proud of her for standing up for what she believes in.”
But what if she believes white people and Jews are the oppressors? What then? Still proud?
Radicals have been playing this game since the 1960s. Quietly, they’ve been winning. And they’ll continue winning until disaffected liberals realize they’ve been played for suckers and stop mouthing platitudes about the joy of tolerance and diversity as their own children prepare their defenestration in the name of weaponized social justice.