Anti-DNC protesters are a symptom of cultural suicide

My colleague Tony Kinnett captured a rather revealing declaration during the anti-Israel protests in Chicago before the Democratic National Convention last week. One protester shouted, “Reproductive justice means Palestinian liberation.”

This leftist drivel is nonsensical at first glance (abortion is not entirely legal under Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and the legal protection of abortion in the US will have no effect on civilians in Gaza), but it reveals the nihilism that underlies many leftist protests. The protests are not Really about the ubiquitous cause of climate alarmism, LGBTQ+ demands, abortion, Palestine, or whatever else students are interested in these days. Instead, they are a challenge to authority, an attempt to “put yourself in front of this man,” regardless of the consequences.

These protests reflect a culture that has lost confidence in itself and is committing suicide.

Former CIA analyst Martin Gurri explores this phenomenon in his excellent book, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium . Gurri explains that while modern protesters often rally around a specific issue, they are not interested in political solutions or actual governance. These protests often degenerate into a kind of nihilism, in which protesters—who have usually actually benefited from the capitalist system they loudly condemn—attempt to saw off the branch they are sitting on.

What better example than the Democratic National Committee (DNC) protesters, many of whom wore buttons that read, “Let’s Make It Great Like ’68”?

As my colleague Jarrett Stepman has noted, the 1968 Democratic National Convention brought hordes of anti-Vietnam war and far-left protesters to the Windy City, further exacerbating the already negative mood.

The parallels to 2024 are indeed quite disturbing. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew from the race amid criticism from within his own party (sound familiar?), and his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, ultimately won the Democratic nomination. Anti-war protests rocked the convention, a former Democrat launched a third-party campaign, and high-profile assassinations (of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy) shocked the country.

In 2024, President Joe Biden replaces Lyndon Johnson, Vice President Kamala Harris replaces Hubert Humphrey, and anti-Israel protesters replace Vietnam War pacifists. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of a man assassinated in 1968, launched a third-party bid (before withdrawing and endorsing Trump on Friday), and Donald Trump’s near-assassination resonates in the minds of many voters.

If there is one thing Democrats do not want, it is a repeat of 1968, when Nixon won the presidential election in part because of a split in the Democratic Party.

However, the 2024 protesters consciously harked back to the issues of 1968 and actually managed to break the Secret Service barrier – albeit briefly – on the first day of the convention.

Protesters openly condemned Harris, portraying her as an enemy of “Palestine” and a person with blood on her hands.

But if 2024 were a binary choice between Republican nominee former President Donald Trump and Harris, Harris would be far more likely to support the Palestinian cause. Harris has openly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, which critics say would allow Hamas to regroup and stage another terrorist attack similar to the attacks Hamas carried out in Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Biden-Harris administration has eased sanctions on Iran, likely allowing Tehran to send more money to Hamas. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has tightened those sanctions, weakening Hamas’s Middle Eastern sponsor.

Harris may be an imperfect candidate for anti-Israel voters, but she represents their interests more than Trump does. So why are protesters attacking Harris and the DNC?

It seems they just want to watch the world burn. Either that or they have a financial incentive to be there.

Martin Gurri notes that many of the protests of 2011—from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, the Indignado protests in Spain, and even the housing protests in Israel—involved middle-class leaders who had benefited from the system but nonetheless had unrealistically high expectations of government. He attributes the contemporary protest movement in part to the over-promises of politicians who believe that technocratic government will enable them to create a utopia, and the dashed hopes of people who take those promises seriously.

Gurri’s work exposes a hidden nihilism in the West. Francis Fukuyama’s much-criticized The End of History and the Last Man notes that the fall of communism left free-market capitalism and representative government triumphant, and predicts that capitalism will reign supreme. Yet Gurri notes that there is always an alternative to the prevailing ideology—the rejection of the entire system. Late Imperial Rome did not lose to the competing ideology of feudalism; it collapsed from within, and feudalism rose from the ashes.

The death wish of nihilism is the most insidious enemy, and only a call to awaken reality can defeat it. Despite the demonization of the left, the West has what Psalm 16:6 calls a “good inheritance,” and we all benefit richly from the system they protest.

Many left-wing protesters may think the system is bad, but that doesn’t change the fact that they benefit from it. These people have amenities our distant ancestors could only dream of. From running water to electricity, washing machines, microwaves, and tiny computers that fit in the palm of your hand, they enjoy the embarrassment of wealth and knowledge. Yet many of them argue that the entire system is unjust, rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, anti-LGBT hate, or whatever else is currently fashionable.

Left causes are often lumped together into one chaotic mess, with protesters claiming that helping Susie get an abortion in Michigan will somehow improve the life of a little child in Gaza, or that Tom’s decision to drive an electric car in Georgia will somehow prevent a tsunami from sinking the Maldives under the waves of the Indian Ocean. It doesn’t matter that none of this makes sense—it’s about condemning the system.

Of course, a vast network of far-left donors support pressure groups on all these issues, sending a message to the elites in power that they should give in to the wishes of activists, or else… This also provides a convenient excuse for the government to favour radical causes – people are “demanding it”.

Ultimately, however, the protesters’ rebellion is not about implementing a specific policy, but about opposing “the system” and sending a message. Martin Gurri aptly notes the true root of this message: cultural suicide.