House Speaker Mike Johnson thinks he has some things to say about antisemitism after selling out all credibility Republicans had left on the border crisis.
Later today, the Republican House leader will give a pointless press conference at Columbia University as the Ivy League school descends into chaos with terrorist sympathizers taking over campus. But the university doesn’t need a visit from a clout-chasing politician trying to turn the news cycle away from an embarrassing performance on Capitol Hill. What the school needs is the National Guard.
On Tuesday, university officials announced students would attend classes on a hybrid model for the rest of the semester after canceling in-person classes Monday amid the sustained demonstrations. Protests erupted the same day university leadership testified on antisemitism before the House Education and Workforce Committee.
The anti-Jewish scenes playing out on campus are reminiscent of 1930s Germany as episodes of antisemitism spike at Columbia and other allegedly “elite” universities, emboldened by the New York protests. On Sunday, a rabbi at Columbia claimed the environment was so dangerous for Jews, he urged Jewish students to go home.
“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” Rabbi Elie Buechler said. “It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus. No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.”
Republican senators called on President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to the school on Monday. What the university’s Jewish students are getting instead is a visit from Johnson just after a performative visit to the southern border yielded $95 billion for other countries and exactly zero for American border security. How inspiring.
Where was this energy from Republicans targeting higher education when professors cheered rioting in 2020? Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, opted to march with the far-left demonstrators who ultimately tore up the country under the banner of “Black Lives Matter.” Indiana gubernatorial frontrunner and U.S. Sen. Mike Braun sought to capitulate to the movement on policing reform.
But at least Republicans publicly opposed Democrats’ chants of “Defund the police” in 2020. Not so much on the open border. The Republican Party lost its credibility on the border under Johnson and Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who gave up on the migrant crisis without even trying.
Conservatives who demanded a tougher response to rampant lawlessness in 2020 were villainized by the media. When Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who signed the letter this week demanding the president call up the National Guard at Columbia, did the same amid the riots in 2020 with a column in the New York Times, the editor who okayed the op-ed was ousted from the paper. New York Times activist staffers had responded to the column with outrage, posting on social media, “Running this puts Black [New York Times] staffers in danger.”
While Republicans showed very little effective opposition to racial hatred-fomenting riots in 2020 that burned down Main Streets across the country, they’re elated to oppose racism against Jews, the majority of whom vote for Democrats. Republicans have been holding high-profile hearings with Ivy League leadership to embarrass higher education as another corporate industry radicalized by far-left ideologues.
Last fall, two of the three university presidents who testified before House lawmakers resigned by the new year. Last week, Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik followed their performance by questioning the literacy of her own faculty. When Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind, pressed Shafik on why a school handbook spelled “folks” as ‘f-o-l-x,’ Shafik shrugged.
“They don’t know how to spell?” she suggested. “I mean, I’m not familiar with that spelling.”
