On Tuesday, my new book for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Rage and the Republic, will be released. It is a book about revolutions, including our own. The book begins with a quote from the French writer Jacques Mallet du Pan, written in 1793: “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.” History has proven him right over and over again. Today’s revolutionaries often become tomorrow’s reactionaries as the mob turns on its former leaders.
That inexorable pattern will soon play out as Democratic establishment leaders fuel the rage in the streets of cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. A glimpse of this reality was seen this week at Sarah Lawrence College. The college has long pandered to the far left and has virtually purged any conservatives or libertarians from its faculty ranks. Without a conservative to cancel, students set upon liberal columnist Ezra Klein, disrupting his talk, as Cristle Judd, president of Sarah Lawrence College, sat obediently in silence next to him.
After disrupting the event, the students left to carry on their protests outside. What was notable was Klein’s surprise, who (to his credit) remained calm and tried to engage the protesters. Klein attempted to object that he was not a “denier” of alleged atrocities in Gaza. The students were not there for a dialogue but a disruption. They ignored Klein’s efforts to tamp down the rhetoric and yelling.
Judd was entirely useless, remaining a mere pedestrian watching the protest. After the students left, she quipped, “Welcome to Sarah Lawrence College.” There was no pledge to suspend or expel the students: just a shrug and a joke.
I have long argued that universities need to focus on conduct, not speech content. This is conduct. If you disrupt classes or events (rather than protesting outside), you deny the very essence of higher education by preventing others from hearing a diversity of viewpoints.
In fairness to Klein, I am not suggesting that he is leading a mob. Rather, he is an example of how the focus on cancelling conservative figures is unlikely to end there. Sarah Lawrence College is a liberal echo chamber with virtually no conservatives or libertarians to attack. In that environment, the left becomes the target of the far left; the spectrum simply adjusts with no relative reactionaries.
After years of viewpoint intolerance, schools like Yale have finally reached the point where there is not a single faculty member left who donates to the Republican party or candidates.
In 2018, a faculty member who called for greater viewpoint diversity at Sarah Lawrence was the subject of threats and vandalism.
Samuel J. Abrams, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, wrote about the problem almost ten years ago. His research showed that, while the faculty was overwhelmingly liberal, the administrators were even more so. In his survey of 900 college administrators, he found that liberal staff members outnumber conservative staff members by a 12-to-1 ratio: “A fairly liberal student body is being taught by a very liberal professoriate — and socialized by an incredibly liberal group of administrators.”
That was almost a decade ago.
This does not happen overnight or by accident. It is the result of faculty and administrators replicating their own views while effectively purging their ranks of conservatives or moderates.
When this intellectual cleansing is complete, what remains is a new spectrum and an adjusted political litmus test. That is how a liberal columnist like Klein can become the target of a cancel campaign.
As Klein pleaded, “You have me right here. You can talk to me,” he was missing the point. It is not about dialogue or intellectual exchange. These students have been taught that they do not have to tolerate opposing views on their campuses. Klein was simply next in line.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of the Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
On the Gaza issue: college professors should be teaching students that Americans can fully support Israel and also disagree with one leader’s policies. Or that one government leader may have gone too far. You can support Israel but disagree with its leadership – sort of like the USA.
College professors should also be teaching the entire 50 year context and history of the Israel and Gaza issue, including the October 7 attack against Israel. Based on the population of Israel, October 7 exceeded the tragedy of 9/11 in the United States.
College professors should also be teaching students that Sarah Lawrence College and their professors couldn’t exist in Gaza. An American style college could only exist in Israel. LGBT-Americans couldn’t exist in Gaza, they could only exist in Israel.
21st Century Gaza was controlled by a Religious Theocracy government (Iran) – basically churches and religious clergy control the government in Gaza. In other words the nation that controlled Gaza was anti-women, anti-LGBT and anti-freedom. This government then attacked Israel on October 7 (worse on scale than America’s 9/11 attacks).
If you study the 50 year history of Israel and Gaza, Israel has bent over backwards trying to appease the Palestinians in Gaza (controlled by Iran). Yasser Arafat rejected a deal giving the Palestinians everything they wanted.
Parents of Sarah Lawrence college students paying $60,000 to $90,000 per year to attend, might want to ask the college professors why they aren’t teaching the 50 year context of Israel-Gaza history?
In the past a lot of leftism and rage on the campus sort of died when people had to go out and get a job. The world is sort of different out there among the working people, you know the ones that keep the country working day in and day out. One has to wonder where these people and students will land when they have to support themselves. There are only so many radical leftist faculty slots out there.
There is a shift out there of younger people starting to go into trades, which by the way pay quite well, and these jobs will not likely end with AI. If Trump is successful in rebuilding and bringing (up to date manufacturing) back to the US, that in itself may begin to alter the political landscape to a more conservative bent. Also removing many illegal aliens who undercut wages in the US will likely make trades and manufacturing far more appealing.
Strange that as Washington struck trade deals and policies over the past 40-50 years that hallowed out American industry, we had more of the leftism appear. Not the only reason but a large part of it. Labor parties focused on homes, salaries and working conditions of people, not ultra left wing nirvanas that never happened.
GEB,
Didnt the hippies of late 60s and 70s turn into the Yuppies of the 80s? Once they discovered money, where did all that rage go to? It has been noted a lot of the attendees at the “No Kings” protests look like the same age bracket of would be hippies.
Well said concerning the trades and yes more and more young people are looking to the trades. Who wants to go into that much debt to get indoctrinated?
No they did not.
Still plagiarizing I see. The Federalist.
True. Just like X on the other side, GEB likes to get his information from other sources, then present it as his own. Notice,^^ “that hallowed out American industry,” following the recent use of “hallowed” by another poster, only GEB really meant to say “hollowed-out,” but “hallowed” was stuck in his brain.
How much time is left over for practicing medicine, or if retired, at least keeping up with medical journals and developments in his field? He needs to self-diagnose his addiction for upvotes.
Woke cancel culture is the very antithesis of Jurgen Habermas’ ‘communicative rationality’. Cultural
Marxism, much like its ideological ancestor of Robespierre’s Jacobin Revolution, is planting the seeds of its self-destruction in its own version of Leftist Terror, just as Robespierre did back in 1793-1794, and Trump is their Napoleon.
Plus ça change.
Of course. Cancel culture is absolute. Need purity of message from top down. Dissent is not allowed.
The progressives brought this on themselves.
JT: “In that environment, the left becomes the target of the far left; the spectrum simply adjusts with no relative reactionaries.” Thank you Professor. This is eye-opening.
It seems like the ‘Left’ is not quite ‘Pure’ enough in the eyes of the ‘far left’ to be ‘True’ liberals.
And the bloody past of all humanity, remains chained for all of us to see. MAN is the problem. Man has always been the problems. The heart of man is sick and empty and dark and full of raging hatred covered up by centuries of social graces that give way to darkness in a heartbeat.
Yes, it has been termed Total Depravity.
I agree that human nature is the constant. That’s why self-government is hard and why it requires formation and restraint. When those disappear, the darker parts of human nature rush in.
they don’t work
“Try this 🍎, trust me, it’s eye opening!” -Eve
“This is literately your fault Eve” -Adam
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I6VPDNAlp9k
Apple computers
&^^ I’ll buy only apple products from now on. Odd, Omar was sprayed with apple juice.
The operative issues appear to be hatred, rage, and ignorance. These became obvious during the pro-Palestine campus riots a few years ago. Many of those rioting for “from the riviera to the sea” had no clue that this was a euphemism for extermination of Jews. And on a more comical note, the folks carrying signs reading “gays for Palestine” were clearly ignorant of Shariah law.
Fast forward to the present, when ICE agents are the targets de jour. Rioters venting their rage apparently don’t understand that the “sanctuary” status of their city is the cause of so many ICE agents in their communities. As Tom Homan is advocating, working with ICE when illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes are being released from jail will actually decrease the number of ICE agents in their communities. It’s hard to believe that the residents of said communities really want murderers, rapists, hand pedophiles roaming their streets. So maybe they aren’t connecting the dots between cause-and-effect, or maybe they have a very warped sense of right and wrong, or maybe it’s more about rage, and the target is irrelevant.
Just re-read my post. Autocorrect changed “river to “riviera” twice. I caught it the first time, but missed it the second time.
“Just re-read my post. Autocorrect changed”
Any thought that there is something very wrong with our world of technology when it is mandatory to review and edit text that we have written after the device we wrote it on has autocorrected it?
American leaders – of both parties – are missing the bigger fatal crisis for the United States. Both political parties have “Constitutional-Subversive” extremist groups on both the right and left. Leaders in both parties need to very patiently educate these extremist voters, without demeaning voters.
2nd Amendment gun rights only exist in the American model. Voting rights for women and African-Americans only exist in the American model. Equal marriage rights only exist in the American model. Property rights only exist in the American model. The extremist wings of both parties are trying to destroy this “constitutional rule of law” that protects these rights.
“Constitutional-Subversives” no longer support the American constitutional rule of law system. These extremist voters, in both parties, subscribe to foreign government model – basically the “ends” always justify the “means” even if it violates the U.S. Constitution.
In the American model, the “ends” never justify “unconstitutional-means”. The U.S. Constitution is also a wartime governing charter, designed for wartime and designed to be followed during wartime. The Constitution already has temporary wartime clauses designed into the system for emergency situations like anarchy (temporary moments where no government exists).
That also means Congress (Legislative Branch) needs to take back all of its Article 1 powers, instead of deferring their oath-sworn authority to the Executive Branch. The courts (Judicial Branch) needs to take back its Article 3 powers, instead of deferring their oath-sworn authority to the Executive Branch.
The constitutionally-subversive wings of both parties don’t need punishment but education. The American constitutional rule of law system is a “package deal” not an a la carte menu. If you love gun rights, you must also respect the other constitutional rights as well. If you love women’s rights, gun rights and speech rights (political opponents) come in the same package.
If the U.S. Constitution is fundamentally flawed, it can be changed through the constitutional-amendment process, not by Executive Order.
In real practice, that means federal officials (ie: ICE, DHS, etc) are legally required to follow their Oath of Office to follow the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 and Article 2) and legally required to STOP violating constitutional rights.
As to Turley’s above article, we are really talking about foreign-liberals and foreign-conservatives, not American liberals and American Conservatives. Conservatives supporting Trump’s governing style are foreign-conservatives, students violating the legal First Amendment speech of Republicans is a foreign-liberal.
Americans support the constitutional rights of everyone, even those we disagree with. If the U.S. Constitution is fundamentally flawed, tell your member of Congress to support a new constitutional-amendment.
TL/DR
“In real practice, that means federal officials (ie: ICE, DHS, etc) are legally required to follow their Oath of Office to follow the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 and Article 2) and legally required to STOP violating constitutional rights.” Aren’t you assuming something that’s not in evidence here? ICE is constitutionally authorized to find and deport illegal aliens. The people opposing this have a constitutional right to oppose this but they must be peaceful in petitioning the government over their grievances. What I and millions of others have been seeing is anything but peaceful. By enforcing the immigration statutes, DHS and ICE are upholding the Constitution. It’s the public that doesn’t seem to be upholding its part of the bargain. The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The word “peaceably” is very important and without it, the rest of the “right” and what it protects dissolves.
JJC,
Great comment and thank you for pointing out how the Constitution works and how our leftist friends do not seem to understand that.
. They don’t care. They want money to buy luxury. The things envied, coveted. It brings them joy. Shower them with trillions of dollars. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
4get it
Are you both siding this? Other than jan6 which is debated who truly was responsible, I don’t see many conservatives engaging in nullification like the left. Please explain how you can both sides this?
Americans should wake up to the woke world . . . because the revolution has started without them.
Waking up matters, but not to an external revolution. Americans need to wake up to themselves, their responsibilities, and the demands of self-government.
When citizens re-engage internally, the illusion of inevitability collapses.
And they call Trump a Natzi?!?!?!
You have to laugh at these Mob Training Facilities and the self-hating liberals who teach distortion, demonstrate a lack of consequences for poor choices, and encourage “fiery (read arson here) but mostly peaceful” riots (oops I mean protests) and then have the gall to be shocked when the guillotine is brought out for them! Haha but your head will look good mounted on the Gen Z Trophy Wall you morons!
The Left is not interested in a diversity of viewpoints. There is no longer debate. You are not allowed to have an opinion that the Left deems to be offensive. In the UK, you can’t even say something that is deemed offensive without the threat of arrest. They don’t believe there are two sides to most issues. They are convinced they are right, and that you are not only wrong, but evil. Once they have labeled you as a Nazi or a Fascist, a rapist, a con man, a pedophile, etc., etc. you’ve been demonized. Why would they want to hear your thoughts about anything? The Left doesn’t want to hear Mussolini’s ideas about transportation policy.
Professor Turley needs to study the metamorphosis of the liberal student. They are devoid of education, something they replaced with collective idealism. There are no moral imperatives because there are no morals. The concept of morals presupposes and acknowledges belief in bad and good. This dichotomy is virtually missing from today’s liberal student who is only able to see that which does not act collectively with him or her as bad. Sarah Lawrence is where stupid liberals send their kids to die, metaphorically, of course. The kids grow up, enter the “real world,” as it’s called, and spend the best years of their lives aimlessly looking for worthless nostrums to deal with their angst caused by a self-awareness that they don’t belong. In the meantime, as students, they try to excel in performance rage, not true inequity-caused rage, but pseudo-rage. They had no interest in Klein or what he had to say. They were there to perform and he provided an opportunity to put on a show. Their “cause,” after all, is fake, they know it but can do nothing about it because the show must go on. The good news is that their existence favors the odds-ratio for success of the rest of us. It ensures the survival of the fittest, the latter being those who do not subscribe to the silliness of the Sarah Lawrences. In biblical times, eunuchs were given special honor for having relinquished their reproductive capability. The intellectual eunuchs being turned out by Sarah Lawrence deserve our tolerance and little else. When they act up, they should be reminded of their self-inflicted sacrifices and told to sit down and be quiet. They should be told to suffer their TDS in private and leave the rest of us alone. We have civilization to pursue and do not need their silliness and obsolete ideas to get in the way.
jjc, I get the frustration. These students are intolerable because they’re trained to be. But turning them into caricatures may feel cathartic while letting the institutions that created them off the hook. The rot is upstream.
Olly: Yes, I agree. Sarah Lawrence has always had a good dramatic arts major and being an all-girls school often needed guys to play guy-parts in their plays. I and a friend attended a nearby all boys school and often volunteered to act in the Sarah Lawrence productions. We got to know the school and the girls quite well. That was quite a while ago but it was liberal even then and the one-act plays they chose to do were, shall we say, weird.
Professor, you used the term “Liberal” several times through this essay. I don’t believe thst Classical Liberals exist on campuses any longer. They are all Leftist, for whom even 100% agreement can be found “not enough”. As a conservative, I have found it easily possible to have discussions with Liberals. We generally want the same things, maybe by different methods. Leftists are clinically insane, and if they decide that they dislike you personally for any (or no) reason, they are your enemy for life, and no negotiations is possible,
Liberal was redefined long ago in the American lexicon from its classical definition just like the word gay once meant happy. Today’s leftist, progressive liberal is free of the constraints of civil society, the boundaries of law such as the constitution, the norms, principles and traditions that form the foundation of our self-governing, capitalist democracy. The rights of the opposition and the minority are not respected in their by “any means necessary” rationalization of extreme, destructive behavior. The are nihilistic anarchists bent on destruction on their way to an as undefined utopian future.
Tubwater
Look how the left is doing all they can to remove the word (Illegal alien)
I say start mowing them down if you start rioting and breaking shiz and violating rights then meet the hot end of a barrel. Enough of the games. And do something about the corruption in the media that fuels this garbage.
Anonymous, I’ll admit that liberals used to act differently, but it has always been my suspicion that most were communist sympathizers. That this radicalization is happening in every Western country as liberals become ascendant suggests my suspicions were true.
Liberals are like piles of dung. They can fertilize tolerance when spread out but become a biohazard where they pile up.
I think that Sarah Lawrence College should quadruple or quintuple its tuition rates. Let it be a toilet down which leftist imbecile parents flush their money, so that they have less remaining to donate to woke, progressive causes that might more adversely affect the rest of us. Every business owner should already realize what a horrible employee any SL grad would make, so there should be no increase in damage on that score.
Lafayette, the American Revolution participant, later jailed by the Jacobins in France. Robespierre even lost his head, literally.
Meanwhile, the new Democrat government of Virginia is trying to shut down VMI.
Yep, we get it. Colleges are full of liberal professors and they are churning out like minded graduates. So we have one of the best legal minds in the country continuing to harp on the same old story. How about thinking of legal ways to disrupt what is going in colleges and our country instead of same-old same-old.
Billy, I get your frustration. There’s an irony here that’s hard to ignore. Professor Turley warns about the Age of Rage while inadvertently feeding it. Daily provocations without guided discussion, framing questions, or pathways forward turn exposure into agitation.
Free speech can diagnose the problem, but leadership requires formation and direction. Naming the fire every day without teaching people how to put it out isn’t resistance, it’s combustion management.
I see no evidence that Turley wants to play that role. He grew up in a massively liberal household. His life’s work is in a profession that advocates but is powerless to do anything, except engage in friendly debate. You will never talk the Left into seeing things as they are. I can’t think of any moment in history where conversation, or well reasoned debate, has changed radical thinking. They simple don’t view the world the same way you do. We are not going to ever be able to engage in a massive, nationwide, talk-therapy session.
I agree you don’t reason people out of radicalism, and this isn’t about talk-therapy. Debate isn’t the cure. Formation is. The Left didn’t get here through argument but through institutions and incentives.
Those same levers can reverse it. You don’t change radicals by persuading them; you change outcomes by re-forming citizens who know how to exercise lawful power.
I don’t believe that anyone has ever had much success in re-forming citizen opinions on a grand scale. Massive war can sometimes do it but, otherwise, I can’t see it happening. The student radicals aren’t really the people pushing this agenda. They are more of a necessary byproduct. This is about power. The people that are pouring in their millions want to change this country dramatically. They’ve convinced a lot of people that socialism is warm and friendly, that you don’t really have to work very hard, everyone gets ahead, and we all get to share in the big pie. This is a very appealing idea to a lot of people, especially students at $100k per year universities. But that’s just the first step. What they really want is total control.
It may be that attempts failed because they were aimed at the wrong target. You don’t change outcomes by forming opinions; you change them by forming citizens. This republic doesn’t function without citizens capable of self-government. That isn’t optional, it’s foundational.
If the problem is misdiagnosed as a messaging or persuasion failure, every “solution” will miss the root and fail. You can’t throw up your hands and say it’s never worked when the prerequisite was never in place. Diagnose the problem correctly, build the right framework, and formation isn’t just possible, it’s required.
What a moron. He shared the answered. Pay attention; or some people just love to complain and insult. Good luck with being you, you jerk.
Well said, Dr. Turley. Regarding Minnesota, the loose coalition of liberals opposing ICE remains united for now. However, should ICE withdraw, this group will likely turn inward to ‘purify’ its ranks, as they are driven by conflict and require an adversary to exist. Rather than consolidating, they will fracture. Ultimately, in this pursuit of power, the acquisition of control has become more important than the purpose behind it.
” Regarding Minnesota, the loose coalition of liberals opposing ICE remains united for now.”
Interesting report from The Federalist:
Peaceful ICE Arrest Of 650 Aliens In West Virginia Proves Dems Are Manufacturing Chaos In Minnesota
https://thefederalist.com/2026/01/30/peaceful-ice-arrest-of-650-aliens-in-west-virginia-proves-dems-are-manufacturing-chaos-in-minnesota/
“Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just arrested nearly 700 illegal aliens in West Virginia with the help of local law enforcement, showing the stark contrast between state and local police supporting immigration enforcement and the Democrat-run catastrophe in Minnesota.”
“Ultimately, in this pursuit of power, the acquisition of control has become more important than the purpose behind it.”
Well said. My daughter-in-law is a screaming liberal. . .that is. . . she professes to be open minded while at the same time rebuking any feedback from conservatives. It’s as if she walks around all day holding up a mirror of her face to self-congratulate herself.
Recorded history of our race proves conclusively that the chances are extremely good that regardless what else happens, we will find reasons to kill one another.
I have two of those in my family too.
she does, that mirror is called an iPhone
“My daughter-in-law is a screaming liberal”
Yeah, I have one DIL like that as well (the others are quite reasonable). Unfortunately, she is so strident and manipulative that she has co-opted my son into acquiescing to her beliefs.
Yup. That’s what he just said.
Thank you Professor, it is good to see that the modern-day Jacobins are running true to form. But where does it end? When can we see a return to “normal” where our once-great universities again value honest discussion of differing views? Perhaps your book will tell us. I look forward to reading it.
When will Atlas Shrug?
“When will Atlas Shrug?”
We could be riding the tip of one rising shoulder as you wrote that…
It doesn’t end. Violent radicals have always existed in universities. Do you think that the CIA is the only agency, or country, that recruits at college campuses? Do you think that China send us tens of thousands of students each year because no one else has great engineering programs? The only thing you can hope for is that radical policy doesn’t become mainstream policy. Unfortunately, it seems like it has. Democrats have embraced these radicals thinking that they can use them. Maybe that idiot Walz is right, that we are getting close to a Ft. Sumter moment.
If it does I’d rather it happen when a republican is in office. If democrats are in if that happens, the eroding of rights will be swift, blatant and unforgiving. And will not be subject to mob rule. This is what the 2A is also for. Resisting mob rule.
Klein’s miscalculation is the tell. He knew this was about power. He just thought he had enough of it. In enforcement cultures, loyalty never buys immunity and influence is always temporary. The purge simply moves left.
“The purge simply moves left.”
Nihilists gonna nihilate…