Here’s a very good piece from Tom Klingenstein’s blog. Who is TK? Good question. I had to look it up myself.
Tom Klingenstein is the Chairman of the Claremont Institute, he is also a philanthropist, public speaker, writer, and a playwright. He believes that we are in a cold civil war and that our enemy—what he has been calling the “Group Quota Regime”—are winning, in large measure because Republican leaders have yet to engage. Tom maintains that this regime seeks to undermine America’s foundations, particularly the traditional two-parent family structure. Central to his thesis is the belief that preserving the American family is essential to preserving the nation itself.
Anyway, he prints a piece written by Diodotus that discusses a perceived shift in the mindset of America’s college kids and their peers in today’s society. These young people, who view themselves as the up and coming elites (particularly leftist students at “prestigious” institutions), increasingly view the rule of law not as a neutral restraint but as an oppressive tool to be discarded when it hinders their progressive goals.
Drawing from professor Samuel J. Abrams’ experiences, it highlights how his students rejected nonviolent protest principles in favor of endorsing violence or threats against federal agents, such as during immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, citing historical precedents like the Black Panthers and Stonewall as justification for armed confrontation.
This radicalism is portrayed as widespread across universities, fueled by inflammatory rhetoric from Democratic figures like Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner, who threatened to “hunt down” immigration agents. The author argues that this approach nullifies legitimate laws (e.g., those enacted under Clinton and enforced variably by Obama and Biden) rather than seeking to change them through democratic means, potentially ushering in mob rule and eroding the rule of law.
The piece warns of backlash: The law is designed to protect the vulnerable, including these naive, elite students who lack real-world experience with violence. By advocating fascist-like coercion against those with opposing views (e.g., traditional Americans), they thin the “veneer of civilization,” risking open conflict where they—the unarmed and unprepared—would suffer most, unlike well-armed rural conservatives. The author urges them to reconsider, emphasizing that such posturing is dangerous and self-defeating, as civil breakdown would likely prompt them to crave the very law enforcement they now reject.
Here is a teaser. Go read the whole thing.
Editor’s Note
America is entering a new stage of its cold civil war, one defined by a transformation in the moral imagination of the rising elite. Many students at our most prestigious institutions no longer regard the rule of law as a shared restraint. Rather, they see the law as an instrument of oppression, one to be discarded when it obstructs the aims of the destructive Left. Thus, enforcement becomes illegitimate and constitutional authority is something to be nullified rather than upheld. This is the spiritual terrain on which the conflict now unfolds: a contest between a republican order grounded in legal equality and a revolutionary ethos that treats coercion as justice and law as power.
Samuel J. Abrams, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County, just north of New York City, has written a fascinating and disturbing essay about the growing radicalism of his students.
“I recently walked into my politics class at Sarah Lawrence College prepared to discuss civic protest. The prompt was Minneapolis, where a recent immigration enforcement surge has sparked mass demonstrations, a general strike, and the fatal shooting of two civilians by federal agents.
I planned to cover basic principles: the right to protest, the obligation to remain nonviolent, the distinction between civil disobedience and coercion. My students rejected the premise almost immediately.
‘What are we supposed to do?’ one asked. ‘Hold signs while people are being shot?‘
‘You’re asking us to play by rules that only we follow,’ another said.
They cited the Black Panthers. They invoked Stonewall. They argued, confidently, that throughout American history, violence or the credible threat of it was what forced change. Several endorsed armed confrontation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement as both effective and ethically justified.“
These views are not, of course, confined to students at Sarah Lawrence but are certainly widely shared at virtually all of America’s prestigious universities.
There are many reasons for this growing polarization, which has been documented extensively in these pages and elsewhere. Abrams correctly points to the outrageous rhetoric that has now become routine among leading Democrat politicians.
“Last month, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner issued a statement that would have been unthinkable from a major American law-enforcement official a generation ago. Speaking about federal immigration agents, Krasner declared: ‘In a country of 350 million, we outnumber them. If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice.‘”
The students, Abrams notes, are listening.
When they say they’re going to hunt you down to “achieve justice,” listen to them.
Here’s the money quote from the author.