By Noah Rothman
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Democrats have reason to think their strategy is working.
The latest Fox News poll found that, while the public supports Donald Trump’s
actions in relation to border security by a whopping 15 points, he is narrowly
underwater on the issue of “immigration.” The distinction between border policy
and immigration policy is one the president himself helped establish. It
probably reflects the public’s discomfort with the extent to which Trump’s
deportation policies have produced conflicts with the courts.
A Pew Research Center survey released this week supports this assessment. By
overwhelming margins — 88 and 78 percent respectively — the public thinks the
administration must follow the rulings issued by the Supreme Court and federal
district courts. Moreover, voters are more worried about the president’s
observing the rule of law than they are about the judiciary. Fully two-thirds
of Fox poll respondents, including a majority of Republicans, say the president
should not defy the courts even if he believes they are overreaching.
If Democrats are so inclined, they might cite this data
to conclude that the public is once again on their side. All the flashy trips
to El Salvador, the theatrical press conferences outside U.S. detention
centers, and appeals to voters’ emotions are paying off. Right?
Perhaps. But the fact that the president’s political
position might be eroding doesn’t mean Democrats are the beneficiaries. What’s
more, the Democratic Party’s rebranding as a vehicle for the promotion and
preservation of the rule of law is about to be tested.
The president’s deportation initiatives that Democrats
have taken a stand against are inextricably bound to campus politics and
Trump’s executive order aimed at combating antisemitism. Again, that’s not
Trump’s doing but his opposition’s.
Democratic lawmakers manned the barricades on behalf of
Columbia University–affiliated deportation target Mahmoud Khalil. They argued that the administration had sought to punish him for
engaging in constitutionally protected speech and, therefore, could not meet
the procedural requirements necessary to expedite his removal — right up until
the Trump administration did just that.
The Democratic Party went to bat for this figure, a test
case for the administration’s contention that noncitizen agitators who align
with U.S.-designated terrorist groups are making life on campuses hell for
other students. And now that hell, which they tacitly defended, is making a
comeback.
On Wednesday night, Yale University hosted Israeli
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — a controversialist and contentious
figure, even within the Israeli government. The invitation was bound to stir
the “pro-Palestinian” mobs to action, and it did just that. True
to form, the demonstrators didn’t reserve their ire solely for Ben-Gvir and
Yale’s administrators. Rather, they took their frustrations out on the Jews in
their midst.
Masked protesters cosplaying in Bedouin scarves locked
arms in the effort to block
visibly Jewish students from navigating Yale’s campus. They barked at and
harassed media figures documenting their escapades, such as the Daily Wire’s
Kassy
Akiva. They adorned themselves with Hamas-branded
regalia.
Yale responded to the menacing disruptions by rescinding its
recognition of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and
promising disciplinary action for those who engaged in the demonstration — a
prudent course, since the university is already facing a Department of
Education probe into its lax approach to similar past events. But
this gesture may be insufficient to satisfy the Trump administration. The
Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “is tracking the concerning
activities at Yale, and is in touch with affected students,” wrote
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.
Yale isn’t the only font from which Democratic headaches
continue to flow. Columbia University — the center of the outbreak of campus
antisemitism that erupted, perversely enough, following the worst one-day
massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — is at it again. “A group of protesters
is planning to set up tent encampments on Columbia University campuses this
week in protest of the war in Gaza,” NBC News reported on Wednesday. “Columbia did not confirm or deny
whether it knew about the upcoming protests.”
Well, Columbia’s administrators are aware of them now. It
is incumbent on them to take proactive measures to ensure that their students’
civil rights are not violated. Moreover, Democratic lawmakers are obliged to
pressure campus administrators to do their jobs.
These schools know which of the two major political
parties is more deferential to their faculty and staff. Democratic officials
know that they benefit more from the absurdly lopsided political donations of
education professionals at the university level. And the public knows full well
that the institutional culture on America’s campuses is liberal. No one is
confused about the power dynamics at play here. And if colleges experience
another antisemitic eruption, voters will know whom to blame.
The public isn’t stupid. They remember the excuses that were made for the pro-Hamas protesters throughout 2024. They recall the efforts made to coddle the protesters, to insist that they had “a point” even as they vandalized
their surroundings and terrorized people. Maybe much of the public didn’t read the
Associated Press report noting that, even six days out from the election,
Kamala Harris still hoped to harness the protesters’ enthusiasm if she could
only “validate their concerns.” But they saw the results of
that effort in her deferential approach toward her tormentors. Most
forebodingly, as evinced by the firebombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh
Shapiro’s home, they know this is a violent movement in search of a pretext.
Democrats have made a smart bet in positioning themselves
squarely on the side of the rule of law. If they want that makeover to stick in
voters’ minds, they cannot be selective about the laws they want to see rule.
Overcoming the Biden administration’s legacy of contempt for the primacy
of law would be challenging enough, but giving the universities aligned
with their politics another pass might scuttle the enterprise entirely.
If Democrats can stand consistently behind their newfound
convictions, voters may reward them. If they won’t, Democratic discomfort over
the Trump administration’s flirtation with defying the courts will be exposed
as opportunistic and hollow — another confirmation of the wisdom of the verdict
that voters rendered last November.
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