Democrats’ Missed Opportunities, Columbia’s ‘Academic Freedom’ Double Standards, and More Insights

Liberal: Democrats’ Road Not Taken

“Democrats currently find themselves at a critical junction regarding their political future, and the outcome hinges on which direction they choose,” observes Ruy Teixeira of The Liberal Patriot.

They can take either “the party of restoration” path or the less traveled “party of change” one.

Surveys indicate that “voters are demanding significant change,” while the “party’s image is tarnished, and perceptions of Democratic governance are unfavorable.”

Dems “will have to work really hard to convince voters, especially working-class voters, that they embody change.”

Democrats “seem unaware that they are at a pivotal crossroad,” and if they persist with their solely anti-Trump strategy, it “will render them the party of the status quo in a time of change — and consequently, the political breakthrough they aim for will remain out of reach.”

Campus watch: Columbia’s ‘Academic Freedom’ Hypocrites

Critics of President Trump’s “enforcement of civil-rights laws” at universities gripe that a crackdown on pro-Hamas protesters will destroy academic freedom, notes Commentary’s Seth Mandel.

Yet it’s the “anti-Zionists” who’ve been “erasing academic freedom,” and punishing them “will help restore it.”

The “tentifada mobs” made that point clearly “when they stormed Butler Library and forced nearly a thousand students to stop studying” for finals.

Even groups that usually defend the goons said protesters went too far.

Yet if academic-freedom groups had led the fight “to restore the academic freedom of the Jewish students under siege” from “campus Hamasniks,” then perhaps now “they wouldn’t be fighting to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to Harvard and Columbia and the rest.” 

From the left: How US Higher-Ed Turned Useless

As professors gripe about the “climate of fear” stemming from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ and President Trump’s DEI crackdowns, Racket News’ Matt Taibbi observes it’s just “the latest in a long chain of official actions and reactions, during which American higher education became increasingly a) expensive and b) useless.”

Remember: Obama-era “federal pressures” on campus sexual-harassment led to a 2022 poll showing that “huge pluralities of Americans held their tongues for fear of ‘retaliation and harsh criticism.’”

DeSantis’ anti-DEI rules “go too far,” trading “one brand of groupthink for another”: Yes, “universities have become madhouses and ignorance-factories whose purpose is not to teach but produce sinecures for ed-sector dingbats,” but “I don’t want federal thought police of any stripe sitting atop them.”

From the right: Bernie’s Private-Jet Hypocrisy

Sen. Bernie Sanders won ridicule with news “that he spent $221,723 in campaign money on private jets for his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour,” scoffs the Washington Examiner’s Byron York.

Bernie’s excuse? “You run a campaign and you do three or four or five rallies in a week . . . That’s the only way you can get around.”

Yet, notes York, “Sanders has long had a taste for private jets”; indeed, his “requests for private jets were so frequent that they at first irritated and then angered Clinton staffers” during the 2016 campaign.

Bernie’s “message is basically that billionaires are destroying American democracy,” but he has something in common with them: They also “defend their use of private planes by saying they are just so busy” they can’t fly commercial like the little people.

Law prof: Partisan Persecution of Lawyers Isn’t New

“I opposed the executive orders of President Trump targeting law firms,” writes Jonathan Turley at The Hill, but “many of those objecting today to the targeting of Democratic firms and lawyers were the very same people who targeted conservative lawyers for years.”

Indeed, “I personally know lawyers who were told to drop Republican cases or else find new employment — including partners who had to leave their longstanding firms.”

Many “deans and law professors protesting Trump’s orders” had “previously purged their schools of Republicans and conservatives.”

At least “there could be a modicum of recognition of the years of systematically purging conservative lawyers and law professors by some of these very critics.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board