Editorial: Sending armed troops to quash peaceful campus protests is a dangerous idea

Pro-Palestine protesters set up an encampment on the UCLA campus on April 25 in Los Angeles. On Wednesday during a visit to Columbia University, House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that if the wave of protests against Israel’s U.S.-funded war in Gaza on college campuses, including UCLA and USC, is not contained quickly, “there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. And more than two dozen Republican senators signed a letter urging the Biden administration to “restore order to campuses” by using federal law enforcement, prosecution and deportation against “the outbreak of anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist mobs.” Never mind that they are unfairly assigning racist motives to thousands of people protesting the killing of more than 34,000 Palestinian people, most of them women and children. “If these campuses cannot get control of this problem, they do not deserve taxpayer dollars.” This kind of tough talk is especially rich coming from a man who has shown no interest in cracking down on the most serious threat to our democracy: President Trump’s lies, and his supporters’ use of violence to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Republicans’ eagerness to deploy armed troops to quash peaceful protests suggests that they don’t really believe in free speech after all.