Progressive activists rule the DNC, probe Berkeley for Jew-hatred and other commentary

The Democratic Party is supposed to try to win political power through elected office, but “this might seem hard to believe on the evidence provided by its official proceedings,” marvels The Atlantic’s Jonathan Chait.The DNC’s meetings this weekend “included a land acknowledgment, multiple shrieking interruptions by angry protesters, and a general affirmation that its strategy had been sound, except perhaps insufficiently committed to legalistic race and gender essentialism.”Fact is, the party has “ceded” its influence to “progressive activist groups” that lack “broad” support among voters.Most “revealing” was “the elevation of David Hogg as vice chair,” a 24-year-old activist who does not seem “notably wise beyond his years.”At one point, a protester shouted, “I am terrified!” Alas, laments Chait, “she was not alone.”“Leaders of my institution, the University of California, Berkeley, should take note” of President Trump’s new measures to fight Jew-hatred, warns Steven Davidoff Solomon at The Wall Street Journal.“They are creating legal jeopardy by condoning antisemitism.”For example, a required comparative-literature class mandates one of a list of lectures to earn a grade higher than B, including one “advertised as promoting the denial of Hamas’s sexual assaults.”That creates “a hostile environment for women in violation of Title VI.”Students also report “that professors, even in nonpolitical subjects like computer science, have launched into antisemitic diatribes against Israel during class.

Federal enforcement of Jewish students’ rights was lax” in the Biden era, yet Trump’s measures promises change.“I invite Washington to make an example of my campus.”“Four years after the onset of the pandemic lockdowns, American schoolchildren are still struggling to catch up to pre-pandemic achievement levels,” sighs Reason’s Emma Camp — and per the federal Education Department, “those stu...