Will college Gaza protests tip the US election?

Gaza protests on U.S. campuses pose problems for Biden like the ones that hurt Lyndon B. Johnson in the '60s

Illustration of a college student kicking over a polling place sign
Could the November election hinge on where the protests go from here?
(Image credit: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images)

President Joe Biden, under pressure from fellow Democrats to address Gaza protests at U.S. college campuses, last week made his first public remarks about the unrest. He criticized the "chaos" over Israel's offensive against Hamas while defending the freedom of students to speak their minds, USA Today reported. Peaceful protest, Biden said, is "in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues," but "violent protest is not protected."

Pro-Palestinian students who set up encampments on college quads around the country said Israel's supporters enabled genocide. Israel backers accused protesters of antisemitism. Analysts compared the unrest to the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, warning Biden could face trouble with voters the way then-President Lyndon B. Johnson did at the height of the Vietnam era. Could the November election hinge on where the protests go from here?

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.