The overreaction to US campus peace protests doesn’t feel free or brave | Cas Mudde

The right has painted nonviolent protests against the war on Gaza as hotbeds of woke' terrorism. It's a pretext for repression

Across the world people have been shocked by social media footage of heavily armed law enforcement officers arresting peacefully protesting students and professors at university campuses around the United States. The so-called land of the free and home of the brave" looks neither free nor brave - except for the brave protesters who continue to stand up to state and university repression.

Although government repression of student protests is not unique to either the US or this particular period, the current orgy of state repression is very much an illustration of the current crisis of liberal democracy as it is squeezed by both illiberalism and neoliberalism.