Safe space

My first semester of college coincided with the 2012 presidential contest between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I was a conservative from a small rural town at an elite liberal university, and this was not great for my social life. My freshman floormates at Georgetown defaced my political signs, made nasty comments to me in the hallways and on election night my RA dropped by my room to rub it in my face when the race was called for Obama. The following morning, we all went back to class and started preparing for midterms. Four years later, universities across the country all but shut down when Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Suddenly the mental health of the losers was priority number one. Classes were canceled to allow students space to grieve.

For years, Republicans have claimed that theirs is the party of free speech. They have correctly amplified instances of the intolerant left cracking down on conservative speech, particularly on campuses, often under the bogus guise of combating "hate speech," racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other scourges they grossly exaggerate. Many of us on the right have mocked safe-space-craving Gen Z and millennial students and their expansive needs to feel “safe” by insulating them from speech that hurts their feelings. But now Republicans are conflating legitimate criticisms of Israel with antisemitism and essentially embracing the left’s victim culture in calling for safe spaces — if not by name — for pro-Israel Jews on college campuses.