SOROS CAN’T COUNTER CAMPUS CONSERVATIVES
News media reports from meetings organized by billionaire George Soros say he and some rich allies are now funding groups intended to counter the efforts on college campuses of conservative educational organizations such as the Leadership Institute (LI).
Although Soros and his allies hope through their spending to increase the effectiveness of the left on campus, I do not fear that activities they bankroll will significantly increase the left’s campus influence. Nor can Soros stop the growth of campus conservative activities.
LI’s Campus Leadership Program, for example, grew its number of active, independent, conservative campus groups from 216 to 437 in the last academic year alone: September 2004 to May 2005. And Institute graduates have created 32 new conservative student publications already in 2005.
Supported by thousands of generous donors, the Leadership Institute stands ready to help students on any college campus to organize conservative groups there. LI has sent 27 field staff out to visit campuses in all 50 states this fall, and I expect them to increase the number of active conservative student groups by at least 300.
Our donors are not in Soros’ league financially, but George Soros and his wealthy friends cannot write checks big enough to increase significantly the resources the left already spends on American college campuses.
If you study how Soros affected the political situation in other countries, you will see that in every case, such as Serbia and Georgia, he supported political insurgents against repressive regimes. In all those cases, he found it easy to identify and fund dissidents morally indignant against the abuses of those in power.
American college campuses certainly are now a fertile field for the kinds of activities which proved successful for Soros in the past. But his hatred for George Bush has blinded him to the irony that now he’s on the side of repressive regimes in American universities, while morally indignant conservative insurgents are on the right side.
On U.S. campuses, those with the power are almost everywhere abusive leftists. Those who chafe under the bias and persecution on campus have a big moral edge, particularly when trained and organized conservative students shine spotlights on the abuses.
Conservatives have moral indignation on their side regarding the leftist abuses on campus. Moral indignation is highly contagious, so powerful that it tends to sweep aside everything else. That is why, in almost every case, a three-pronged strategy of public relations, political heat, and legal responses wins against leftist abuses on campus. For students appreciate cleverness, and react negatively to unfairness when it is skillfully called to their attention.
George Soros achieved spectacular results when he funded highly motivated political insurgents against all the massive resources of repressive, socialist regimes in Eastern Europe.
American campuses today are dominated by repressive, socialist regimes.
Leftists believe that any conservative presence on campus is too much, even though the resources of time, talent, and money available for campus conservative activity are still minuscule compared to those of the left.
(Not all college professors and administrators are leftists, but the great majority of the politically active ones are, as LI’s Dan Flynn’s report, Deep Blue Campuses, proved.)
Yet conservatives are making great progress. Once again it’s David versus Goliath. Conservatives have achieved a lot on campus, but have barely begun to fight. We shall achieve a lot more as our resources continue to grow.
Soros funded David against the Soviet empire. That worked. Now he’s funding Goliath on campus. That won’t work.
Morton Blackwell is President of the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia. LI’s website is www.leadershipinstitute.org