An increasingly authoritarian United States might see the return of violent revolutionaries like the 1970s Weather Underground, warns Jukka Savolainen, a professor of sociology at Wayne State University. This was a group of young, well-educated, upper-middle-class Americans who bombed government buildings to protest the Vietnam War.
"A similar dynamic could take root in the U.S.," writes Jukka in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. "As the Trump administration downsizes public agencies, dismantles DEI programs and slashes academic research funding, it risks producing a new class of people who are highly educated but institutionally excluded. History suggests this group may become a source of unrest—and possibly violence."
Most people will seek change through peaceful activism, but Savolainen warns that "societies that exile their intellectuals risk turning them into revolutionaries."
Previously:
• 2001 profile of 'Bill Ayers, unrepentant former Weather Underground revolutionary'
• 'We should still bomb motherfucking banks' – Robert Crumb
• Bill Ayers: 'What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been.'
