https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/07/15/how-is-the-left-of-the-60s-different-from-
How do the radical movements of today—Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and others—compare with their counterparts of the 1960s, such as the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground?
What would the leftists of the ’60s say about the rioting that followed the death of George Floyd, the toppling of disfavored statues, and efforts today to “defund the police”?
Lee Edwards, the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, joins the podcast to discuss the similarities and differences of the left of then and now.
Rachel del Guidice: I’m joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Dr. Lee Edwards. He’s a distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundations B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. Dr. Edwards, it’s great to have you on with us at The Daily Signal Podcast.
Lee Edwards: Love to be with you, Rachel. Thanks for asking me.
Del Guidice: Well, thank you so much for being with us and for taking the time. To start off our conversation, in what ways would you say the left has changed their strategy and the tenants of belief from the ’60s to today?
Edwards: Well, back in the 1960s, which I happen to know sort of fairly well, I lived through it, they were semi-organized through something called the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society. They were the youth group of the socialists. And they wanted to bring about a new world, a new America, in which there would be no more capitalism and which there would be socialism. They were not pro-communist or pro-Soviet, but they definitely were socialists.