BENJAMIN KERSTEIN: This is the way 1968 ends…

The most powerful and influential form of radicalism in the Western world today has no real name in the United States. It does in France, or at least its adherents do: les soixante-huitards, “the ‘68ers.”

The term refers to the radicals who took part in the 1968 student riots in Paris, as well as their ideology and the movements that emerged out of it: Third-worldism, environmentalism, anti-Americanism, anti-racism, etc. In many ways, the ethos of this kind of 1968ism defines the modern left. It has rarely achieved outright political power; it rarely wins elections; but it exercises hegemony over culture and higher education, as well as the activist industry.

The ‘68ers may go unnamed in the US, but their influence is no less powerful. Above all, their primary post-1968 tactic has met with more success than in perhaps any other country. They called it “the long march through the institutions,” though it was essentially a barely modified adaptation of the old communist tactic of “entryism.” Put simply, it involves the infiltration by radicals of more moderate institutions to conquer and colonize them. Once successful, they use the facade of moderation and the prestige of these institutions to consolidate power and pursue radical ends.

It hardly needs to be said that the American ‘68ers’ greatest success was in academia. During the 1960s, American radicals realized the power of the campus. They mobilized thousands if not millions of students, most of them wholly ignorant of the ideologies they claimed to advocate, in service of the movement to destroy South Vietnam and install a communist government in its place. In many ways, they succeeded.

Along the way, they also destroyed the Democratic party for a generation, committed numerous acts of terrorism, and forged a counterculture that continues to wield immense cultural power even after the passage of half a century.

And unless fiercely resisted, all that was just the warm-up.

Do read the whole thing.

CALIFORNIA KILLING FAST FOODS: That $20-per-hour minimum wage for fast-food outlets in California is rapidly wreaking havoc on an industry already suffering due to inflation, over-regulation and social disintegration, according to Issues & Insights:

“The $20-an-hour wage floor foisted on California’s fast-food restaurants, dubbed with the innocent-sounding moniker Assembly Bill 257, was signed into law last fall. It didn’t take long to become a disaster…

“Those who are losing their jobs in this new higher-wage environment are those most easily replaced, with the lowest productivity — which usually means minority youths with minimal education and little or no work skills. In short, the most vulnerable among us…

“Because of escalating costs, many restaurants are also adding ‘ordering kiosks,’ basically firing workers and replacing them with user-friendly computer terminals. And, to repeat, this was even before the law went into effect. In the coming weeks and months, expect more job devastation, business closures and sharply higher prices paid by consumers.”

SO MUCH FOR ‘STUDENT’ UNREST: Joshua Arnold at The Washington Stand reports more than 1,600 individuals have been arrested thus far at 33 campuses in 23 states in the coordinated and planned Pro-Palestinians campus protests. In at least 11 instances, more of those arrested were non-students than students.

AFTER BLOWING THROUGH OUR SAVINGS AND MAXING OUT THE CREDIT CARDS, THIS WAS BOUND TO COME NEXT: Long-predicted consumer pullback finally hits restaurants like Starbucks, KFC and McDonald’s.

Excuses don’t fully explain the weak quarterly results. Instead, it looks like the competition for a smaller pool of customers has grown fiercer as the diners still looking to buy a burger or cold brew become pickier with their cash.

The cost of eating out at quick-service restaurants has climbed faster than that of eating at home. Prices for limited-service restaurants rose 5% in March compared with the year-ago period, while prices for groceries have been increasing more slowly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Clearly everybody’s fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently, and we’ve got to make sure we’ve got that street-fighting mentality to win, irregardless of the context around us,” McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said on the company’s conference call on Tuesday.

“Irregardless,” really?

Meanwhile, here’s the view from inside the Beltway.

The replies are brutal.

Related: Customers Fed Up With Starbucks: ‘You Want HOW MUCH for a Cup of Coffee???’

WELL, BYE: Google lays off 200 workers, shifts jobs to Mexico and India in latest restructuring.

The job cuts — announced internally on the eve of Google’s blowout first-quarter earnings report — targeted members of Google’s “core” team, which works on the “technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products” as well as the online safety of users and its global IT infrastructure, according to its website.

At least 50 of the roles were based at Google’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Google is expected to hire replacement workers for the roles in Mexico and India, CNBC reported, citing a review of internal documents.

“Announcements of this sort may leave many of you feeling uncertain or frustrated,” Asim Husain, vice president of Google Developer Ecosystem said in an email to staffers last week announcing the cuts, according to CNBC.

Husain said the company’s restructuring plan was “in service of our broader goals.”

So they’re not going to remove the ideological blinders that have ruined their search engine and other services? Sarah Hoyt’s shocked face could not be reached for comment.

A RELIGIOUS TEST FOR SPACE EXPLORATION?

An editorial recently published on SpaceNews took the position that my company’s Luna Memorial Spaceflight service should not be permitted on the Moon because the Navajo Nation views the Moon as sacred.

In essence, the author is arguing that lawful space missions should be subject to the religious test of a single culture.

No religious tests. And no religious vetoes on humanity’s future.

HUGO GURDON: Biden atop the greasy pole.

Lord Randolph Churchill might therefore have summed up Biden’s career as “failure, failure, partial success, incipient failure, ultimate victory.”

There, however, the parallel with Disraeli ends. The British statesman was a leader who made things happen and shaped politics. They didn’t just take place while he happened to be there, more or less coincidentally, at the top of what he referred to as the “greasy pole.” Disraeli overhauled his party and created modern conservatism. He was a populist who built a middle-class movement, patriotic sometimes jingoistic in character, that had little in common with the landed-gentry Tory party from which it grew.

Biden, by contrast, is neither leading nor reshaping his party. It is changing, for sure, but is doing so not because he is directing it but because he has little influence over what is happening to it. He is prepared to let others decide where it goes, as long as he is allowed to stay at the top of the greasy pole.

During his presidency, the Democratic Left has become a radical battering ram smashing down successive sets of protective doors behind which the norms, traditions, and decencies of our rule-of-law, liberal democratic culture lie vulnerable.

Biden isn’t going anywhere and none of the damage matters, not even his increasing senescence, so long as the Big Guy gets his 10%.

AN AGE LIMIT ON SOCIAL MEDIA? Legislation with bipartisan support is moving through Congress to bar youngsters under the age of 13 from using social media sites like Facebook and TikTok. Check out my Epoch Times story this morning that makes clear the Senate conservatives are deeply divided on this proposal.