Brian VanDeMark

And America's college campuses just erupted in the wake of that shooting.

I mean, literally, ROTC buildings went up across the continent, so to speak.

Campuses were shut down.

I mean, it had a massively radicalizing effect.

on student opinion, both toward the war and the quote-unquote American system.

It's moved student opinion even further to the left.

They're not even talking to each other.

They suspect the patriotism of each other and the intentions of one another.

And that's to me what's so sobering and frightening in terms of the resonances between then and now.

America in the wake of Kent State, you have two different Americas who are just unwilling to try to understand the other's point of view.

And that's certainly true today.

Well, I mean, often in politics, it's ruled by the law of unanticipated and unintended consequences.

Yes, and it's another tragic unintended consequence of what occurred on that tragic day, which is it moved students further to the left, whereas conservative traditional America moves further to the right.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say that the center utterly collapses.

But the center is the locus where you have communication, dialogue, and at least the possibility

of mutual understanding and some kind of functional reconciliation.

And that's the thing about 1970 that troubles me the most in terms of its parallels to today.

We've reached a point now where there are two Americas that caricature and stereotype the other to a degree which essentially obviates the capacity to reach out and attempt to communicate.

And if you don't communicate, you can't understand.

And if you can understand, you can't find any common ground.