As I recall, after Kent State the anti-war protests fizzled out. I mean, heck, it wasn’t worth getting killed over.
Fizzled out because they did away with the draft. Once they were safe, those who claimed the moral high ground slid down and headed for beach, bong, and babes and forgot about the war.
A boss that I had many years ago....enrolled at Kent State about four years after the episode. Almost everything had been forgotten...by the students, the facility, and the locals. Some laid out the broad picture of what really transpired.
Cops on Kent State before the riots...had only two functions....arrest drunk students and hand out parking tickets. So when trouble started brewing...it amazed everyone that the campus immediately threw up their hands and said they were unable to handle things. The local cops from the town? Mostly cops who picked drunks and handled a few robberies or accidents. So the Mayor (not the school president) ended up asking the state for help. Rather than send state police....he figured national guardsmen were the best tactic.
So as the guardsmen arrive....they really didn’t have the type of training or tactical ability to fit into this situation. And the shooting occurs.
As my boss laid out this whole mess...it was interesting what came the next twelve months after the shooting. Parents got scared and removed their kids from the school....believing it was unsafe. The school management kind of woke up at this point and realized that this feeding frenzy that professors injected into the protest was going to bring great harm to their profit margin (you can’t run a school with decreasing numbers).
Along the way, the school found the student trouble-makers and basically tossed them out the front door. Kent State cleaned house and made sure that their schools were “safe”. Across the nation...as you will notice today...there just aren’t any riots occurring, mostly because the profit margin is so critical. No university will stand for massive protests.
As for Donny’s “Kent State” comment? It’s kind like some guys sitting around a campfire and talking up the best ever episode of Gilligan’s Island, but no one really remembers the entire story.
You got that right...no fun burning down building and sit ins if you can get killed....Stopped college riots dead in its tracks.....The MSM sure did play up the bad national guard and not the rioters across the country...Made you want to punch the media nitwits in the face. Just like today...