It's the 60s on repeat. Disaffected youth (lost, not knowing what meaning to give their lives) being targeted and enticed to ferment Revolution.
And let's be honest - all sides in the ideological battles try to conscript this youth force to their own ends.
But it's the 60s - the young have found their reasons to walk away from the false-reality culture of high tech bedrooms. They want to feel real again and protest will do that for them.
Lots of Conservatives disparage the Hippy movement of the 60s/early 70s. Dumb, layabout, pot smoking idiots. And maybe that was true. But I've always had a soft spot for some of them because I don't think they were ever one sect with one philosophy. Some of them just had this ideal of less Government telling folks what to do (Conservatism) and probably drifted off to lives that would have them full members of the Anon movement now. Others had completely different reasons for Hippydom. It was a vehicle used to attack Government rather than ask for less of it.
There is a big difference. These are the people that remain 'political' and sneak into college professorships and academia and journalism.
Same thing will happen this time with the current young protestors. They are not one sect.