Why leftist students are showing up to my ‘Make Campus Great Again’ talk

Recently, I’ve noticed a growing number of left-leaning students at my events — and not to protest as you might assume. Instead, self-avowed Marxists and DACA-supporting students have been showing up to hear what I have to say. These students are starving for diverse ideas.

Timidly, they’ll admit to me after my speech that they can’t get along with their leftist peers. They’re too emotional in their arguments and aren’t interested in deep, challenging discussion, they tell me. Their professors aren’t much better, so they say. Frustrated, they find themselves in a classroom, listening to a 25-year-old Trump supporter talking about how to make campus great again.

I find this both incredibly sad and highly laudable.

It’s sad because students should encounter varying viewpoints on campus every day. It’s laudable because some students are recognizing that their universities are failing them, and they’re seeking out alternative means of education.

You may be shocked to hear, but many of the leftist students I speak with find free speech zones and safe spaces to be an affront on their civil liberties, progressive values, and academic merits.

Of course this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a cohort of immature emotional leftists crying in safe spaces while simultaneously lighting their campuses on fire. These students exist, in large swaths, and hold great power and privilege on campus with absolute support from administrators. Interestingly enough, their antics are failing to make a case for their cause, and are instead pushing away natural allies like the students showing up to my talks.

In an era where provocation seems king and polarization seems unavoidable, I’m meeting students who want more civil discussion, greater exposure to diverse viewpoints, and more out of their higher education, regardless of their political persuasion.

As leftists become more extreme and universities continue to narrow the type of thought acceptable on campus, more and more free thinkers (Republican or Democrat; conservative or liberal) will come out of the woodwork to reject the monolithic hivemind that higher education has become. It just requires someone to encourage this hunger for more — someone to point in the right direction and confirm that there are merited academic ideas other than what’s taught in the classroom — someone to say, “It’s okay to explore new ideas.”

Sadly, many of our nation’s educators are teaching that ideas are scary. When students realize that this is a lie and that deep thinking and exploration of ideas is fulfilling, they’re going to revolt. I’m seeing the first few dissenters as they show up to hear my speeches, and they’re the ones who will Make Campus Great Again.