[caption id=”attachment_154969″ align=”aligncenter” width=”3144″](AP Photo/Kevin Hagen, File)
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What does Donald Trump and the campus protesters have in common? Quite a bit, according to an Op-ed published on CT News Junkies.
The author, Suzanne Bates, says that the protesters on college campuses “craved something that would let them voice their misguided moral outrage,” and similarly Trump’s supporters “crave an opportunity to voice their frustration.”
Both groups, it seems Bates is pointing out, share a group mentality that their frustrations are best heard if they join up with a larger group. The difference however is their cause.
While Bates reprimands the campus protesters for their mob mentality and disregard for the nation’s core values, Trump’s supporters have legitimate concerns and reason for frustration yet “they’ve watched the left paint anyone who says the “wrong” thing on these issues as racist, sexist, or just plain ignorant.”
Conversely, the students that have made headlines at schools like Mizzou and Yale are frustrated but for reasons that go squarely again core American values like the first amendment, namely, free speech.
With frustration on both sides and overall ineffective (and as has been happening on campuses, un-American) demonstrations and rhetoric garnering media attention and tarnishing national opinions of both sides, Bates says the solution is “someone who can cut through the hyperbole on the left and the right.”
“[We need] someone who can address terrorism, and race, and sexism, and immigration, in an honest way — a way that both recognizes the real tension at the heart of each of these issues, while also staying true to the American values we need to preserve.”
The freedom of speech, to assemble and protest, can only be preserved if they are recognized as such rights and respected. The outlandish statements of Trump, it would seem, can serve to do as much damage to the nation as the protest-hungry students on campuses blindly following the crowd. For 2016, the stage is set for a leader to come alone and, as Bates charged, “cut through” both sides and inspire the nation to respectfully come out of their “safe spaces” and work together to tackle the larger issues facing our nation.
