Trump Voters Need No Lectures From the Left

This article first appeared in New English Review (The Iconoclast)

It is truly amazing to see the howls of anger emanating from the left at the election of Donald Trump. The very evening of the election, when it became clear that Trump would win, students began gathering on college campuses like UCLA and the University of California at Irvine to voice their fear and anger. The following night,  protests and marches were held in many major US cities, with people crying, “Dump Trump” and “Not my president.” Not to be outdone, some professors told students that if they were too traumatized to take a scheduled test, it was OK- they could skip it. The University of California president, Janet Napolitano, and all of her chancellors sent out a system-wide message to their entire campus communities that in the wake of the election, they understood the anxiety of many students and employees. All were reassured that the university would shelter and protect them according to the UC Statement of Principles Against Intolerance (which had been passed by the UC Regents this year in response to years of complaints of anti-Semitism on campus.) For all the talk over whether Trump would accept an electoral defeat, it turns out that it is the left which is refusing to accept defeat.

Meanwhile the mainstream news media continued to show its bias by trying to analyze how American voters could select this vulgar barbarian as their next president. CNN’s Van Jones, a man who once told a college audience that Republicans were “a--holes,”  called the election results a “whitelash” as he demanded that the victors be gracious.

Of course, CNN, “the most trusted name in news,” had just been exposed by Wikileaks as having colluded with the DNC in asking them for hardball questions to be asked of Trump during the campaign. Two of their stars, Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, were specifically identified. Yet here they both were on election night trying to figure out how in the world this had happened. I guess its pretty hard for journalists to discuss on air how their own bias and improper behavior might have turned off the average voter. Much easier to dismiss Trump voters as uneducated, white, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic rubes.

It is also hard for the folks at CNN and MSNBC to admit that one reason people voted for Trump is that they could not stomach the utter corruption of Hillary Clinton. Any references to Mrs. Clinton’s own flaws were generally reduced to “the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s emails,” a vague and safe phrase. They could never admit that if elected, Mrs. Clinton would have arguably been the most corrupt person ever to enter the presidency. Need we feel guilty about voting against that? In addition, could it possibly be that these great unwashed voters had, in fact, examined Mrs. Clinton’s public record as a senator and secretary of state. Perhaps, they failed to find any accomplishments on her part in either position. Perhaps, they decided that her management of President Obama’s foreign policy was a disaster especially in the Middle East and specifically in Libya. Need we apologize for rejecting Mrs. Clinton on those grounds?

Those of us who voted for Trump need not apologize to the spoiled little snowflakes on college campuses, their left-wing professors, the mobs in the streets, or the media. This was a fair election, ugly to be sure, with two flawed candidates to choose from, but in the end, producing an honest and orderly result.  Anybody who protests against that has no concept or appreciation of democracy.