c/o donaldjtrump.com

c/o donaldjtrump.com

I’ll admit, up until recently, I’ve stayed away from taking a close look at the Trump campaign; I was concerned that I would come away extremely disappointed with the Republican party. I had bought into the idea that Trump was a joke candidate who was saying crazy things to get attention.

But after Rubio’s disastrous debate and Trump’s string of primary wins, I finally decided to take a hard look. It was on Saturday that I finally made up my mind.

I am now a Donald Trump supporter. Why make this decision now? It took until I saw the coverage of the South Carolina Democratic primary.

First, the snarky saying that “not all Republicans are racist but all racists are Republicans” was proven, yet again, to be patently false. I browsed political forums after the South Carolina results came out Saturday evening, and the amount of condescending disrespect coming from so-called progressives was so toxic that it could melt the paint off of walls.

“They are low-information voters!” several people posted, referring to the large percentage of black voters who supported Hillary Clinton. “Don’t they know that Bernie Sanders marched with MLK?” The idea that black voters might not trust an old northern white liberal and be much more comfortable voting for a Clinton was too far-fetched a concept.

I waited to see if the media would cover this racism as voraciously as they cover racism in the conservatives’ ranks, and especially with Trump. Nothing. The truth is, both sides have their racists, which is a fact that will have to sink in. This highlighted, however, the bias in the media of Trump coverage.

I recognize the appeal of an anti-establishment candidate. But Sanders is not the right one, as I discussed in my first article on him. On the flip side of the aisle, however, a similar story is playing out. Conservative voters are fed up with their own establishment and are supporting Donald Trump, but unlike for the Democrats, the anti-establishment candidate is winning.

I was certain that his comments on immigration would tank his campaign, but the Nevada caucus opened my eyes a little. A man who I was certain couldn’t pay a Latino or Latina voter to caucus for him ended up winning about half of the Republican-voting Latino/a population. About 45 percent of Republican-leaning Latino/a voters caucused for Trump. Granted, only 17 percent of the Latino/a population in Nevada are registered Republicans (thus the only ones able to attend the caucus), compared with 55 percent registered Democrats and 28 percent registered independents. However, Nevada Latino/as tend to not vote consistently along party lines, supporting Clinton, Bush, and Obama in recent history. Are they low information voters, too, or perhaps individuals who live in the neighborhoods most affected by illegal immigration and who want a change?

I dug further into the Trump campaign to find out that on social issues, he is much more liberal than any other Republican candidate. For example, he viewed women as equals in business long before it was in vogue.

“But many women who have worked closely with Trump say he was a corporate executive ahead of his time in providing career advancement for women,” said The Washington Post. “While some say he could be boorish, his companies nurtured and promoted women in an otherwise male-dominated industry. Several women said they appreciated how Trump granted them entry to a new playing field.”

But what about his comments on Muslims?

His comments on Muslim immigration pointed to a need to improve our vetting process in the wake of San Bernardino and were overblown by the media.

Calling for a “review of our procedures to admitting immigrants from a region of the world undergoing extreme difficulty and posing a real threat” is the politically correct way of saying that “we need to shut down immigration from this region until we know what we are looking at.”

I found out that Trump isn’t against immigration. He is against illegal immigration, or more accurately, a system that incentivizes people to skirt around the law, including those who have nefarious intent.

I was surprised that Trump, while he might say inappropriate things, is no sexist or racist in practice. The media treated him badly, stripping down his quotes from context and painting him as this crusty, women-hating, minority-hating bigot that is only receiving support from rednecks and white trash. (When asked directly by Politico, Reverend Al Sharpton refused to call Trump a racist).

I believe most of Trump’s controversy over minorities is in fact due to a media establishment hell-bent on destroying his campaign. The most recent salient example is CNN’s attempt to portray Trump as a KKK supporter by claiming he did not disavow David Duke.

Let’s think about this. No one was talking about David Duke before CNN brought him up, thus one could make the strong argument that it was CNN itself that injected Duke into the mainstream conversation and gave white supremacists a media platform. CNN attempted to twist a story for the sole purpose of trying to sink the Trump campaign before Super Tuesday and ended up giving a microphone to David Duke. Well done, CNN.

Additionally, Clinton has been seen embracing Robert Byrd, a former KKK leader and democratic senator. Sure, Byrd later claimed that he regrets his KKK past, but is there a statute of limitations on being this type of extreme racist? It makes about as much sense to keep asking Trump about Duke, who Trump has repeatedly disavowed in the past, as it is to question the Clintons about their close relationship with a former KKK leader. Why isn’t Clinton being asked to disavow Byrd’s racist past? At least be fair.

The truth is, Trump is a threat to both the conservative and the liberal establishment elite, including those journalists at CNN, and the narratives we hear reflect this fear. Clinton needs the black vote to beat Trump, CNN supports Clinton, so CNN tries to paint Trump as a racist in a very biased and inconsistent way.

He also doesn’t get fair treatment from Fox News, which has done everything in its power to try and unseat Trump. They tried to support Carson, but everyone saw he was a sleepy doctor and possibly running as a vice presidential candidate. Fox News then tried to run up Cruz, but walked away with slime all over their hands. Now they are pushing for Rubio, a polished establishment contender who has a reputation for being a robot being a robot being a robot.

What has Fox News achieved? Its ratings are down, a lot. Conservatives are viewing Fox News as “just like any other media outlet” with its own agenda instead of a fair presentation of all the candidates. Trump has fractured the image of Fox News among conservatives, something the liberal media hasn’t been able to do in over a decade. He crushed the establishment’s first choice, Jeb!, without much difficulty.

He doesn’t get fair treatment from the other mainstream media stations either, who are concerned that Trump will beat their candidate, Clinton. In an establishment vs. establishment general election, such as Clinton vs. Rubio, Clinton would probably win. But a motivated voter base, angry at eight years of liberal presidency, angry at 20 years of establishment conservative letdowns, and pushing the Trump message with high energy, could put Clinton in serious jeopardy.

This election isn’t Democrat vs. Republican. It is the elite establishment vs. a breath of fresh air. I see establishment conservatives on my social media feeds threatening to vote for Hillary or not at all if Trump is the nominee. I see establishment liberals shaking with fear as they try to get Clinton over the top while nervously eyeing Trump’s poll numbers.

Trump, like Sanders, isn’t beholden to conservative think tanks, lobbyists, media pundits, or anyone. He built up his fortune from a million-dollar loan into a multi-billion dollar empire. He knows how to lead.

His plans will help the poor and middle class, end corporate and rich-class welfare, reform immigration, stop our incessant involvement in overseas affairs that are not our responsibility, and strengthen our military to take care of foreign conflicts, such as dealing with Daesh (ISIS).

Think marijuana should be legalized? So does Trump. Don’t think the government should profit off of student loans? Trump doesn’t think so either.

Out of all the candidates, Trump is the one most likely to strengthen the meritocracy aspect of capitalism. He wants to protect and grow American industries instead of bleeding jobs overseas, where corporations are able to exploit cheap labor and pollute under lighter regulations. Free trade might have been a good idea in recent history, but now the negative externalities have to be accounted for; there is market failure in the free trade model.

To consider Trump a racist, a sexist, a reality TV joke, is to buy into the propaganda designed to keep you scared and from ever taking a close look at him as a legitimate candidate. But once you realize that the Nimble Navigator, the Teflon Don, the high energy, anti-establishment candidate is a serious threat to those who want to maintain the status quo, then better conversations can be had.

Stascavage is a member of the class of 2018.

  • Read a book and grow up

    Stascavage, I wasn’t a fan of your original article on BLM from several months ago, but I think you’ve turned another leaf here. GOOD article.

    Social justice propenents–hear my case, and stop letting the MEDIA think for you. Consider the facts.

    What most people don’t realize is that the corporate-financed Democrats DON’T CARE about Latinos, sponsoring illegal immigration amnesty on the pretense of social justice while ACTUALLY using Latinos as cheap, disposable labor while taking jobs from Americans. Mom & Pop farmers don’t benefit from immigrant labor–massive agricultural corporations do. Corporate-financed Republicans SPONSOR racist views, only to see it backfire as more and more Americans accept Latinos as brothers.

    It’s time for America to WAKE UP. It’s incredibly racist to believe that legal Latinos will continue to vote Democrat once they realize that illegal immigration harms ALL Americans. Trump will go after the COMPANIES who harbor and mistreat illegal immigrants. Once the crackdown has begun, the rest will follow. No need to worry about rounding 10 million people when the rest will self-deport after letting ICE do its job. It’s a little something called economic disincentives.

    The continuing smear campaign by the media has turned me from a Trump mocker into a Trump supporter. FACT: Trump NEVER called for Muslim database–look it up on Politifact! FACT: Donald Trump opened the first private country club in Palm Beach, FL that allowed Jews and Blacks, and called out the old boy racists who still banned minorities in 1997–look it up on the Wall Street Journal! FACT: Donald Trump was one of the first entrepreneurs to hire women in powerful positions during the 1970s. DO NOT LET EMOTIONS AND MEDIA SPIN stray from the facts!

    Wake the fuck up America. Donald Trump isn’t a racist, nor is he a conservative. He is a centrist that is about to tell our politicians in Washington DC that their donor-backed two-party sham will be finished. And it’s about time. Too long we’ve let Dubya pursue his disastrous neoconservative foreign policy, only for Obama to follow it up with even greater incompetence. Does anybody REALLY believe that Clinton will raise minimum wage WHILE SHE ACCEPTS $500,000 FROM WAL-MART? Shameless scoundrels.

    Too long have we let Washington promise us social change, for both left and right wingers, while scheming with the 1% to rob the working and middle classes blind. Minorities are NOT bargaining chips. WE CAN THINK ON OUR OWN.

  • make wes great again

    Another incredible article, really just incredible.
    Noticed one small mistake though – I think his name is actually Donald Drumpf.

    • Read a book and grow up

      Spotted the person who takes political talking points from comedians. Don’t vote.

      • make wes great again

        Spotted the person who gets angry on internet comment boards :-)
        I still want you to vote though. We’re all Americans, friend.

      • Read a book and grow up

        I get over the top sometimes, sorry. This election is a hatchet job by the media. The truth will come out over time. Clinton’s criminal investigation is progressing as we speak. Aide given immunity in exchange for testifying.

  • Ralph’s Nadir

    Great read. Bryan Stascavage is the most even keeled, mature, and skilled writer the Argus has had in years. Thanks for sticking with Wes and the Argus, Bryan!

    • Bryan Stascavage


  • Guest

    He may be a fascist, sexist, racist pig, but you’re correct in pointing out that many of his positions are much more liberal than his republican competitors.

    • Read a book and grow up

      Do you know what Fascism is? Because Trump isn’t even close to being a Fascist. If you have a college degree right now, you should be ashamed of yourself.

      Read up on 1920s-1930s European history and modern political science, then get back to me. I’ll be waiting with an insurmountable wall of facts, and it’ll make my day to launch it on another uncritical thinker.

  • What?!

    This is a man who raped his ex-wife. This is a man who claims that illegal immigrants are bringing drugs and raping people (when there has been no indication that illegal immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than other United States groups). This is a man who bankrupted four businesses before one success. How is it possible that this man isn’t a sexist and a racist? How is it possible that anyone can call him a successful business man?

    And by the way, CNN did NOT engineer the David Duke controversy. That piece of human garbage lived in my hometown and he is a national sore. We were talking about him LONG before Trump ran for president. The first thing Bernie Sanders did when confronted about “Bernie bros” was to state that his campaign will not tolerate sexism. But somehow when the Grand Wizard of the KKK endorses Trump, he doesn’t have to say his campaign won’t tolerate racism.

    • Read a book and grow up

      “Grand Wizard of the KKK” yeah David Duke hasn’t been in the KKK for 37 years, and the KKK hasn’t been a national organization since the 1920s, but don’t let facts disturb you.

      Trump had disavowed David Duke several times before CNN aired their interview, and had disavowed him several times afterwards on national TV.

      Keep peddling lies.

    • Seriously

      Are you seriously denying that illegal immigrants are bringing drugs across the southern border? Have you ever heard of this group called the Cartel? It’s sad to see how many people are simply lemmings to the media

  • student

    LMAO I refuse to take anything you say seriously because you speak from a privileged perspective that doesn’t have to account for the weight that Trump’s words as a white man have in this country. Also, as an editor, I just think you aren’t a very good writer.

    • Read a book and grow up

      Continue anonymously talking shit, you clueless moron. Thanks for not addressing any point, you insufferable waste of space.

      A few days ago, Edward Snowden characterized the 2016 election as “a choice between Donald Trump and Goldman Sachs.” You remind me of the moron who criticized Edward Snowden on his privilege, believing that Snowden’s background as a white cisgendered male meant that the election didn’t matter to him. The left will cannibalize its own, paying no heed to realities like “Trump calling for Snowden’s execution”.

      Thank you for bringing up privilege in the most irrelevant way. Engage in some critical thinking. Contribute something. This person took a gigantic risk to publish a somewhat favorable article, with interesting reasons might I add, for supporting Trump in one of the most liberal colleges in the United States, and you give him nothing but crap. You’re acting like an insufferable coward.

      By the way, your heroes of Clinton and Sanders voted FOR the 1994 “Superpredator” prison bill that did IRREPARABLE damage to the African-American community. Vote on your feelings. I don’t give a shit. Hurt your own community, whether you’re a white middle class man or a transgendered African American.

      But Trump is not a racist. And that’s a fact. Think for yourself.

    • Seriously??? You don’t take anything seriously that comes from a “privileged perspective?” Good lord the ignorance. Additionally, this guy is a fucking veteran! Get the fuck out of here with that “privileged perspective.” Damn.

  • Jeeez

    “His plans will… stop our incessant involvement in overseas affairs that are not our responsibility, and strengthen our military to take care of foreign conflicts, such as dealing with Daesh (ISIS).”

    Do you not realize the hypocrisy of your statement?

    • Bryan Stascavage

      Hi Jeeez!

      I do agree the wording is a bit awkward there.

      In my original draft I stated that he would get us out of conflicts that are not our responsibility and strengthen our military (for the ones that are), which Daesh clearly falls into.

      In other words, Daesh is partly our fault for destabilizing Iraq and then not keeping a strong enough force behind to prevent the re-growth of AQI (also known as ISI, now known as Daesh). Whether the decision to invade Iraq was a good idea or bad one (I personally think it was a good idea with a very poor follow-through), Obama should not have withdrawn our forces until the job was done.

      So what I’m trying to say is that he wouldn’t get us involved in another Iraq, but if there is a global call for US intervention, then we will be prepared for it.

      Hope this clears things up!

      • CP3

        Obama didn’t sign the SOF agreement, Bush did. I should know, I was there. I assume your position is that Obama should have kept forces in Iraq against the wishes of the Iraqi people and government

      • Bryan Stascavage

        No one called it the “SOF,” it was either the SOFA or SA. Anyone who was there knows that.

    • Tom Allsup

      Hypocrisy? Uh, ISIS is in existence because WE toppled 3 governments in the region. It is indeed our responsibility to fix the cancer that grew in place of that we wiped out. How is that NOT our responsibility? Elsewise, our foreign responsibility involves response to ANY group that threatens us directly, which also ISIS does. You don’t have to be a genius to understand this. We should not be unilaterally, outside of UN decisions, getting involved in foreign affairs. If we are going to act outside UN directives, then we need to dissolve our UN involvement (including the massive amounts of money we send them) which will cause the UN to disappear.

  • Read a book and grow up

    Donald Trump is against the Republican establishment. Past party positions have no bearing on his campaign. Trump has had a pattern of rejecting old GOP talking points. He literally crucified George W. Bush in one of the most Bush-friendly states in the country, South Carolina, and won in a landslide. Moving on.

    First time Trump was confronted with David Duke, during the Chris Christie endorsement press conference, Trump disavowed David Duke, two days before it blew up in CNN News. Implying that Trump supports David Duke in any way is completely offensive, considering Trump’s daughter Ivanka CONVERTED to Orthodox Judaism. The smear does not pass the common sense test.

    You missed health care reform on Trump’s website. Trump is the only GOP candidate who endorses Planned Parenthood. I think most of your information is outdated. ‘

    Latino support for GOP recently reached historic low under Romney, down from 44% of vote during Bush’s general election. Trump is galvanizing Latino vote as we speak. Look at Texas primary: despite heavy Cruz bias, Trump wins border precincts. Change is happening as we speak. The signs are everywhere.

    Clinton, like the GOP, is beholden to corporation money, and only cares about minorities and women when it is politically expedient. Clinton shut down many of the women who had rape accusations against her husband Bill.

    If you think being politically correct is better than being morally correct, then please vote for Clinton or Sanders, who both voted for the 1994 “Superpredator” Prison bill that has done irreparable damage to the African-American community.

    Trump has a history of fighting for minorities and women when it was not favorable in the business world to do so. Actions speak louder than words, and Trump has consistently fought racism and sexism in the business world and in the hideouts of the wealthy elite. Google “Wall Street Journal, 1997, Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach”. Published article of how Trump shamed Palm Beach whites-only private clubs into admitting African-Americans, Jews, and other minorities. Pretty shameful how it took so long, but Trump got it done.

    Not one person, amidst this very emotional campaign, fueled by media hit pieces, from the Trump organization has testified or filed charges against Trump. People are literally threatening Trump’s life, but where are all of the effects from Trump’s alleged racism and sexism? Surely they’d get a pro bono case from a well-meaning lawyer who wanted to see a “racist” get taken down, right?

    And let’s not get started on how the GOP is complicit in the mess that we call establishment politics. They are absolutely complicit in lying to their own constituents for years, and they are fed up too, in a way that unifies people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, and races. Goldman Sachs funds both parties. It’s time to wake up and vote for Trump. No other candidate deserves your vote out of a lack of competence and/or integrity.

  • Read a book and grow up

    Considering that Obama has been taking out the families of ISIS for years with drone strikes, and that Clinton didn’t care when his missiles mistakenly struck the pharmaceutical factory of Al-Shifa, killing tens of thousands of Sudanese by destroying medicine supplies, Trump isn’t saying anything radical.

    You know what’s an embarrassment for this country? The fact that Obama implemented Bush’s neoconservative foreign policy, but cannot match the diplomatic skills of a dunce, is a complete embarrassment. If Iraq never happened, Obama’s administration would have looked like a complete mess, having turned Russia from a complacent non-actor into an antagonistic geopolitical threat. Intelligence cooperation between our “allies” has fell to an all-time low, culminating in NSA spying on allies scandals, and our constant indecision and timidity in the Middle East has led to a string of foreign policy failures after Arab Spring. Now we have a gigantic humanitarian crisis that may leave European politics battered and xenophobic for decades.

    Bernie is a pathetic candidate who covered Clinton’s email scandal, and now it will rupture the Democratic party. It’s too late for Bernie to usurp the establishment, since if anything comes of the (now criminal) investigation, delegates will go to Biden. Establishment will continue. Failed campaign. Low energy.

    Donald Trump wants to work with Russia to destroy ISIS, yet everybody else wants a no-fly zone over Syria. People say Donald Trump will start WW3, but people don’t realize that other candidates are advocating a position that means nukes are just one drunk Russian pilot away…

  • idk

    CNN gave white supremacists a media platform? Maybe, but Trump has repeatedly retweeted white supremacists, which seems like a media platform to me.

  • Man with Axe

    I appreciate the article, although I despise Trump and think he would be the worst possible person to have power over the rest of us. His statements disrespecting POWs, supporting Putin, and many others show that he is unqualified for high office. He is a loose cannon.

    I have one small bone to pick. You say, “What has Fox News achieved? Its ratings are down, a lot.” This is mistaken. Fox News ratings are actually sky high. They have maybe the top 10 or 15 shows on cable. They blow their competition out of the water almost every day both in total viewers and in the desirable demographic.

    One somewhat larger bone: Fox is more than fair to Trump. Greta and Hannity are obvious Trump supporters, as is Andrea Tantaros. O’Reilly gives him airtime a few times every week. He’s constantly calling in to Fox and Friends. Bret Baier, who has the fairest and best news show on TV, grills all of his guests, including Rubio, and does the same to Trump. He doesn’t let anyone get away with anything. Then there is Megyn Kelly. If she doesn’t like Trump, she certainly has her reasons. But they have not kept her from calling a spade a spade.

  • Ames Daniels

    “On the flip side of the aisle…” Watch those mixed metaphors! BTW, is Wesleyan not about writing well? While everyone is entitled to their views–and the more the better–there really is no excuse for poor writing…especially when making an argument in the pages of a well-established college paper. Please put your writings in front of a good writer or a prof before hitting ‘send.’ There is a lot that’s cringe-worthy in this piece–and I’m not talking about its point of view. The upside to writing well, of course, is that it will make more people take your views seriously. (This is meant to be constructive, not snarky, even if I can’t conceal some of my annoyance with slack writing.)

    • GG Allin

      Thanks mom!

  • OccupareVeritas

    Keep writing wrongthink like this and the SGA is going to start fining the Argus for being offensive after it finishes de-funding it. If anyone is confused about fascism, they could start by checking out the Wesleyan SGA.

  • Allen

    Donald Trump is going to look you in the eye and lie. Just as he lies to small business owners who he refuses to pay, contracts he refuses to keep and has no intention to honor.bankruptcy as a strategy to avoid paying his bills. He will take care of one person. Himself. Liar, racist, theif, sexist, greedy, narcissist, egomaniac, bankrupted 4 businesses, enriching his own business with campaign funds. Just for starters. He will lie to you,and won’t you look the fool. Then donald trump will laugh all the way to the bank.