Who will be the biggest loser - Clinton, Trump, or us?

 Who will be the biggest loser - Clinton, Trump, or us?

LeRoy Goldman

Guest Columnist

Citizen-Times

July 29, 2016

Only an American TV reality show could make a success out of deeming the biggest loser to be the winner. But that’s the way it works on “The Biggest Loser,” the long-running NBC TV reality show that pits teams of morbidly obese individuals against one another to see which of them can lose the most weight. Although I have never seen a single episode of the show, I’m confident that its staying power has everything to do with the fact that it resonates with the three quarters of the American people who are overweight or obese. For them it’s vicarious weight loss. 

But this year the presidential election has become the political version of the The Biggest Loser. And this one’s not vicarious. All of us get to have a say in determining which of the two losers, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, wins. It’s a “Reality” show gone real.

Based upon what you hear on television and read in the newspapers and on the web, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in most polls and appears to be the likely winner on Nov. 8. For example, the Las Vegas betting line makes her the favorite, as does Nate Silver’s 538 statistical model.

But don’t get ahead of yourself. A year ago none of the political elites in either party took Trump’s quest for the GOP nomination seriously. Yet Trump has proven them all wrong.

Clinton’s greatest asset is the structural advantage that the Democrats have in the Electoral College. If you look at the last four presidential elections, the same basic pattern repeats itself. The Democrats can count on winning 19 states and the District of Columbia netting them 247 of the 270 electoral votes it takes to win the presidency. The GOP can count on winning 23 states but only 191 electoral votes.

That leaves the eight swing states with their total of 100 electoral votes. Clinton only needs to win 23 of those 100 swing state electoral votes. For example, were Clinton to win the swing state of Florida with its 29 electoral votes, she’s President. Trump, on the other hand, faces a much more formidable challenge. He’s got to win at least 79 of the 100 electoral votes in the eight swing states.

Clinton’s Campaign is built on the assumption that this year’s election will repeat this basic electoral pattern that advantages Democrats with their concentrations of non-white voters in populous states like California, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. It’s their ace in the hole.

But what if they’ve miscalculated?

The latest Rasmussen poll shows that only 21 percent of likely voters believe the nation is headed in the right direction. An astounding 72 percent believe we’re headed in the wrong direction. Clinton’s Campaign thumbs its nose at the national outcry for change. It proposes more of the same, in effect Obama’s third term, but with her at the helm. But she’s no Obama in at least one crucial respect.

The July NYT/CBS national poll of voters reveals that 67 percent do not believe Clinton is honest and trustworthy. Imbedded in that cohort are many Independents and Democrats. Thus, an untrustworthy Clinton is attempting to sell the same old, same old to an angry electorate. In sharp contrast, Trump has indicted the entirety of Washington’s political class. Hillary Clinton’s past quarter century in Washington makes her the perfect poster child and punching bag for his onslaught.

If 2016 turns out to be a change election, Hillary Clinton will lose. If so, expect significant changes in the “traditional” Electoral College map. If Trump wins, he will carry several normally Democratic states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin. And that will negate the Democrat’s Electoral College ace in the hole.

In case you’re wondering, I’ve got no dog in this fight. If the election were held today, I would not vote for either Clinton or Trump.

The tragedy is that America is about to elect an individual who will be unwilling or unable to make and implement the tough decisions necessary to arrest national decline and heal national division. Clinton and Trump in their own unique ways are losers. Electing either of them makes us the biggest loser.

How much better it would be for all of us, if both of them were relegated to being the finalists on the TV reality show. For that they both have way more than enough of the right stuffing.

LeRoy Goldman lives in Flat Rock and can be reached at:

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Campus crybabies, cowards abound

                           

Campus crybabies, cowards abound

By LeRoy Goldman

Columnist
BlueRidgeNow

Published: Sunday, July 17, 2016 

I am old enough to remember when the opportunity to attend college was seen as the best and surest pathway for an individual to mature, learn and live a fuller life. But now political correctness has cast an ominous shadow over all that. 

Political correctness, as it is being practiced on university campuses all across America, is stifling freedom of expression through intimidation. It is the antithesis of what Thomas Jefferson said upon the founding of the University of Virginia in 1819: “This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead.”

Understanding the expanding assault on college life and teaching requires familiarity with three concepts that are not household terms: safe space, trigger warning and microaggression.

A safe space in educational institutions means the institution, its professors or its students will not tolerate anti-LGBT violence, harassment or hate speech. Trigger warnings explicitly state that the content of a text, video, course syllabus or lecture may upset or offend some people. Microaggressions are words that could be deemed violent, such as asking a Latino person, “Where were you born?”

The coercive use of these concepts on campus is not benign. It’s malignant.

In fact, the expanding assault on academic freedom and free speech, led by hysterical students and legions of university diversity police, is powerfully assisted by the federal government through its regulations that implement Title IX of the 1972 Education Act amendments. This assault on free speech by an unholy alliance of college-age crybabies, university diversity bureaucrats and federal regulators strikes at the heart of every university’s raison d’être.

Even worse is the silence of those who could most effectively combat this menace — the university’s faculty members. Their all-too-convenient silence makes them cowards and accomplices in this madness that will not stop until it turns academic freedom into higher education’s passion play.

Here’s a sampler of what university life has become. In The Washington Post several months ago, columnist George Will described how Colorado State University punished the alleged rapist of a woman who said she was not raped. The individuals in question had consensual sexual intercourse. The following day, a classmate of the woman in question noticed a hickey on her neck. She reported an alleged assault to school officials.

Based on inaccurate hearsay evidence, Colorado State University suspended the male who had been falsely accused.

Catherine Rampell, in a column in the Washington Post last March, described how two members of Bowdoin College’s student government will face impeachment proceedings because they attended a party where some attendees wore tiny sombreros. Students and administrators at Bowdoin “went ballistic” and an investigation into ethnic stereotyping was begun. Those who attended the party were reprimanded or placed on social probation.

In a column in The Washington Post in May, Charles Lane reported how Harvard University, in response to gender inequity, is transforming campus culture. Harvard has decided to sanction organizations that only admit men or women. Starting this fall, Harvard will prohibit members of single-gender organizations from holding “leadership positions” in any university-recognized undergraduate organization. In addition, Harvard also will prohibit such people from applying for Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.

In The Washington Post last fall, columnist Kathleen Parker wrote that, based on a survey of 1,100 colleges and universities, only 18 percent require American history or government, where an understanding of free speech and the First Amendment would be taught.

Earlier this month, professor Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches at NYU, stated that most efforts at the diversity challenge faced by universities have been a failure. Unbelievably, he said, “There’s no strong evidence that these costly efforts have changed anything.”

Thus, he proposes a radical fix. He wants universities to stop allowing freshmen to choose their own roommate. Instead, he wants universities to “generate multicultural roommate pairings.” Call it the next logical step for the diversity empire’s stormtroopers!

Professor Charles Lipson of the University of Chicago has spoken powerfully against this spreading menace in a column for Real Clear Politics last month. He has proposed steps that universities should undertake to protect campus free speech. Failing that he argues, “they will fail in their basic mission of promoting the exchange of ideas, real learning and innovative research.”

He’s right. But until he’s joined by his professorial colleagues, he is a voice in the academic wilderness.

The parents of the crybabies would be better served by diverting their daughter’s/son’s tuition payments to a psychotherapist for services rendered to their enfant terrible. No apologies here to those who just perceived a microaggression.

And the spineless professors should be required to write and rewrite Thomas Jefferson’s UVA mission statement on their whiteboards until they can demonstrate they comprehend its meaning.

LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:  

EmailMe