On Friday, March 11 I had the honor of being able to take part in a vigil for three slain shooting victims from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The vigil was held by Cleveland State University’s Muslim Student Association, and featured words of both inspiration and words of remembrance. There were candles, and even a poem read aloud to the attendees. It was a very peaceful ceremony and put me in a positive frame of mind going into spring break.
At the same time as this vigil was a Donald J. Trump rally in Chicago, Illinois. The rally was canceled before it could even start due to protesting and violence, pretty much the exact opposite of what I was witnessing down in Cleveland. I came home shocked at what I was witnessing on the news. Some called it an attack on Trump’s first amendment rights. What I saw it as was a use of one’s first amendment rights.
This is a man that rode down an escalator in his luxurious Trump Tower like he was God descending down from the heavens to announce his presidential campaign, an announcement in which he infamously said “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Did you not expect it to come to this? This guy has been pouring gasoline on this dumpster fire for nine months now. Donald Trump, the man that has accused American Muslims of cheering 9/11 from the rooftops, endorsed torture, and proclaimed recently that “I think Islam hates us.” He couldn’t even be bothered to denounce an endorsement from a former KKK leader!
But what does this have to do with political correctness, you may ask? Well, LITERALLY EVERYTHING. Trump’s campaign is rooted in ridding the country of political correctness. The Donald believes this country is being brought down by political correctness, and that by being politically correct we are letting other countries walk all over us. You heard it straight from the horse’s mouth back in August. “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump said. “I’ve been challenged by so many people, and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody.”
Not only is there no correlation between being politically correct and “winning” in global trade, the assumption that political correctness is the issue is asinine. So, lets look at the real correlating factors, shall we? We’ll start with China.
Trump wants to enact a 45% tariff on Chinese imports. The idea, in essence, would be that it would make it more expensive to buy from Chinese factories and force them to send business back to American companies. But in reality, all that would do is make companies in the United States raise their prices in order to turn a profit! What that means is the average American would be paying more per item. Not only that, these businesses would just turn to other countries where costs would be cheaper, hurting a U.S. trade ally in China and the global economy in the process. Making America great again by crippling the middle class, I guess!
Now let us turn to the second part of that quote, specifically the part where he says we lose to Mexico at the border. The quote deals with the premise of political correctness being an issue for this country. What does political correctness have to do with illegal immigration?
Trump, along with his GOP colleagues, attack President Obama for being “weak” on illegal immigration. This is a President that has deported more illegal immigrants than any other President in US history. He has deported more than 2.5 million people and he still has ten months to go! So what is Trump’s magical solution to fix the immigration issue? Well, Trump’s website lists many ways to stop illegal immigration, with proposals ranging from the infamous “Great Wall of Trump” to literally undermining the US Constitution in “ending birthright citizenship.” Trump’s website makes no mention of legal immigration reform. Seriously, it doesn’t. But I’m assuming building a multi-billion dollar wall and making Mexico pay for it will make up for all of that, right? I guess that works if you ignore the fact that Mexico isn’t going to pay for that wall. Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox even said “I’m not going to pay for that f*cking wall.”
I could go down the list and knock on every single one of Trump’s proposals, but I know there are people that are way ahead of me on that one. Let me get back to my main point here: Political correctness won’t end under a President Trump, it will only grow stronger. What we saw in Chicago last Friday was the proverbial shit hitting the fan, and a Trump with actual power will only see that events like that rally in Chicago happen more often. Seriously, can you imagine President Trump giving a press conference only to be interrupted by angered activists? I can see it now. The protesting of that rally was the minority class taking their country back in the name of political correctness.
Who knows where Trump’s war against political correctness will go from here on out. Every time you think he can’t possibly say anything worse than the last he comes out with something completely out of left field. I guess the only thing we can do is sit back and watch. To quote the Donald himself: “This is amazing. So much fun. I love it. I love it. We having a good time?” Sure Donald, this is quite the good time. Trump Steaks and all.
Kevin McGhee is a freshman double major in Political Science and Journalism & Promotional Communication at Cleveland State University. This piece is the eighth installment of a blog series about what our writers' political views mean. Check out others here!