Posted on 05/23/2016 2:14:30 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
Four students, none of whom could be older than 22, smiled for a photo. Dressed like slick, young L.A. professionals, they struck poses that wouldnt be out of place in an Instagram post. But upon closer inspection, it is clear that these students were criticizing the new federal guidance that allows transgender people to use bathrooms of their choice. There are only two genders, one sign read. Get your agenda out of my restroom the other read. And finally, Transgenderism is a mental disorder.
The women are members of the Bruin Republicans, attending an event at UCSB held by Young Americans for Liberty. Christian conservative writer Matt Walsh gave a talk entitled, An Encroachment on Liberty: How the Left Exploits Transgender Laws claiming that the transgender movement is, based on lies, misguided desires and leftist narratives not biological science, according to the The College Fix. Walsh also claimed that the high suicide rate among transgender people was a result of self-hatred rather than the effects of bullying and harassment.
Undergraduate Student Government Senator Paul Samaha shared the aforementioned photo on Facebook last Monday, and by Friday it had reached more than 1,300 shares making a small ripple in collegiate social media circles. Uncomfortable under the spotlight, the Bruin Republicans issued a statement saying that they are not responsible for the individual views of their members including that of their vice president, who is holding one of the signs in the viral photo.
But these types of incidents simply echo the sentiment outside of the college sphere. The Republican Party is undergoing internal change and their increasingly intolerant sentiments are spreading to college campuses. In this case, a fine line was crossed again one which eschewed conservatism and traditional values for inflammatory statements and reductive arguments. Support for small government, free market capitalism and religious freedoms have been replaced by base rhetoric and flamboyant shows of racism, sexism and xenophobia. This phenomenon is exemplified by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, whose appeals to hatred and fear have not only disgusted the opposition but also alienated the partys blue blood.
These current strategies are not new. In the wake of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the GOPs Southern strategy turned white Southerners against their black peers to garner votes for the party. As black Southerners pushed for progressive reform and equal treatment, the GOP pushed right back with incendiary rhetoric. The GOP began relying on scare tactics to take voters from the Democrats, and to solidify their base.
The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans, said Kevin Phillips, President Nixons top strategist. Thats where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.
And there are remnants of Southern Strategy still lingering in our political system. When leftist movements gain traction, as they have done in the past few years, the right recoils with quite the fervor.
We have seen these types of movements on our own campus when progressive policies were passed on a campus level, such as the campus climate resolution last year, we saw a backlash from conservative peers. In the past year, a number of conservative agitators have been invited to our campus to speak, including Milo Yiannopoulos and David Horowitz, who once held an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week in mockery of cultural awareness events. Free speech is no longer being used to discuss conservative values, but instead to call women slurs, encourage the inferiority of other races and attempt to derail progressive conversations on our campus. And while opinions should never be curbed on college campuses, it is worth taking a step back to reflect on how intolerant and vitriolic the conversation has become.
But in terms of the trans movement, this outrage can be seen as a step towards equality. The public is talking enough to warrant a response from our legislators and a backlash from traditionalists, who prefer to think that gender fluidity didnt exist before the Obama administration. More transgender people are being represented in the media than ever, and the average person can most likely name at least two transgender public figures, which was surely not the case only a few years ago. Backlash is inevitable as the trans movement gains traction and conservative rhetoric only grows dirtier. But, if enough noise has made and enough nests have been shaken that the UCLA College Republicans are saying something, then people must be doing something right.
Daily Trojan
A bigger rivalry there never has been. UCLA vs USC. Right up there with Ohio State vs Michigan. I am sure the University of Spoiled Children is in the same boat as UCLA. There must be some Republicans that go to USC.
Ah, had to make that connection with USC, the mortal enemy of UCLA.
Be sure to FReep their poll with a YES vote!!!
If someone brings up Nixon when talking about American elections isn’t that somewhat like Godwin’s law? i.e. it means they’ve lost the argument?
I feel like wearing a Trojan around my brain so as to not get infected by this article and the mental illness it showcases.
“...one which eschewed conservatism and traditional values ”
Sounds like this foreigner is pining for the days of John “Bend-over” Boehner. The Left grants conservatives the privilege of expressing their ideas, as long as the Left approves of them. However, anything else is strictly verboten. What these pansies need is a good azz kickin’, as we say in Texas.
Daily Trojan = Donald Trump
DT
The Daily Trojan is intolerant of non-transgenders. And racist.
The University of Super Champions was once clearly the more conservative school until it began to drift leftward beginning in the late 1970’s.
Sadly, that might even be true.
The problem with our established education programs is universal and began with John Dewey more than a century ago.
It's at the heart of when we today call "liberalism," though American Conservatism is truly the only real liberalism remaining.
This flavor of experimentalism will deftly absorb all we can throw at it until we root it out of the teaching colleges and ignore their long use of traditional rivalries to distract their enemies.
Ah the university of spoiled children. Good dems all
Good for the baby bears
Transgenderism is a mental disorder.
A message from Captain Obvious. Still too nuanced for the USC Brain Surgeons to comrpehend.
Well there’s Bruce Jenner. That’s one.
Michelle Obama is two. Don’t forget his wife Barack! Three!
I would label Bruce Jenner as a cross dresser, since he still has a penis. He is a man, who took female hormones to get boobs and dresses as a woman.
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