The American college institution has become a place where the line is too often blurred between being taught how to think and what to think. Students here spend their days surrounded by liberal media, peers and educators. The propaganda that many of our professors attempt to pour down our fellow students’ throats is astounding: most do not even notice as they choke it down. Here political correctness is a weaponized grammar being taught and we, as conservatives, have been taught it to such a degree that we cannot have a single thought without guilt. Every self-affirmative statement, every contrary thought is undercut immediately by the idea that there is something wrong, queasy or quasi-genocidal about it. If we have that thought or belief, it is taught that there is something morally ill about it and about us.
The conservative student is born into this environment and is molded by it. The conservative student learns when to hold their tongue and knows that sometimes they have to adhere to a professor’s views just to get the grade. Above all else, a Republican student must learn to develop a thick skin as we have been called every name in the book; be it racist, uneducated or Nazi. However, unlike our more fragile counterparts, a conservative does not dwell on these false classifications, we let the sticks and stones roll off our backs. To do so is simply a matter of necessity as we don’t have the luxury to be offended or the desire to scurry to a safe space.
The conservative is an extremophile — we enjoy the challenge and do not shy from it. We are those who are taught to be frightened and to be ashamed of our own views which breeds among us a natural tendency to kick against a system that is in place. Politically correct liberalism is an enormous target to be attacked and it is fun to attack it. It affirms life to attack it. To be opposed by so many poe-faced zealots is entertaining and what the left doesn’t realize is that humor is what attracts so many people to our side. Meanwhile the left continues to employ the same rhetoric and strategies that lost them the election.
To my fellow conservatives, I want to commend you as you continue to remain steadfast during this recent election despite the insurmountable odds placed before you and the pressure your fellow students have placed on you. Be proud and hold your head high amid the tear-stained faces and bitter sneers from those who recognize the decisions you have made. Though none of us would have expected to be treated with dignity, had the tables been turned, it falls to us to take our victory graciously. There is still work to be done. It is up to us to be President Trump’s greatest critics and to hold him to the promises that we voted him into office for.
America is now the locomotive of its own destiny and we will determine its future. We will not let other groups determine it for us.
Drake Schwenke, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at DSchwenke18@wooster.edu.