Op Ed: Reveille Disregards Conservative Students, Opinions

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Apocalypse now. It’s here — or so The Daily Reveille and the majority of its columnists would lead you to believe.

I’ve read the school’s daily paper since I became a student last semester following several years of military and public service. Over the course of two semesters, I feel confident saying The Reveille has isolated a large portion of its target audience: conservative students. You know, the ones who overwhelmingly elected Donald Trump in the school’s own mock election?

It has become a bane to pick up a copy of The Reveille and read about the constant “oppression” that those with conservative ideologies subject others to. Somehow, a mere difference of opinion has devolved into people being labeled — outright or underhandedly — racist, sexist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, or some other progressive buzzword that doesn’t mean what most people who use it think it means.

An opinion that differs from yours does not automatically make it hate speech. This isn’t Orwell’s 1984, and the Thought Police don’t exist, so stop pretending that they do.

An opinion article authored by Anjana Nair published in The Reveille’s November 18th issue implied that the uneducated and working class white population consists of “the most easily manipulated minds in the country.” What empirical data is there to prove those minds are more easily manipulated than say, uneducated and working class minorities who overwhelmingly vote Democrat?

Further, the term “uneducated” being used for polling purposes as well as in Ms. Nair’s column is synonymous with not holding a degree. Being an undergraduate college student, Ms. Nair is a degree seeker and not a degree holder.

As such, she would fall into the condemned “uneducated” category of voters herself. She does not get a pass from that term, and if she considers herself educated, then she must also consider her peers who voted for Trump in LSU’s mock election - and likely the general election - educated as well.

That same article argued that President-elect Trump’s “screw ups were calculated steps towards the desired voter base to get him elected.” While Trump was in fact very calculating, it was in the active pursuit of votes in Michigan and Wisconsin when most polls there had him down an estimated 4-7 points immediately prior to the election. Hillary Clinton flashed her elitism by neglecting to visit Wisconsin entirely during her general election campaign. Further, she failed in crunch time by running more ads in Omaha, Nebraska, than in Michigan and Wisconsin combined in the weeks leading up to the election.

In fact, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) warned the Democratic Party about its passive pursuit of the working class vote in these states, and it fell on deaf ears. In the end, Rust Belt voters vindicated him.

Recently, longtime host of The Daily Show and religious liberal Jon Stewart spoke out against the newfound phenomena of regressive progressivism that has plagued political commentary on the left. He slammed the hypocritical idea that anyone who voted for Trump must be defined by the worst of his rhetoric.

The Reveille’s opinion columnists have subscribed to this monolithic grouping of Trump voters. Further, the partisan coverage of socially liberal issues is representative of what Secretary Clinton, the mainstream media, and liberal elitists cling to. Ultimately, it’s what cost them the progressive utopia that they so coveted.

Additionally, it is apparent The Daily Reveille has a desire to drive content as opposed to simply providing it.

In the November 16th edition, three students were polled for their opinions on the Dakota Access Pipeline for an article penned by David Beerman. Not surprisingly, they all shared what was — in essence — the same socially liberal opinion. This included a student who was admittedly uninformed on the issue but gave an opinion that made it to print anyway.

I refuse to believe Mr. Beerman couldn’t find one student who was for the pipeline - if for nothing else to provide a diversity of opinion on the issue. Maybe a petroleum engineering student who would salivate at the opportunity to “drill, baby, drill” or possibly offer some deeper insight regarding the pros and cons of constructing the pipeline?

Overall, diversity has been restricted to issues such as race, sex, gender, ethnicity and sexual preference. Unfortunately, diversity in thought — especially of the political variety — is frowned upon and ostracized, yet it exists and is deserving of as much respect as the others in the publicly funded student newspaper at Louisiana’s flagship university.

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