The American Conservative: Dreher on LSU canceling classes

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You’d think that the media elites would by now have learned the cost to their own credibility of not understanding this country. But they keep being surprised. Nobody expects a New York Times editorial writer to agree with the decision to cancel college classes because of a football game. But one would like to think that a man of the world such as himself would have enough sense to think about why this decision might have been made, and what it says about cultural difference. I suspect if the LSU Board of Supervisors had cancelled classes for Transgender Day Of Remembrance, the New York Times editorial board would have wet its collective pants with delight.

If you plan to vote for Donald Trump in November, do me a favor, and think of Binyamin Appelbaum and the LSU Tigers when you do.

What Appelbaum does not know is that cancelling classes was a prudent decision, because none of the students would have shown up anyway. Governor John Bel Edwards cancelled his inaugural ball because he knew that everybody would be at the game. He’s close to Coach O; he wanted to be at the game too. This made perfect sense to everybody here. Who wants to go to an inaugural ball when the Tigers are playing for the national championship? Nobody! If Appelbaum had the slightest bit of cultural awareness and sensitivity, he would recognize that not everywhere in this big and diverse country has the same values as the elites of the Boston-NYC-DC corridor. That’s fine; America needs people who graduate from Ivy League schools and go on to write economics editorials for The New York Times. But she also needs her Ed Orgerons, the hard-fighting Cajun from South Lafourche. She also needs her Joe Burrows, a white boy from struggling southeastern Ohio. She also needs her sons like Clyde Edwards-Helaire, a short, tough-as-nails black kid from Baton Rouge who fought his way to become one of the best tailbacks in the nation.

Maybe America needs men like that more than she needs Ivy League editorial writers for The New York Times. Who knows? I couldn’t possibly say.

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Binyamin Appelbaum View Of The World. Appelbaum, an economist by training, sees no utility in college football, and thinks we’re all a bunch of idiot hicks for loving the LSU Tigers as much as we do. But I tell you, on your deathbed, you will not regret having not spent more time at the office, climbing the meritocratic ladder, but you might well regret not spending more time tailgating at Tiger Stadium (or whatever your local equivalent is, reader). The Binyamin Appelbaums of the world think that life is a syllogism and a spreadsheet; the people of Louisiana, by contrast, know that it’s really a poem and a parade.

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