Do young Americans, social activists, mayors need a hug since Trump has been elected?

In post-election America, young people, social activists, and municipal leaders across our nation are anticipating doom and see Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency as a harbinger of an impending disregard of their interests and a potential erosion of their rights. Certainly, a president can affect our society to a point. However, the insurance provided by our Constitution against a suspected tyrant from the executive branch seems to elude college students and protest-minded activists. Young Americans are caught up in an emotional whirlwind since the results of the general election became clear. The question is whether this widespread unrest is in actuality a tempest in a teapot or a legitimate concern of a potentially dangerous creeping authoritarianism.

At college campuses throughout the country, demonstrations abound especially among minority and alternative lifestyle groups. College administrators resignations have been called for, scheduled examinations have had to be postponed or cancelled, and quadrangles have been stuffed full of weeping students lying prostrate on the grass.

Along with meandering complainant students, municipal leaders have made dogmatic proclamations about how they will be resistant against any enforcement of immigration laws in their individual cities. Federal statutes and 10th Amendment issues aside, these premature cautionary tales appear to be opportunities for political rhetoric rather than real concerns about social displacement.

Also on the warpath against the incoming chief executive, the social activists in the African-American and LBGTQ (Lesbian-Bi-sexual-Gay-Transgender-Questioning) community are not only demonstrating but are also flooding social media with stated fears of being castigated and having their civil rights stolen from them.

This tornado of apprehension and craven fearfulness assumes facts not in evidence as of yet. Donald Trump spoke a lot of provocative assertions during the circus of the campaign season. Many of which will be honed down to a great degree in practice. The practicality of governing is quite different than the wild rhetoric of campaign politics. So, the overly emotional students, and the social activists who feel imperiled, and the mayors who feel protective about their illegal communities should take a breath. Whether Donald Trump will attempt to govern as a hard-line authoritarian is a question that cannot be answered until January 20th. To assume the worst when obviously no changes have been implemented thus far is a fool’s errand.

Soon after the defeat of Democrat nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, college students, undoubtedly spurred by a usually far left liberal faculty, were swirled into a hurricane of emotional protest. Crisis counselors were enlisted and comfort/service animals were brought in to assuage the fears of the university populous.

Specifically, the issues of political correctness are the themes of warning and discontent that the complaining barkers on college campuses are crowing about. And when the college administrators do not respond in what the demonstrators perceive is a sufficient manner, they boisterously call for their ouster.

Case and Point, the President of Ithaca College in upstate New York, Thomas Rochon, was accused of being racially insensitive when he admonished students for not attending their classes when they instead were malingering by demonstrating against the President-Elect’s supposed racism. Protestors have chanted a call for Rochon’s removal.

Similarly, at the University of Kansas, race activists claimed the school administration were just giving lip service to their complaints and called for the resignation of the school’s hierarchy in favor of a more diversified staff.

At Ivy League Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, school officials have capitulated to the charge that black students are suffering from “Micro-aggressions”. This concept is that even though there is no detectable overt bigotry, there are “tone-deaf slights” directed at minority students. In response, school officials have pledged to address the problem with extensive sensitivity training for non-minority students. Yale senior and campus activist Aaron Lewis stated: “It is really hard to believe because we want to believe we’re a post-racial society, but it’s just not true”.

At Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, daily protests since the election have been overfilling the quad. Students refused to resume their normal schedules and after campus security were ineffective in trying to break up the demonstrations, the university President Denise Trauth attempted to quell the dissent “Our aim should be to better understand that which causes divisions among us and to work toward strengthening our bond as a university community. Constructive dialogue is the best way to achieve this goal”. Her efforts were not well received by the righteous feeling students.

Meanwhile, at the all female Wellesley College, “Safe Spaces” have been established to comfort students “In shock” from the election loss of their alumnus Hillary Clinton. These Safe Spaces are cordoned areas where psychologically trained counselors can deal with the after effects of the “tragedy” of Trump prevailing. Also, in response to road impeding demonstrations, the University of Southern California now offers sensitivity meetings as “legitimate alternatives” to attending classes. Additionally, at Columbia University in New York, a “Post-Election Conversation and Reflection Program” has been created to deal with the “Far-reaching” effects of Hillary’s loss, and the emotional damage to the student body as a result.

These coddling reactions to Trump’s victory is to say the least baffling for it presupposes that some truly onerous things are about to happen long before the man has taken the oath of office.

Akin to these protests are complaints by the African American and alternative lifestyles communities. At Princeton University, a student activist group called the “Black Justice League” has expressed their distress regarding the Trump election. In 2015, this same group had unsuccessfully tried to remove the name of former university president and former United States President Woodrow Wilson from all campus buildings. They say that Trump is the new embodiment of Wilson and the legend of his supposed racism. The comparison seems quite a stretch.

Along the same line, University of Tennessee Psychology Professor Patrick Grzanka has stated he has witnessed the LBGTQ community suffer from great apprehension about Trump’s victory and the anticipated adverse effect his presidency will have on their rights. “Our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students are deeply concerned about Trump” and “After enduring months of homophobic and transphobic rhetoric during the campaign, many of us sexual minorities and gender nonconforming individuals-are asking them selves what happens next?”

Equally premature are the statements made by minority sensitive mayors who have made dramatic speeches against the new president and his possible intention to follow and enforce the laws of the land regarding illegal immigrants. The Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio, the Mayor of Los Angeles, California Eric Garcetti, and the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island have all made impassioned speeches about protecting the rights of illegal immigrants and ignoring whatever the new president tries to do to enforce the statutes. Their characterization of Trump as ruthless family busting monster is as of yet unproven considering we do not even know what his actual reforms will be yet.

All in all, the protests, complaints, demonstrations, and emotional whirlwinds that have possessed many young people since the election of Donald Trump are not only premature, they are foolishly presumptuous. The Donald Trump on the stump will not necessarily be the same man administrating in the Oval Office.

Students, activists, and municipal leaders who are prematurely apoplectic over what may happen in the upcoming term are involved in a waste of effort. Also, to indulge these frivolous student exercises of erroneous protest by school administrators is not a responsible lesson to teach the nation’s college students. Political correctness has triumphed common sense in these incidents. If you are worried about the future young folks, go see your Mom and Dad and receive a reassuring hug. Just leave those who run your institutions alone and, for God’s sake, go to class!