When Hating Trump Isn’t Hateful

Several weeks ago, I was in my U.S. history class preparing for finals. The majority of students were criticizing Donald Trump, saying, “He is against Mexicans” and “He will start World War III!”

I rushed to the presumptive GOP nominee’s defense, saying, “Don’t believe everything you hear from the fabricated, liberal news media. He is not against Mexicans or Latinos. He supports a secure border — and a nation without a border is not a nation, matter of fact.”

Many more of the students were probably hating on Mr. Trump … so they wouldn’t be called racists by the PC crowd intent on trampling an open debate of ideas.

I brought up how illegal immigrants are not complying with the law and illegal means criminal, unlawful, and illicit! I asserted the fact that some of these illegals are rapists, sex offenders, murderers, thieves, and members of drug cartels in South America.

I even used examples of real-life situations. In 2015, an illegal alien from Mexico raped, tortured, and murdered a 64-year-old Air Force veteran in California. This individual had been arrested several times before and the crime mentioned would have never happened if immigration officials had deported him for unlawfully being here when he was held in criminal custody.

As I was still attempting to shed light on the situation, my fellow students started to ignore me. One classmate, however, decided to engage. She said, “But if Trump did deport immigrants, he would have the same policies as Adolf Hitler!”

I couldn’t believe that my classmates would buy into such a left-wing, off-the-wall characterization of the world.

I pointed out that sending citizens back to their home country is nothing like sentencing thousands of individuals to death camps and reminded them that disliking someone for breaking the law is much different from disliking someone due to their heritage. After all, Mr. Trump is married to a Slavic woman and his daughter is Jewish!

[lz_infobox]This piece is part of a CampusZette series exploring the culture, oddities, and experiences of students on college campuses through their eyes.[/lz_infobox]

I didn’t stop there, however. I pointed out that former presidents have also enforced strict immigration policies, including Democrat President Bill Clinton. He removed approximately twelve million illegals from the United States during his entire presidency and he was ranked number one in deportations in history.

At this point my fellow classmates were without words. They clearly didn’t want to agree with me but they also were lacking any counter points. They were forced to reconsider their beliefs, but ultimately many of them decided to drop the conversation instead of taking it to its logical conclusion. I started to wonder why it was so important to them to hate Trump.

That’s when I remembered how a young Hispanic man named Francisco recently stood up against an establishment Anaheim City Council member named Kris Murray. Francisco identified himself as a Trump supporter and explained how he was not offended by Trump’s statements and policies regarding immigration. In fact, Francisco expressed how unhappy he is with politically correct culture.

Francisco asserted that Council Member Murray only spoke out against Trump for political advantage and so that she could avoid future so-called charges of “racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.”

I believe that many of my classmates are the same way. Many are politically uneducated people but by all means do not want to be thought of as hateful. The only logical conclusion is to suspend all rational belief and jump onboard the left-wing thought that calls all conservative viewpoints as irrational and mean.

While I’m sure some of my classmates were genuinely pro-Hillary or anti-Trump, I bet many more of the students were probably hating on Mr. Trump just for their own advantage, so they wouldn’t be called racists by the PC crowd intent on trampling an open debate of ideas. It’s truly an oxymoron world when hating a candidate makes you less hateful.

Luis Ortiz is a dual enrollment student at Fayetteville Technical Community College in Fayetteville, North Carolina.