Academics declare support for Donald Trump https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/10/04/academics-declar...

Scholars for Trump

A group of professors and not-so-academic writers declare support for the GOP
presidential candidate. But the list of signatures highlights Trump's limited appeal in
academe, even among Republican presidential candidates.

By   Andrew Kreighbaum // October 4, 2016

79 COMMENTS (/NEWS/2016/10/04/ACADEMICS-DECLARE-SUPPORT-DONALD-TRUMP#DISQUS_THREAD)
 

Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University, spent two and a half years working in the
George W. Bush administration and, later, voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Now Bauerlein, one of the
country's most vocal conservative academics, is one of the few in the profession openly supporting
Donald Trump.

"We've reached a point where we need a jolt. We need someone who can take on the taboos and do so
in a canny and effective way," Bauerlein said.

He's one of 150 academics and other writers who have put their names on a letter of support
(http://scholarsandwritersforamerica.org/)  for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump,
although the Scholars and Writers for America list includes many signatures of those from outside the
traditional academy.

Frank Buckley, a Foundation Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University,
said he and other conservative scholars helped organize the letter -- a brief, one-sentence statement
backing the candidate -- to establish that there are some ideas behind Trump's candidacy.

The letter reads, "Given our choices in the presidential election, we believe that Donald J. Trump is the
candidate most likely to restore the promise of America, and we urge you to support him as we do."

"There should be a campaign of ideas and not simply of personalities," Buckley said of the current
presidential race. "Right now, the campaign is mostly a bunch of ad hominem attacks."

Buckley said Trump was attractive as a candidate because of his promised action on immigration and
tax reform as well as a more prudent foreign policy.

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Bauerlein said his reasons for supporting Trump were more cultural and social than political. The list of
signatures includes academics like him and Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University, and familiar higher
education critics such as David Horowitz and Roger Kimball.

It also features former politicians with scholarly credentials such as Newt Gingrich and Bill Bennett, and
others such as Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and Facebook board member who bankrolled
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/business/dealbook/peter-thiel-tech-billionaire-reveals-secret-
war-with-gawker.html?_r=0) former wrestler Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media, and Charles C.
Johnson, a right-wing blogger known for aggressive trolling on Twitter before he was banned from the
website (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/05/26/charles-johnson-one-
of-the-internets-most-infamous-trolls-has-`nally-been-banned-from-twitter/) .

Joshua Dunn, chair of the department of political science at the University of Colorado, Colorado
Springs, said the list of names is probably so broad because of the di\culty of ]nding university-based
scholars to back a candidate who has become toxic even to many in his own party. Dunn, who co-wrote
a book about conservatives in academe, said conservative faculty members are typically pro-free trade,
pro-free market and skeptical of populist movements, whereas Trump has run a populist campaign
espousing protectionist principles.

"You're going to have trouble rounding up many conservative faculty members," he said.

Dunn said even many who have signed the letter may not be terribly enthusiastic about Trump.

"Instead they're afraid of a Clinton presidency, so they kind of regard him as the least worst option for
this election," he said.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, has peeled off support from a handful of current
and former Republican o\cials. And the newspaper endorsements that would go to a GOP nominee in a
typical presidential election cycle haven't been forthcoming for Trump, who has repeatedly made racist
and misogynist remarks throughout his campaign. Dunn said support for Trump would be controversial
on most college campuses to an extent that a professor endorsing Mitt Romney would not have been.

Buckley said there are few registered Republicans in the academy to begin with and that, within that
group, many vigorously oppose Trump.

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idea.

"The immediate message is that there is an intelligent case to make for Trump," he said. "That doesn't
mean it's right. But it is rational."

Read more by   Andrew Kreighbaum

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