The Trump Effect at Stanford

In January, Nisrin Elamin, a Sudanese graduate student in anthropology at Stanford University, was stranded at JFK airport in New York as a result of President Trump’s executive order, which temporarily barred citizens from a number of majority-Muslim countries from entering the country. “I felt humiliated and scared . . . and I started crying,” she said. “I’ve been living in the U.S. since 1993,” she added. “I never expected to be treated this way upon my return home.”

Miss Elamin has been spoiled all her life in a country that places “vibrant” Third-World immigrants like her over the majority white population. The “colored privilege” she has enjoyed is extensive: before becoming a PhD student at Stanford, she got her undergraduate degree at Harvard and a master’s degree from Columbia. She could not conceive that after an entire life coddled by positive discrimination — she belongs to many “victim” groups: blacks, women, Muslims, immigrants — her privileges could finally be called into question, if only temporarily.

I cannot resist schadenfreude. All I have to do is remember what it was like as a white male student at Stanford, surrounded by the anti-white hostility and the relentless ethnic chauvinism of “vibrant” minorities. After Mr. Trump’s election, the Stanford campus went into a convulsion of panic and horror, in sharp contrast to the party atmosphere of 2008, when a glorious madness swept through the campus.

2008: The Obama madness

To get a glimpse of how far the hysteria went in 2008, look at the student papers from that time. The Stanford Progressive ran a special election issue with the title “The Party Has Just Begun.” White student and international relations major Alicia DeSantola wrote that she saw “this election as the test by which history will judge our generation. We are at a pivotal moment. . . . On November 4th, we will make a choice whether to accept stagnation or to blossom forth into a new era of American prosperity.” She concluded by saying: “We will not settle. We will reach for the stars.”

Darius Tahir, an editor, wrote that “if Barack Obama is elected on November 4th, it will represent the emotional culmination of history: ours, yours, mine.” He added that in Barack Obama’s autobiographical Dreams from My Father, he saw his own racial journey. Shadi Bushra, a staff writer, wrote that “we have a chance to prove to the world, and perhaps to ourselves, that the wounds cut open by slave masters’ whips centuries ago are not so deep that we will miss an opportunity to put our country back on the right track. […] From the perspective of a Sudanese man, this election marks a particularly proud moment in world as well as in American history.” He added that “the interests of the developing world and those of the United States often coincide.” His conclusion: “Electing Barack Obama is not enough. We need to want equality as badly as Ghandi wanted independence. As tirelessly as Einstein chased knowledge, we must chase the elusive goal that is equality if we ever hope to achieve it.” [“Special Election Issue – The party has just begun.” The Stanford Progressive, November 2008] This perfectly captures the mood.

Rallies were organized and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, a Kennedy-style playboy and liberal sell-out, visited the campus to give a speech. He was accompanied by former State Controller and Stanford alumnus Steve Westly. Mr. Westly, who was the California campaign co-chair for Obama for America said: “Let’s cheer loudly for Obama. . . . I remember that when I was student body president, about 2,000 students took over to rally against apartheid in South Africa. Never underestimate the strength of student rallies.” Stanford Law Professor Larry Marshall stressed the historical importance of the election, saying: “I fear that you don’t understand the magnitude of what this election is. You need to see how different this election really is. This is between choosing the status quo as we inherited it and choosing a different world.”

It is worth noting that Ashwin Mudaliar, president of the Stanford Democrats, said that they had wanted to bring the then-popular rapper will.i.am — lead singer of the hip hop band Black Eyed Peas — but he canceled, apparently due to scheduling issues. Thus, they got Mayor Newsom and the others.

On election night, after Mr. Obama won, I was watching MSNBC’s coverage with other students. When a map of the results was shown, a student from India asked a black female student why the Southern states had gone mostly Republican. She sanctimoniously replied: “Because the people there are uneducated, but it’s mostly old people. When these states were desegregated, their [white] leaders played on their racism and that’s why they’re prejudiced. Young people are not like that; things are changing.” The Indian student listened with shining eyes and endearing gullibility.

2016: The reality check

Election night 2016 was different. Throughout campus, the mood was gloomy. The Stanford Daily reports that as results came in from the East Coast, some lectures could not be taught normally because students kept checking the news on their smart phones. One professor had to tell her students to stop checking their phones and to pay attention to the topic of the lecture: 1940s Japanese history. “There might even be some lessons to be drawn from today’s lecture, like what right-wing nationalism and racism can do to a country,” she said.

Shortly after 10 p.m., more than 400 students convened in Stanford’s main gathering square — ironically known as White Plaza — for an anti-Trump demonstration. The Stanford Daily reports that “at the rally, students and community members took turns with a megaphone, sharing their fears on the direction of policy and on an environment of xenophobia and bigotry under a likely Trump presidency.” A Muslim student voiced his anguish at how he thought he would be treated in Mr. Trump’s America, while others expressed their anger at the thought that the “progress in marriage equality, healthcare, and social justice made during the last eight years would be unraveled.” Student Romeo Umaña, whose mother is an illegal immigrant, said: “I’m honestly more afraid than in my whole life. What’s going to happen to my mom and people who are undocumented?”

University Provost John Etchemendy addressed the crowd, saying:

This has been a shock to every member of our community. I often talk about the Stanford family because you’re all part of the Stanford family, and we mean that. The way we mean that is that what happens to any one of you happens to all of us. We will protect you. Don’t be afraid. You have the university behind you.

Every member of our community? I never got that kind of support as a white male student during my Stanford days. Such a statement from the highest level of the university marginalizes the white students and faculty who have to live completely underground to avoid the brutal discrimination that would follow if they openly expressed certain views in this intensely hostile environment.

At another gathering of about 150 people, what had started off as an exciting evening of liberals marveling at the prospect of a female president breaking the “glass ceiling” gradually descended into despair. “I am absolutely speechless,” said junior undergraduate Dan Trunzo. “I think this election highlights how, as a Stanford student, you can’t really internalize and comprehend how more than half a nation is able to vote for a candidate that we all take for granted as representing and embodying everything that we might find wrong.” Then, in a glimmer of common sense, he added: “[The election] highlights the fact that we are living in and being educated in a bubble.”

The student-run paper reported that for many, Mr. Trump’s victory was “a devaluation of their identities as Americans.” Junior Hannah Llorin said: “I don’t feel like an American right now,” while Erin McCoy stated that “every ounce of patriotism has escaped me in this moment. I have never been less proud to be an American.”

The Stanford Daily also reported that it conducted a survey a week earlier and found that 84.7 percent of Stanford students supported Hillary Clinton, and only 3.9 percent supported Mr. Trump. These figures are hardly surprising given the non-stop brainwashing students undergo in class, and they also reflect the glorious “diversity” of our elite institutions, in which whites are a minority. But they probably underestimated actual support for Mr. Trump, given that people find it risky to express a controversial opinion even on supposedly anonymous survey forms.

At another spot on campus, an event organized by the Stanford College Republicans gathered only 13 students. “I don’t think anyone expected Trump to win this evening,” said junior Elise Kostial, president of the group. The Stanford Daily also reported that “the group itself can’t endorse candidates, and so Kostial declined to share her personal views. The other attendees also declined to offer comment.” Not even College Republicans were willing openly to endorse Donald Trump. This may be because of the sheer terror under which they live. Offering comments to a student journalist could get them in trouble.

While it may seem terrible to some, the unpleasantness experienced by the Sudanese student stranded at JFK airport cannot be avoided if we are to restore order in a country that lost its borders long ago. The backlash that followed Mr. Trump’s executive order shows how difficult it will be to defeat our deeply entrenched enemies and retake control of a country in which they still dominate every institution. The kind of hysteria I have described shines a clear light on the class that occupies our elite universities. One needs to have rubbed shoulders with its members to understand what whining, privileged little brats they are.