The document discusses Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. It notes that Trump has taken the political discourse to a new low, but appeals to Americans who feel mainstream politicians don't speak openly about their views. Trump leads other candidates in polls due to his controversial statements on issues like immigration and women. The author argues that Trump's campaign harms Republicans and makes a mockery of the democratic process.

1. ESaturday,August 29,2015
Therogue
ontheelephant
Late night comedians and
Democratic presidential
hopeful Hillary Clinton must be
praying that Donald Trump wins the
Republican nomination for the 2016
presidential race.
It’s more likely Trump will shame
his way out of contention, but in the
meantime he has taken the level
of political discourse in the United
States to an all-time low.
Trump says he doesn’t have time
for political correctness. That’s an
understatement. He seems to appeal
to a segment of Americans who feel
that mainstream politicians don’t
speak openly and frankly about
their inner frustrations, biases and
prejudices.
When Trump says “The American
dream is dead, but I’m going to
make it bigger, better and stronger
than ever,” his supporters see a
hugely successful businessman, a
straight talker, and someone who
will reassert the United States on
the world stage.
Whatever his appeal, the
billionaire real estate mogul,
who likes to fire guests on his
TV show, has a commanding
lead over the multitude of other
rivals. Three months into the
contest Trump has sucked the
air out of the race with his con-
troversial utterings. His bombas-
tic style has captured the attention
of the media and left little room for
the other, more credible contenders
such as former Florida governor
Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie to emerge.
Trump has a long record of ques-
tionable positions. He was part of
the “birther” movement that ques-
tioned President Barack Obama’s
birthplace, right down to the veracity
of his birth certificate. (Only natural-
born Americans are eligible to be
president.)
Further, a review of Trump’s
statements, interviews and Twitter
feed reveals a range of disparaging
comments about leading women
journalists, actresses and singers.
In his June speech announc-
ing his run for the presidency, he
came out against amnesty for illegal
immigrants and made degrading
remarks about Mexicans, saying that
country was sending their worst to
the United States.
And his approval rating with
Republican voters moved him into
the lead.
In his book, Trump: How to Get
Rich, he wrote, “For many years I’ve
said that if someone screws you,
screw them back . . . When some-
one hurts you, just go after them as
viciously and violently as you can.”
This is the mantra that underlies
Trump’s approach to the race.
His performance during the first
all-candidates’ debate in August was
a classic example of the “Donald”
style. The rest of the contenders gave
him a wide berth, hoping he would
self-destruct. Instead, he eclipsed
them all with his incendiary views
on immigration, abortion and health
care.
DonaldTrump’s run for the U.S.
presidency not only harms the
Republicans but also makes
a mockery of one of the
democratic world’s most
important contests
Diamond Yao
Special to Postmedia Network
Brace yourselves, a new school
year is upon us, and with it, a
strenuous climb up the steep slope of
academic achievement.
Soon enough, many of us students
will find ourselves embattled in a
swirling blizzard of lectures and assign-
ments, with fatigue headaches and
procrastination-induced panic attacks
as our teacher-sherpas throw more
intellectual baggage at us than we can
handle.
In a month or two, midterm season
will leave us on our knees, silently pray-
ing for mercy from the pagan gods of
the R-Score. All too often, academic
apocalypse ensues, an avalanche of bad
exams burying our seeking hearts.
Hear me out fellow students, I am
here to bring good news. Conquering
the imposing peaks of knowledge does
not have to be that painful.
Let’s put aside our modern #obses-
sions for a minute and take a long look
back. Way, way back. Back to ancient
Greece.
I have always been fascinated by
ancient Greek culture. The idea that
it laid down a body of knowledge and
ways of thinking for pretty much the
rest of history is amazing. And in the
process, the Greeks gave us something
much more valuable that is often over-
looked — something that may exactly
be what us ailing students need.
Today’s students could learn from ancient Greeks
Paul Lachine illustration
see Warren | Page E5
r.michael
warren
Let’s examine Aristotle. Why did he
write his Poetics, Rhetoric, Politics and
a whole bunch of other works when it
clearly didn’t make him any money?
Obviously, this is a humorously igno-
rant question. It’s something that would
be met with the immediate reaction:
how dare you even remotely consider
the possibility that the respectable
Aristotle was motivated by something
as shallow and awfully materialistic as
monetary gain?
On the other hand, as all those
Facebook exam memes testify, we stu-
dents only dutifully absorb information
because, at heart, we want to get
high marks. This follows the
assumption that somehow,
someday, all these stellar
grades will lead to a high-
flying career.
In the meantime, every-
thing is boring, everything is
hellish drudgery, everything
is mind-numbing cramming.
Welcome to higher education in the
21st century.
Education wasn’t always meant to be
a necessary precursor to the job market.
Throughout history, until roughly a cen-
tury ago, kids who were rich enough to
gain access to higher education did not
do so to prepare for a rewarding career.
Core subjects included Latin, Greek and
Classics. They learned little that would
have had much practical use; rather, the
point was to gain interesting insights,
transform themselves and change their
world view. Knowledge was assimilated
for its own sake, slowly, in the fashion of
the Greek thinkers of long ago.
Now, we read our textbooks because
that’s what we’re supposed to
do. We might not even
like the material or even remotely care
about a class, but we do it anyway. No
wonder so many among us feel stuck in
a state of perpetual complaint against
our workload.
The ancients had the ability to be
inspired and to act on that inspiration.
We have lost it.
It is high time to bring this kind of
fascination back to our schoolwork and
our lives in general. Let’s stop reading
an intimidating stack of articles on
post-structuralist interpretations
of pre-Victorian literature
because we imperatively
need to bring up that
horrid mark our
last essay com-
pletely bombed:
but let’s do it
because Foucault
is awesome. Learn
because you love
to, not because you
have to.
In these times of
widespread student
grumbling, heroic
levels of sleep depriva-
tion and stress wrecked souls, a
healthy dose of nerdiness may
do us good and save us a lot of
heartbreak.
It’s time to stop climbing, sit down
and admire the surrounding landscape.
Diamond Yao is a student at Marianopolis
College in Montreal.She lives in Laval.
This column first appeared in the Montreal
Gazette.
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