Reaction to Trump's arraignment from Syracuse University Prof. Margaret Susan Thompson has listeners fired up on Syracuse's Morning News! Listen to the podcast on iHeartRadio and read one listener's comments below!
Good morning Dave,
Just writing to share a bit of feedback on your brief discussion this morning with Margaret Susan Thompson, professor at SU, regarding former president Trump's indictment.
A lot of people say a lot of bad things about the state of our universities these days. From groups like the organization FIRE(Foundation for individual rights in education), to individuals on the more liberal end like social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, to rogue actors like the trio behind the "Greivance Studies Affair", and many others I'll spare you from listing out. They cite things like biases, ideological conformity, working backwards from conclusions, violations of free speech and support of censorship(SU consistently makes FIRE's list of worst colleges for free speech), and failing to educate our younger generations on basic tenants and principles America was founded on(in favor of creating activists instead).
In my opinion today's guest Margaret is evidence of all of the above. When you asked her about president Trump's indictment and how it was historic her take on it seemed to be, "yes, it's historic because no president has ever been ACCUSED of a crime like this before". We can blame semantics and poor word choice here, but many presidents have been accused of crimes of both similar and varying types. Perhaps she meant to say no president has been indicted, which would be more accurate, however I have very little sympathy not patience for people in positions that hold some level of prestige, like college professor, who can't be bothered to choose their words more carefully, avoid typos, spelling and grammar errors, etc. I find those to be part of what I call the death of competency in our society and see it as being thoroughly entwined with all of the larger societal ills we face.
Furthermore, setting aside the either poor word choice or obliviousness of her saying Trump was the only president accused, she also completely side stepped the ACTUAL historic part of this story, that is the extremely dangerous precedent set by bringing charges against one's political enemies.
I got the impression that you were trying to lob that one right over the plate for her with the manner in which you framed your questions, but she completely whiffed it.
At your continued prompts to discuss how "historic" this was, what the precedent meant and what does she think comes next, not only did she continue to miss the obvious perilous possibilty that any one in power moving forward can now use it to pursue legal actions against their political ideological enemies, but she took that prompt and instead discussed progressive wins! Mentioning the progressive wins in the WI supreme court and Chicago mayor race.
Clearly she is living breathing proof of the progressive bias, ideological conformity, misunderstanding of our founding principles and documents and death of competency that plagues academia, and in turn is churning out progressive activists into all aspects of modern American culture and society.
I had already determined that the university system is a waste of time and money, and suffering from a type of lysenkoism, but now and again I have my doubts. This interview with Margaret assuaged those doubts, at least as far as Syracuse University is concerned.
A few housekeeping notes before I close:
1. You may look at this note as just from an angry, equally ideologically captured Trump supporter - I am not. I am a libertarian and do not support either major party, nor did I think Trump did a good job as president(better than Biden for sure, but a far cry from the type of president and policies I would prefer).
2. You referred to her at the close of your interview as "Peg", implying a familiarity and probably personal friendship. I apologize if I personally insulted a friend of yours. I tried to make this as matter of fact, and absent of emotion of a response as I could, but at the same time I had to say something because the interview seemed like a total waste of time.
3. I don't know if this is still a thing, but you have my permission to use any or all of this email as you would like, including but not limited to reading on air, posting on social media, or on the internet. I'm an open book with no qualms about my comments being shared publicly.
If you read this far, thank you for your time. I listen just about every morning on my commute to work and with exceptions like this one coming few and far between, I appreciate your work.
Have a great day.
Shawn