OPINION:
When radicals lose an argument, they try to silence the opposition. I was reminded of that simple truth yet again this week.
Leftists planted speakers in hidden locations throughout a ballroom where Young America’s Foundation (YAF) would hold a conference for conservative college students. During my on-stage interview with Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the radical activists attempted to hijack the program with a series of audio attacks against her.
Thankfully, it was neither her first rodeo nor mine. Radicals have targeted Mrs. McMahon nearly every day since President Trump announced her nomination. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mrs. McMahon served as the leader of the Small Business Administration. Plus, she was the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Anytime she set foot in the arena, there was chaos. In many ways, politics today is just as unpredictable.
When I was governor of Wisconsin, radicals took over my state capitol for nearly a month, with roughly 100,000 protestors occupying the building and the surrounding square. They issued death threats against me and my family. One even said they wanted to gut my wife like a deer, and another talked about the path my sons took to school.
During a visit to an elementary school in a low-income area of Milwaukee, protestors superglued the doors shut. We did not back down and had the maintenance team take the doors off their hinges. Ultimately, I was able to read to a classroom of fifth-grade students, and the protesters saw that intimidation does not work with me.
Protests continued on multiple occasions, including an outdoor celebration for a technical college, a park dedication, the opening of a tourism center and many other events. The turning point for these protests came when the radicals, dressed as zombies, interrupted a program during the annual Torch Run for Special Olympics.
For more than 20 years, I have joined law enforcement agencies for the annual run to support Special Olympics Wisconsin. During my first year as governor, they asked me to speak to the athletes and runners. As I stood near the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial to talk to Special Olympics athletes, protestors dressed like zombies marched out and got between me and the competitors.
The athletes were not distracted and continued to listen to my remarks. I did not lash out against the obnoxious protesters. Instead, I continued to focus on the competitors and their families.
The nightly news reported on how the radical protestors had disturbed an event for the Special Olympics. It was a turning point in the battle, as most people in Wisconsin who viewed the story were disturbed by the actions. They saw that radicals try to silence the opposition when they lose an argument.
Many of the college students attending the National Conservative Student Conference, where Secretary McMahon spoke this week, have also experienced efforts by radicals to silence their voices as conservatives on college campuses. I noted this after they made several attempts to play loud messages and commentary to drown out the words of Mrs. McMahon.
Why do they want to silence such an important member of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet? Because Mrs. McMahon is working to shift power over education from a bloated federal bureaucracy to the states, schools and parents. She wants funding to follow the students, not the systems. She thinks students should be measured on merit — not race, sex or gender. She knows that there are two sexes and that anyone no one who was born a male should be competing in sports against female athletes.
These common-sense ideas threaten radicals. They don’t want to debate them; they want to shut them down.
When radicals lose an argument, they try to silence the opposition. This was my experience in Wisconsin and it’s what we saw with Secretary McMahon. Unfortunately, it is also what we see on college campuses all over the country.
In one instance, YAF student leaders at the University of Alabama were told they would have to change the constitution of their campus organization to add woke agenda items. When YAF activists rejected the idea, they were told that school administrators would not renew their charter. They reached out to the state attorney general and got YAF involved to help them counter this nonsense.
Thankfully, the University of Alabama YAF chapter prevailed, but the fact that it even faced this kind of a challenge in a deep red state is a reminder that it can happen anywhere in the country.
Another situation arose when a campus administrator at Golden West College tried to silence a YAF student who called Hamas a terrorist organization. In response, a radical student told the YAF activist, whose family had escaped oppression in Iran, to “go back to his f-cking country.” The YAF student is a proud conservative patriot. Young America’s Foundation and the Institute for Free Speech went to court to defend him and won.
In each of these cases, the lesson is simple: Radicals are losing the debate, so they want to silence conservatives. We must not back down.
• Scott Walker is a columnist for The Washington Times. He was the 45th governor of Wisconsin and launched a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He lives in Milwaukee and is the proud owner of a 2003 Harley-Davidson Road King. He can be reached at swalker@washingtontimes.com.
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