Bad and Berkeley
There is still a considerable number of people throughout the country who revere former U.S President Ronald Reagan and the economic prosperity associated with the duration of his administrative terms. It is to no surprise, then, that the current president, Donald Trump, successfully utilized Reagan’s campaign slogan in his own campaign. By creating parallels between himself and the fortieth president, Trump exploited deep seated sentiments of fear and nostalgia that were similarly present during the time period shortly before Reagan’s election. In this entry, the focus will be placed on a speech made by Reagan when he was then a gubernatorial candidate for the state of California.
In this speech, Reagan lambasts the actions that took place at the state’s flagship public institution, UC Berkeley, during the height of the Free Speech Movement. Rather, he refers to the participants as “filthy speech advocates” and “radicals” who are responsible for a twenty-one percent drop in annual applications for admission to the university. Thus, it does not come as a surprise when the president describes with distaste in his voice a screening of a psychedelic movie and the engagement of minors and college students in “sexual misconduct”. Within context of his surroundings, one may underestimate the level of hate he has for the school, given the fact that this speech occurred during an election by someone seeking to win public office.
After all, aren’t all politicians willing to say anything to win more votes from the electorate? But history would show that his ill-will toward the university would develop into a malice that endured into his presidency, as violence was resorted to in order to quash protests. In retrospect, this speech was an omen, a device of foreshadowing what was to come under the Reagan administration. Now, back to the modern day with President Trump. In an era in which one country can interfere in another country’s elections without consequence, nothing is entirely impossible anymore and events are difficult to foresee. I believe that Trump will continue trying to draw parallels between himself and the “Teflon President” through both talk and action. It has not even been a month since his inauguration, and UC Berkeley is already on the Donald’s radar.
These instances bring to mind the words of Professor Michael Cohen. “We are at war, and the Radical Right is specifically targeting UC Berkeley.” In a sense, he is correct. Numerous right-wing speakers have tried to damage the reputation of the institution by painting it as a breeding ground for socialist sentiment. Milo Yiannopoulos and Anne Coulter, among with many others, have seized on displays of resistance to try to defame the University’s reputation as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement. In doing so, they try to improve their following by drawing attention to themselves at the expense of our hallowed university’s history.
In reality, these demagogues planned to induce such responses in a calculated manner. They understood the type of sentiment that their hate speech would trigger in an area that has a strong tradition of accepting individuals of all races, cultures, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. By preaching the concepts of hatred, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia, they promoted tenets that ran in direct opposition to the values of our institution. In this regard, we are now seen as the counterculture once again in an era where a large portion of the country opted to elect a bigoted misogynist for the highest office in the land. To use the words of Reagan, we are countering the “filthy speech” set forth by the likes of Milo and Coulter.
I fear that violence is not out of the question, and that this president will do all that he can to destroy the progress and the values that this school was founded upon. However, I also have hope for the future. Hope that the resilience of the university and the people that it consists of will endure at least for another four years against all attacks from the radical right. No matter what happens within the next four to eight years, there is no doubt that history is being made while we speak, and that I am privileged to get a front seat to the events that are about to unfold. I never thought these events would unfold again since the days of Reagan, but now I know that my place is here.
