According to the student newspaper Harvard Crimson’s October survey, 87% of undergrads support Hillary. A scant 6% back Trump, 5.8% for Libertarian Gary (“what’s Aleppo”) Johnson, and less than 1% for Harvard College and Medical School graduate Jill Stein – the only people’s candidate running.
Around one-third of undergrads responded (2,128 out of a total 6,645 student body) – so the views of nonrespondents aren’t known. About 91% are eligible to vote in November. Eligibility begins at age 18. A surprising 96% of respondents intend voting, they said.
The national average is far lower. Whether this year’s contentious election encourages a larger than usual turnout remains to be seen.
The Crimson poll was conducted from October 10 – 20 – before FBI Director Comey’s October surprise (Comey, image right). Whether it would have changed the results is unknown.
Two-thirds of respondents said they support Democrat party candidates, 12% calling themselves Republicans, 19% saying they’re independents.
Trump and Hillary are the most widely reviled presidential aspirants in US history. Yet 70% of Crimson respondents view her favorably – showing little knowledge of her deplorable public record since the 1990s unless they support her war crimes, racketeering and perjury.
What to make of it? Undergrads enter Harvard (and other colleges) as teenagers, young and naive as I was when entering the college long ago.
After graduation, I discovered the meaning of the term “commencement.” Institutions like Harvard teach students to be good citizens, omitting the ugly stuff about US imperialism, officials advancing it, waging endless wars of aggression.
The so-called Korean War was ongoing when I was there, an incentive to maintain good grades, stay in school, avoid being drafted and sent to North Korea’s frozen Chosin, an expression used by members of my class.
The Paper Chase Hollywood film (1973) featured John Houseman as stern Harvard Law School Professor Charles Kingsfield.
His most memorable line on day one for first year students was saying “(y)ou teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come here with a skull full of mush. You leave thinking like a lawyer.”
I began my freshman year “with a skull full of mush,” gradually extracting it. College and graduate school taught me to think. Learning and comprehension mostly came later. The older I get, the greater my understanding of world and national issues.
I’m long removed from campus life. Back then, students had none of the advantages available today – no computers, no Internet. Daily writing I dearly love now was a dreaded chore back then – requiring research by rolodex cards and library stacks, a time-consuming process.
Except for the type primary research I did for my master’s thesis, most everything needed today for compositions or articles like mine is available on our desktops.
It’s understandable why young minds haven’t achieved the wisdom of the ages. Still it’s disturbing to find Harvard undergrads uninformed and out-of-touch on Hillary’s deplorable public record – when it’s so easy to research it and know what she and husband Bill are all about.
Why hasn’t the Harvard student body done its homework for perhaps the most important election in our lifetime.
The stakes are huge – possible war on Russia with Hillary empowered or improved bilateral relations under Trump.
Nothing matters more than saving humanity from the scourge of catastrophic thermonuclear war able to kill us all.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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