Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke at a town hall on behalf of Donald Trump’s campaign on Monday, Sept. 12 at Kennesaw State University.
The event was small, and despite the fact that it was free for students, not many students attended. Most of the supporters were older white men and women who had reserved tickets online.
This event was sponsored by the KSU College Republicans, which is interesting considering that the oldest college Republican chapter in the country, the Harvard Republican Club, has chosen not to support Trump. Since its founding in 1888, the Harvard Republican Club has backed every Republican candidate who has won the party’s nomination, with Trump being the only exception, according to the Washington Post.
The first speaker, a pastor, kicked off the event. He remarked that he knew “that in this room there are people from all faith backgrounds and no faith backgrounds.”
He then proceeded to lead the audience in a Christian prayer, completely disregarding the people of “all faith backgrounds” he acknowledged in his previous statement.
When it was Gingrich’s turn to speak, he referenced Hillary Clinton’s bad health, noting that the attendees should “include Hillary in [their] prayers.” He then proceeded to repeatedly attack her, at one point, ironically enough, calling her “anti-religious liberty.”
Gingrich then attempted to debunk Clinton’s claim that Trump was a racist. He did so by claiming that Clinton had to resort to using words like “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic” as name-calling tactics because “the left can’t have a discussion about the real world.”
Apparently the world we live in, where Trump has attacked all of these minorities, isn’t real enough for Gingrich.
After briefly acknowledging struggling black schools, Gingrich claimed that “Trump cares for the inner-city poor.” It’s hard to believe that Trump actually does, considering his clothing line is manufactured overseas, where workers are paid starvation wages.
When Trump was asked about the budget for the Department of Education at the South Carolina Tea Party Convention in January 2015, his solution was to “cut that way, way, way down.”
What better way to help poor black schools than to cut their education funds?
Continuing on the subject of black Americans in poverty during the town hall, Gingrich said that they would “rather deal with corruption and failing roads and cities than support Republicans.”
After seeming to blame black people for the oppression they face, Gingrich was confronted by an audience member. This individual referenced Trump’s comments about how black voters should support him because “they have nothing else to lose.”
Gingrich tried to deflect the question by claiming that Trump was talking about inner-city black people who lived in poverty. After the audience member responded by saying that Trump mentioned nothing about what area or class these people belonged to, Gingrich backtracked.
“I think that’s a fair assessment, he ought to distinguish,” he said.
Gingrich then moved on to the topic of homophobia. After remarking that he supports traditional marriage, Gingrich stated that he was tired of being called names like homophobic.
“Give me a break,” Gingrich said.
He then claimed that the United States was not “genuinely homophobic” because, in countries like Saudi Arabia, gay people are sentenced to death.
Apparently legal housing and job discrimination, mental illness, homelessness and the hate crimes that LGBT people in America face are not acts of “genuine homophobia.” To me, it sounded like Gingrich might as well have said that we should just give him a break and settle for not being murdered by the government.
When Trump’s running mate Mike Pence was running for Congress in 2000, Pence proposed that money allocated to the Ryan White Care Act, an organization helping people living with HIV and Aids, “should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior,” according to Pence’s old campaign website.
The institutions Pence speaks of are commonly called “conversion camps,” where LGBT people are offered “therapy” to become straight. Many of these “camps” have since been shut down, because it is impossible to change someone’s sexuality, and many people left them psychologically traumatized.
Yet, according to Gingrich, Trump’s campaign is not homophobic.
It would appear that this event on behalf of the Trump campaign could have been more accurately called a “problematic kickback.” Watching Gingrich make racist and homophobic comments to a room filled with mostly straight white people, while denying that he is racist and homophobic, was concerning to say the least.
Based on this experience, I would advice KSU students not to attend Trump events. Gingrich didn’t speak to the students or to the demographics this diverse university represents.
However, based on the lack of students in attendance, I would say they already knew what to expect.
