Reason # 14: Adolescence
Why do we need to defeat Donald Trump and ensure that a Democrat occupies the White House?
Trump brags about accomplishments during his high school years. He claims that he learned more about the military than many others do even during active service in the armed forces, points to achievement of high rank and brags of his feats as a baseball star, “the best player in New York state”, who received attention from professional scouts from two major league franchises. Let’s start there.
Slate’s Leander Schaerlaeckens took on the task of documenting Trump’s high school baseball career. He searched the archives of local newspapers and interviewed students and coaches. Although he could only retrieve nine box scores, a small statistical sample, Donald’s batting average was .138 during those games. He found no evidence to support claims of dramatic late inning, game winning home runs. Records from awards ceremonies showed that he was not even the most valuable player on his high school team. No players could remember a pro scout ever attending their games. The biggest whopper is Trump’s claim that he tried out with Willy McCovey, despite that star being eight years older and having played in the majors for five years when Trump was a senior in H.S.. Trump did not play college baseball at either Fordham or Penn. Most families save printed accounts of the athletic accomplishments of their children. No such evidence has ever been presented by Trump to back up the braggadocio.
https://urldefense.com/…/donald-trump-baseball-high…
What about scholarly achievement? Trump has forcefully instructed all schools he attended not to release academic records. Does this suggest undistinguished marks to you? Military schools reward achievement by conferring rank. Trump graduated as a captain. This can be misleading. Unlike, say the captain of a football team, a military captain is an equal to multiple other captains and below higher ranking, majors, lieutenant colonels and the highest ranking, colonel.
Multiple reports investigate a controversial change in assignment. Was Trump rewarded with a transfer to a staff position or “kicked upstairs” out of an active command, following his lack of supervision, in the hazing of an undergraduate.
The author attended Xavier high school, a military school in New York City and can attest that military school includes much that can be considered systematized bullying, which would never be tolerated in other schools, including school sanctioned verbal and physical abuse of lower ranking younger students by older, higher-ranking upperclassmen. One example. When I was fifteen, as part of a detention session for some offense, I was ordered to stand at attention with my arms extended in front of me at a ninety-degree angle supporting an M1 rifle, weighing 9.5 pounds. Try it sometime. “Hazing” is when such discipline becomes excessive. In any case, following the incident, Donald Trump was removed from direct command of students and moved out of the dormitory.
What did his fellow students write about him in the yearbook? “Ladies man.”
And Joseph Biden? His academics at Archmere Academy were undistinguished, but his character and athletic accomplishments were not. Toughness? True tough guys play football, on a field where mano a mano struggle, not rank, determines who bullies whom. Trump, despite his size, was only on the NYMA football team for one year. Although Biden was not a big kid, he scored all three touchdowns in a losing effort to his school’s main rival and scored ten touchdowns as a running back and wide receiver, during an undefeated senior season. His sixty points that year ranked third in the state of Delaware. This is well documented in newspaper accounts and on film.
What about character? When Joseph and seven of his teammates stopped at a Delaware restaurant that refused to serve a black friend, Biden led them out the door.
His senior classmates elected him as their class president.
Have a heart; use your mind, search your conscience, and vote for Democratic candidates – across the ballot – on November. 5th.
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