RUSH: Campus Reform, I love these guys. Campus Reform, they’re actually a group of young entrepreneurs, have their website, Campus Reform, they do some great work. They remind me of me back when this program was beginning. And here’s what they did. This is so useful. This is such a teachable moment.

They took a film crew to a major college campus, George Washington University, in Washington, and they grabbed random students and they gave them details of Donald Trump’s tax plan, but they didn’t tell the students it was Trump’s tax plan. They told the students it was Bernie Sanders’s tax plan.

And they went through the details. Reducing the corporate rate down to 25 percent, all of the things in the Trump tax plan that are pro-consumer. And all of these kids, when they thought they were answering questions about Bernie’s tax plan loved it. They supported it. They adored it. It’s obvious they don’t know what they think they know. They don’t know what they’re talking about.

It’s obvious these students are not educated. It is obvious that they are regurgitating phrases that they hear from friends and on social media, in classrooms, because their reaction to it was just, well, it was clear to me that even while they were agreeing with it, they hadn’t thought about it. And they didn’t really know what they were agreeing with. Just because it was Bernie Sanders’s tax plan, it was great. And they were trying to sound educated, informed and all that. And it’s clear they weren’t.

At the end of the video — it only takes about 3-1/2 minutes to watch it — the Campus Reform dude tells them all, “I’m sorry, this is not Bernie Sanders’s tax plan. It’s Donald Trump’s,” and all of these students are shocked into stunned silence and cannot believe it. And then they start muttering: “Well, I — I — I — I don’t know. Um, maybe? Well, it could be Trump’s not that bad. I don’t know.” “Really? No. Are you kidding me?” “No.” But most of them are just blank staring at the guy from Campus Reform. And then a couple of them…

And if you really, really know how to look, a couple of them do seem to indicate that they might be frustrated they were lied to by the Campus Reform guy (laughing), not by the people telling them that Trump’s tax plan is horrible, because that’s what they have been told! So it’s a great reminder that — and the college students are a microcosm. I don’t think this phenomenon is exclusive to them. People’s partisan biases determine what they think and believe and what they think is honest and false — true and false — rather than actually applying their own mind to it.

I have a friend… This is interesting. I just reminded myself of this. I have a friend who is taking her son on a tour of major colleges around the country, because he’s not crazy about going to college — and, of course, as the parent she thinks that he should. I told her what I think the problem is. “Your kid is brilliant, and his brain needs to be stimulated. If somebody’s just going to preach and do lectures and so forth, whoever, they’re not going to reach your son.” The kid is really… He’s 19 or 18 and he’s literally… He’s brilliant.

So she took him, I think, a couple days ago to Hillsdale College in Michigan, and they let him sit in on two classes — on a politics class and a political history class — and she told me he was just lit up. He just loved it. Even as a guest student sitting in there, he felt fully engaged because, he said, “This is the first college — this is the first classroom — I’ve been in where I’ve actually been made to think, where I’ve actually been encouraged to think rather than just absorb,” and he was jazzed about it. This is what’s missing in so much of education.

This kid’s brain needs to be stimulated. It’s a gold mine waiting to be tapped, and apparently these two classes at Hillsdale did the trick. I don’t know what other universities are on the tour and how many of them remain and where they’ve gone up ’til now. But that stood out. Now Hillsdale, obviously, is a good choice. But I think if you look at that video — and we’ll put the link to it up at RushLimbaugh.com. In mere moments, you’ll be able to link to it. (sigh) Look, I know we’re talking about teenagers and low twenties.

But these students that Campus Reform found, they haven’t yet obviously found their stride. They’re just… They’re not that informed. But they think they are, obviously, and it struck me, when I watched this just how… I don’t know. I’m having a tough time describing what I’m seeing. It’s not about being stupid or dumb or any of that. It just doesn’t seem like they’re in the learning mode. They already know it all. And that’s not untypical, I know, of people that age. But it just makes me think. I don’t think, at many universities today in undergrad programs, there’s a whole lot of brain stimulation going on.

There’s a lot of preaching to and students expected to absorb, but not challenge and not think about what they’re hearing. And that’s what I saw when I watched this video. They love Trump’s tax plan except they thought it was Bernie Sanders. If you had half a brain and you listened to the details of the tax plan, one of these students should have known, “That’s not Bernie’s tax plan! I know Bernie’s tax plan and Bernie’s not cutting anybody’s taxes. What are you trying to tell me? Bernie Sanders wants to cut the corporate rate to 25%?” But they just ate it all up. Whatever this guy told them Bernie’s tax plan was, they absorbed it and loved it.

Even though it goes against everything they claimed to believe. But since it was Bernie’s, it was cool — and when they found out it was Trump’s, they were stumped. They didn’t know what to think.

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CampusReform: Students Love Trump's Tax Plan...When Told It's Bernie's

        

                        

                        
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