Kathryn Campbell - What a Clinton Supreme Court Would Mean for America

The article I chose is called What a Clinton Supreme Court Would Mean for America by William Bennett. Going into this, I expected it to be a biased article, but I wasn’t sure towards which side the bias would lean. Then I read the first line: “People often ask me how I – a so-called conservative intellectual and author of “The Book of Virtues” - can support and vote for Donald Trump” (Bennett, 2016), and it was clear which way this article was going to go, but of course I gave it a shot. I always find it interesting to see what people who have believe the exact opposite of what I do, think about current events, so I found this article, while completely infuriating, very intriguing. The article covered six different political topics that will be “ruined” if Clinton becomes president and appoints a new Supreme Court Justice to fill Antonin Scalia's spot. A few of the topics that he covered were immigration, religious freedom, and transgender rights. Each point he discussed was based solely on opinion and illogical “evidence”. He made many claims that were not backed up by any evidence. The line that I thought was the worst in the entire article was on the issue of transgender bathroom rights in high schools. Bennett said that “aside from sexual misconduct and assault, this policy could mean the end of men's and women's competitive athletics as we know it” (Bennett, 2016). The policy he mentions is allowing transgender students to use the school bathroom that they feel most comfortable in. Besides phrasing this sentence in a way implying that sexual assault is less of an issue than competitive sports, there is no evidence supporting the claim that transgender rights will lead to the end of competitive sports. Even if that was the case, the equality and rights of American citizens are far more important than sports.

This article was extremely biased and highly conservative. It violated three of the four of our alleged “American ideals”. Obviously this is not the only news article and news source out there that promotes discrimination and inequality, and because of this, many American citizens’ view of politics and political issues is being altered by the media. Don’t get me wrong, conservatively biased news sources aren’t the only media bias problem we have, liberally biased sources are bad as well. The media is filled with biased whether it be as blatant as this article, or hidden and discreet like some popular broadcasting networks. Bias media has a negative effect on people’s political opinions because it changes the opinions and the sides of political issues that they are exposed to. In order to think politically and hold up their end of the democracy, a citizen must analyze facts and create educated conclusions and opinions based on these facts. With a plethora of media bias, citizens are exposed to so many other opinions that may stop them from forming their own. Biased news and media sources create conflict and hurt our society by altering people’s perceptions, and often promoting discrimination and inequalities that go against the American Ideals we are supposed to uphold.

What is your opinion on news and media that overtly go against our American ideals?