The leaders of the Republican Club started the group to see how many conservatives they could get together. “Considering Westminster, we didn’t think very many, but we got a couple of people together,” said Anthony Perryman, the club’s president. Photo by Scott Salter.
Conservative students at Westminster College sometimes feel outnumbered. But that doesn’t intimidate Anthony Perryman, the president of Westminster’s Republican Club and a sophomore international business major.
Sitting at 27 members, the Republican Club focuses on political discussion and the importance of voting. Perryman’s casual persona debunks the fear that political discussion has to be fierce.
“It’s been fun to see him step into this role,” said Grayson Massey, a member of the Republican Club and a sophomore international business major. “He’s very competent and had what it took to take on the mantle as president.”
Q: How did the Westminster Republican Club start?
There was about five to six of us who got together and wondered how many conservatives we could get together. Considering Westminster, we didn’t think very many, but we got a couple of people together. We’re still pretty small, but we’re trying to build up.
Q: What is the mission of the Republican Club?
One of our biggest things this year is voter registration. Our demographic of 18 to 30 has the lowest voter turnout rate. We don’t go out there — we don’t do what we can to change what we want. If you want something to change or someone different in office, then you need to go vote for them. If you’re not going to vote, you shouldn’t be complaining about how it is run at the time. Our democracy works best when everyone is participating.
Q: What draws you to conservative values?
I like the idea of working for your lifestyle instead of being handed your lifestyle. If you allow people to keep their money, then they will naturally reinvest into people who need it because that’s what being a good person is. I don’t think people need to be told how to spend their money.
Q: Who are you voting for in this year’s presidential election?
I’m a Trump guy 100 percent. At first I wasn’t; I was a Marco Rubio guy. If you break it down to the basic level who Donald Trump is and who Hillary Clinton is, Hillary Clinton is corrupt. There is evidence to prove that. As for Donald Trump, I don’t know if he is corrupt not, and it’s worth it to me to take that risk. I like his stance on national security. I don’t think banning people is the way to go. I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to convey even though that’s how it came across. I think healthy skepticism is better for national security and would make me feel safer as a person.
Q: Is there anything you would want to say to any liberal students who are curious?
For the Republican Club, anyone is welcome to join. You’re not going to get preached at or get values shoved down your throat. We may have a debate, but it’s all in good fun. We’ll offer both sides of the argument and then let you decide, but we’re there to offer a different opinion on the whole spectrum.
Michael
I’m glad that we have Repub Club. However, there’s many Repubs who’d be shocked by this statement in any other election year: "If you break it down to the basic level who Donald Trump is and who Hillary Clinton is, Hillary Clinton is corrupt. There is evidence to prove that. As for Donald Trump, I don’t know if he is corrupt not, and it’s worth it to me to take that risk." Trump has actually settled lawsuits. He’s being investigated over scamming thousands of people. He was proven to discriminate against black folk seeking housing.
Nix
Sounds like someone who formed a yacht club with little to no grasp of politics.
Just Some Chap
There is plenty of evidence showing Trump’s corruption. From bribing politicians to get out of paying taxes and avoid prosecution, to downright screwing small business owners with settlement offers they cannot afford to refuse. If you refuse to look at your own candidate’s corruption, you should stay the hell away from politics.
Alta
I can tell you Anthony is not from a Yatch Club. He grew up on the outskirts of Orlando Florida. His mom was a single mom since he was 10. She had 4 jobs to provide for her boys. Just because someone is a Republican doesn’t mean they are rich and have never struggled in life. Anthony’s family has struggled but it didn’t stop them. They worked hard and he and his brother got excellent grades and were very active in sports and clubs in a HS that was ecconomicaly very diverse. Please don’t be so shallow. I think it is great that a different side can be represented at Westminster. Isnt that what colleges should do?
Anonymous
I think it’s important to have the Republican Club on campus. It brings diversity of opinion to campus, which, politically-speaking, is sorely lacking. Although I have differing beliefs from both major political parties, I think it’s awesome that Anthony and some of his friends put this together. More power to them!
Jennifer
This is scary. "I like the idea of working for your lifestyle instead of being handed your lifestyle. If you allow people to keep their money, then they will naturally reinvest into people who need it because that’s what being a good person is. I don’t think people need to be told how to spend their money." – And when youre older and you have a child that may depend on public services and assistance. Remember this. You sir are brainwashed.
NotaWhiteDude
The faces of privilege.
Alta
I guess you didn’t read the comment from Alta. Anthony and Dawson do not come from privilege. Why do people think that Republicans come from wealth or privilege how naïve can you be.
A3791
"If you allow people to keep their money, then they will naturally reinvest into people who need it because that’s what being a good person is"
This individual is very, very, very naive. Historically, wealthy upper class "self made" individuals are more likely to use their charity as a way of boosting their own esteem, and not out of any genuine desire to help lower class, impoverished people get out of their financial situation. Bear in mind, this is when they’re not pontificating about the moral inferiority of the lazy poor people, or outright ignoring basic human compassion to save a buck (Walton family I’m looking at you).
Every step forward for the lower class blue collar family in this nation has been taken because the government has looked at various crises caused by unscrupulous business men, and created laws forcing these businesses to treat their workers like human beings. It is incredibly naive, given the history of classism in this country and other capitalist countries like it, to say "wealthy people will just automatically give back because that’s what good people do."
js
Haha what a joke. "Hillary Clinton is corrupt. There is evidence to prove that. As for Donald Trump, I don’t know if he is corrupt not, and it’s worth it to me to take that risk."
You don’t know if Trump is corrupt? Try typing "Donald Trump, controversies" into Google and see what comes up. Or, "Donald Trump University", "Donald Trump rape", "Donald Trump fraud", "Donald Trump bankruptcies." The list goes on.
Then tell me you if you "think" Donald is corrupt.
But all that is besides the point. If you are into politics, repub or dem then you should know how toxic someone like Donald Trump (or the Tea Party) are. They are polarizing rhetoricians controlled by big money. They are not out with our interests in mind. They are not for the betterment of the country or of humanity. They are in it for themselves and their big pocketed buddies.
Please do a little research, for christ sake, you’re in college.
PS: The type of privilege discussed here is not countered by "oh his mom was a single parent." White privilege is the fact that the policies that Trump would instate will not negatively effect these guys. White privilege is the ability to ignore that ( and other class/ race issues that exist).
Jarad
If you are Gay, why are you voting for Hillary when she wants to bring in millions of refugees that believe gays should be executed?
If you are Black, why are you voting for Hillary when she defends Planned Parenthood and admires Margaret Sanger, who wanted to abort as many black babies as possible and exterminate the black race because they are like "weeds." Most of those clinics are in Black neighborhoods.
If you are a Woman, how can you vote for Hillary when she has buried all of Bill’s rape victims under the rug. As an attorney, Hillary also defended the rapist of a 12-year old girl and laughed about it later. She plays the woman-card and acts entitled; implying that she deserves your vote merely because of her sex. How is that gender neutral?
If you have are a Miner, Steelworker or have a Factory job, why are you voting for Hillary when she supported NAFTA and TPP, and workers are being laid off because jobs are going overseas? She also welcomes open borders and illegals to get benefits with your tax money and compete for our jobs. Hillary boasts that under her administration miners and steelworkers will lose their jobs.
If you are a Law abiding citizen, how can you vote for Hillary when she is clearly above the law? Hillary deleted thousands of secret e-mails after they had been subpoenaed by the courts (illegal). Hillary kept thousands of classified and top secret e-mails on her private server; servers that had less security that g-mail and Hotmail. You can be sure Russia, Iran, and China have those now. The DNC clearly broke the rules by heavy-handedly favoring Hillary over Sanders while they were still competing for the nomination.
If you are a Veteran, in the military, or closely related to a military member, why are you voting for Hillary when she left those men to die in Benghazi and had the nerve to lie about it over and over again? They called for help, but the help was told to stand down. Furthermore, Hillary wants to eliminate the NRA, take away your guns, and abolish the second amendment
Lisa
Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve problems. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense.
Cheryl Moore
Honestly…this is so wrong on so many levels! The so-called "Tolerant Party" are the most intolerant people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting!! They are symbolic of their new champion who calls us "Deplorable and irredeemable". They need to look into the mirror.
A black Republican
From the Washington Post!
Today, it is the American people who have been burned, time and again, by Hillary Clinton’s dreadful lies. Let’s review just a few examples of her serial dishonesty:
She lied repeatedly about her emails. She lied when she said she had “turned over everything I was obligated to turn over” (FBI Director James Comey said the FBI “discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails returned by Secretary Clinton to state in 2014”). She lied when she said there was “no classified material” in her private emails . . . that there was nothing “classified at the time” . . . and that there was nothing “marked classified” in her private emails — all of which the FBI director said were untrue. And, to top it all off, she lied about her lies — declaring on national television that “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people” — a claim The Post’s Fact Checker gave “Four Pinocchios.”Opinions
Hillary Clinton, who tells dreadful lies
By Marc A. Thiessen
September 19, 2016 at 11:40 AM
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton appealed to opponents of rival Donald Trump, telling supporters in Philadelphia that the election is not a reality TV show. At a rally at Temple University, she sought to allay concerns of voters who still have questions about her saying, "I get that." (Reuters)
Hillary Clinton tells us she is recovering from a mild case of pneumonia, but less than half of American voters believe her belated explanation of why she appeared to faint leaving a 9/11 commemoration. If she wants to understand why, she can find the answer in a children’s poem.
In his 1907 classic, “Matilda Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death,” Hilaire Belloc tells the story of a young girl who “told such Dreadful Lies, It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes.” One day Matilda calls in a false alarm to London’s fire brigade, and as punishment is left home alone while her aunt goes to the theater:
That Night a Fire did break out–
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
Photo Gallery: Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street . . . but all in vain!
For every time She shouted “Fire!”
They only answered “Little Liar!”
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.
Today, it is the American people who have been burned, time and again, by Hillary Clinton’s dreadful lies. Let’s review just a few examples of her serial dishonesty:
She lied repeatedly about her emails. She lied when she said she had “turned over everything I was obligated to turn over” (FBI Director James Comey said the FBI “discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails returned by Secretary Clinton to state in 2014”). She lied when she said there was “no classified material” in her private emails . . . that there was nothing “classified at the time” . . . and that there was nothing “marked classified” in her private emails — all of which the FBI director said were untrue. And, to top it all off, she lied about her lies — declaring on national television that “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people” — a claim The Post’s Fact Checker gave “Four Pinocchios.”
Related: Hillary Clinton fails the ABCs of handling classified information
Clinton lied to the American people about Benghazi. At 10:08 p.m. the night of the attack, she issued a statement that blamed the attack on “inflammatory material posted on the Internet” with no mention of terrorism or al-Qaeda. But an hour later, at 11:12 p.m. she emailed her daughter, Chelsea: “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like [sic] group.” The next day in a phone call with the Egyptian prime minister, Clinton said: “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest.” Yet two days later, as she welcomed the caskets of the fallen in Dover, Del., she blamed that attack on “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.”
She lied about a trip she made to Bosnia, claiming that she and her team arrived “under sniper fire,” skipped the arrival ceremony and “just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” In fact, a video shows her being greeted on the tarmac by Bosnian officials and an 8-year-old Muslim girl, Emina Bicakcic, who read a poem in English and told Clinton, “There is peace now.”
She lied about her family history. In 2015, she said she could relate to illegal immigrants because “all my grandparents” immigrated to the United States. When BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski pointed out that three of Clinton’s four grandparents were born in the United States, a Clinton spokesman said “her grandparents always spoke about the immigrant experience and, as a result she has always thought of them as immigrants.”
Related: Charles Krauthammer: What’s the case for Hillary Clinton?
And her dishonesty stretches back decades. As the late, great William Safire pointed out in a 1996 New York Times column, she delivered a “blizzard of lies” as first lady — about Whitewater, the firing of White House travel aides, her representation of a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S&L and how she made a 10,000 percent profit in 1979 commodity trading simply by studying the Wall Street Journal. Even back then, Safire concluded, Clinton was “a congenital liar.”
Today, the American people agree. A recent NBC News poll found that just 11 percent of Americans say Clinton is honest and trustworthy. To put that in perspective, 14 percent of American voters believe in Bigfoot. In other words, more Americans believe that a large, hairy, hominoid creature inhabits the forest of North America than believe that Hillary Clinton tells the truth.
So if Clinton wonders why so many believe she is lying about her health, it is because she has lied so many times, about so many things, that most Americans no longer believe a word she says — even if she’s telling the truth.
When she opens her mouth, people look at her like Belloc’s Matilda and say, “Little Liar.”
Read more from Marc Thiessen’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Marc Thiessen writes a weekly column for The Post on foreign and domestic policy and contributes to the PostPartisan blog. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
js
I’ll just leave this here for all you political geniuses:
https://www.facebook.com/LastWeekTonight/videos/993238477471828/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED