In Iowa, history was made. No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump finishing second, though that was the story coming out of the mainstream media. I’m actually talking about something the media barely touched. For the first time ever, an American of Hispanic ethnicity won the Iowa caucus.
But because he was a member of the Republican Party, the media did little to cover the story.
In fact, demographically Iowa is one of the whitest states in the country, and yet on the GOP side, Republican voters gave 60 percent of their vote to two Hispanic candidates and a black man.
That’s right. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, came in first with roughly 28 percent of the vote. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, placed third with 23 percent. And Dr. Ben Carson finished fourth with 9 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, the Democrat vote was split between two old, white candidates. Oh, and one other white candidate got 1 percent. That’s right, the so-called party of diversity has offered exclusively white candidates as viable options for their party’s nomination.
Cruz is the first Hispanic person to win any presidential primary at all, but most Americans will never know that. The mainstream media doesn’t like showing the diversity of the Republican field. They’d rather cover the weekly Donald Trump reality show.
In order to report on this story, the media would have to see the Republican Party for what it truly is, a party full of opportunity. Instead of demonizing differences, the Republican Party strives to utilize these differences to come up with the best solutions for everyone — not just the solutions that will get you more votes.
Julian Bradley, former candidate for Wisconsin secretary of state, summed up this new idea for the Republican Party quite nicely during his Shattering Stereotypes tour. In this tour, he referred to the GOP as the Great Opportunity Party, not the Grand Old Party of stale ideas.
In this way, the Republican Party works to provide everyone with an equal opportunity to succeed in life. An equal opportunity allows every man, woman and child to pursue his or her dreams to the fullest, and ultimately leaves the outcomes up to each and everyone of us to determine for ourselves. We believe the most happiness is achieved when individuals seek to fulfill their own desires, not those given to them by the mighty hand of the government.
For further proof of this ideological divide, take a look at the where the current candidates for president stand on creating opportunity. Almost all of the Republican candidates for president have presented new tax plans that will stimulate the economy and create more jobs where they are needed the most.
If you really want to see a plan to reinvigorate the economy, check out Marco Rubio’s plan. His plan not only allows for tax reductions, but also tax code simplifications.
While the “Great Opportunity Party” is busy providing economic solutions to problems in our society, the so-called “party of diversity,” also known as the Democratic Party, is focusing on the same old rhetoric. Instead of letting the economy bring people out of poverty, they want to stifle the economy and opportunity with new regulations and taxes. Their message has hardly changed from the hope and change they were plugging eight years ago. There may have been a lot of change, but we are still waiting on the hope.
I’d challenge you to question which party offers new, fresh solutions. This is the side of the story that mainstream media will not cover. Even though Republican leaders are providing solutions every day, all we see is Trump bloviating on every news channel. Trump is not the only person in the Republican Party. Let’s stop talking about these “viral news stories” and focus on the issues that really matter.
Zachary Walters ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in business and Spanish.
