With numerous references to God the Creator, the Gospel, Christ, faith, and freedom, President Donald Trump gave among the most memorable commencement speeches in recent memory to a massive group of Christian students he called “the next generation of American leaders.” Speaking on May 13 at Liberty University, a well-known Christian school, Trump encouraged the class of 2017 to go out into the world and be bold in defense of what is right.
“In America we don’t worship government, we worship God,” he declared, calling freedom a precious gift from God. “America has always been the land of dreams because America is a nation of true believers. When the pilgrims landed at Plymouth they prayed. When the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, they invoked our creator four times, because in America we don’t worship government we worship God.”
Trump also lambasted the establishment and its “broken system,” calling on graduates to rise up against it and replace it with a government that serves and protects the people. “A small group of failed voices who think they know everything and understand everyone want to tell everybody else how to live and what to do and how to think.” Trump said, praising the graduates present for having contributed half a million hours to charity last year alone. “We don’t need a lecture from Washington on how to lead our lives.”
By contrast, far-left U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) gave a commencement speech at the University of Massachusetts in which she practically took the opposite approach. From numerous jokes about alcohol and drinking to repeatedly mischaracterizing America’s form of government, Warren urged students to postpone marriage and family and instead get involved in government for the sake of promoting more government. That way they may be able to shake down taxpayers instead of paying for college themselves, she suggested.
“And the list of possible issues that move you is long,” Warren continued, citing the cost of college, animal rescue, nuclear weapons, national parks, homelessness, hunger, bullying, pre-natal care, and more. Her speech was heavy on the Trump bashing, too. “I’m trying to keep this apolitical, but I can’t help myself and I have one more – the principle that no one, no one in this country is above the law, and we need a justice department, not an obstruction of justice department,” she said, a reference to Trump’s firing of widely criticized FBI Boss James Comey.
The contrast between Trump’s hopeful pro-freedom speech encouraging Christians and Warren’s statist screed demanding more government could not be clearer. For the sake of faith and freedom, it is crucial that all patriotic, God-fearing Americans get involved in the fight.
