Former Vice President Mike Pence challenged University of Iowa students to “stand for freedom” and against the cancel culture and woke-ism that is President Joe Biden’s “order of the day.”
“Stand on the ramparts for freedom,” Pence told an audience of about 700 Monday evening. “Be a freedom generation.”
Although it was Pence’s third trip to Iowa this year, it was the first as a solo act by the potential 2024 presidential candidate. He didn’t speak about whatever plans he might have during his speech sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation and what he called the “small, but mighty” UI chapter.
However, earlier in the day, Pence told a radio audience he believes the country is “on the verge of a great conservative comeback all across this country.”
“I’m absolutely convinced that in 2022 we’re going to win back to Congress, we’re going to win statehouses around the country and come 2024 we’re going to win back America,” Pence said on WHO Radio. As for him, “we’ll let the future take care of itself.”
His 27-minute lecture, part of YAF’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar lecture series, was billed as “How to Save America from the Woke Left.” Pence called for the return to traditional American values and the rejection of the “left-wing tidal wave” launched by the Biden administration that will wipe out the gains made during the Trump-Pence administration.
“Democrats have moved so fast on their agenda sometimes I feel like the left hand doesn’t know what the far-left hand is doing,” Pence said.
Drawing a comparison to Ronald Reagan, who Pence described as a disrupter, he said Trump also was “one of a kind.”
“He challenged the status quo. He challenged the establishment,” Pence said. As a result, “we achieved things some Republicans have been talking about — literally — for decades, not by backing down, but by standing strong.
“Freedom was the anthem of our administration,” he added.
Pence didn’t dwell on the former president, but touted what he saw as the administration’s accomplishments — rebuilding the military, cutting taxes, rolling back more regulations than any previous administration, creating 7 million jobs and achieving record low unemployment for African Americans and Hispanics.
“The American dream is working again for everybody,” Pence said.
Seven minutes into his speech his views were challenged by a protester who quickly was shouted down by chants of “USA, USA, USA” before being escorted out of the Iowa Memorial Union Main Lounge.
That wasn’t the only opposition to Pence’s visit. At a pre-lecture demonstration in Hubbard Park outside the Iowa Memorial Union, students protested his connections to Trump as well as his social and economic views.
“I don’t like Pence because hate doesn’t belong on our campus,” said senior Kyle Kopf, a philosophy and political science major, who was holding an “I don’t like Pence” sign. The former vice president “has blood on his hands because of his anti-LGBTQ agenda,” Kopf said.
Pence didn’t speak directly to the protest, but decried what he called cancel culture and the assault on freedom of speech in higher education. He criticized critical race theory as “state-sponsored racism” that Pence said teaches children as young as kindergarten to be ashamed of their skin color.
Instead, children should be taught that “America is not a racist country (but) the most inclusive nation in the world,” he said, adding that the military is a force for good and law enforcement officers are heroes.
Pence told the mostly college-age audience it may be the last line of defense against those who demean American values and want to rewrite the constitution.
“The foundation of America is freedom. The foundation of freedom is faith,” he said. “I believe yours is the freedom generation. Stand for freedom.”
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