The College Board, which administers the SAT exam, has developed a new tool for higher-ed admissions officers to incorporate into their decision-making process. It's called an "adversity score," and it takes into account 31 different data points—none involving race or ethnicity—designed to measure social and economic disadvantage.
It's an intriguing concept, ripe for inclusion in a Washington Free Beacon extrapolative analysis. What if, for example, an "adversity score" was used to handicap another competitive pursuit, such as a presidential campaign? Which candidate would benefit the most?
The answer to that question, according to our analysis, is President Donald J. Trump.
Even from a non-scientific perspective, it's clear that few Americans throughout history have suffered more personal adversity than our president, which makes the historical success of his administration all the more commendable. Trump's considerable disadvantages in the face of unprecedented opposition have not prevented him from abolishing the Obama-era prohibition on national greatness, and restoring the concept of winning to the American lexicon.
As president, Trump is compelled by law to reside in one of the most expensive zip codes in the United States, while accepting an annual salary of zero. The government subsidizes his meals and housing. One of the factors considered by the College Board—unemployment rate—is significantly higher in Washington, D.C. (5.6 percent), than in the country as a whole (3.8 percent). A loving father, Trump continues to support his adult children financially, as well as emotionally.
Trump scores highly on many of the College Board's adversity indicators, including "probability of being a victim of a crime." As the leader of the free world, he receives more death threats on a daily basis than many of us will receive in a lifetime. Not to mention the myriad actual crimes perpetrated by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats against his campaign (spying) and his administration (Russia hoax), and a rigged justice system that has repeatedly declined to prosecute. Several of his former associates have gone to prison, an indication of the high-crime environment in which he is forced to reside.
Since taking office, Trump has had to navigate considerable structural adversity in the form of an opposition media establishment that promotes "fake news" about the president on an hourly basis. His patriotism compels him to consume voluminous amounts of televised media, another data point commonly associated with disadvantaged households. Meanwhile, Trump's God-given right to pursue happiness is uniquely constrained by an archaic constitutional framework that mandates his dreams be ratified by Congress, and approved by unelected judges.
None of the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination come close to matching President Trump's adversity score, our analysis found. Beto O'Rourke, for example, briefly pursued a career as a blogger, and while his charitable giving habits resemble those of Americans well below the poverty line, his privilege has inoculated him against almost every possible strand of adversity.
Nearly all of the candidates have spent their entire careers in politics, benefitting from the largesse of wealthy donors. Trump, like most normal Americans struggling to get by in the private sector, has had to rely on hard work and determination. He's had to crawl out from under mountains of debt to get where he is today.
While there is some momentum behind proposals to award Trump temporal "reparations" on account of all the time stolen from him by the perpetrators of the Russia hoax, we have yet to see serious consideration of the idea that presidential campaigns should be handicapped along the lines of the college admissions process. It may or may not be a brilliant suggestion that could go a long way toward restoring fairness to the democratic process. Either way, it is beyond inspiring to see a candidate who has suffered so much personal adversity in the race.
Donald Trump is the American Dream.