It was my third day at Northwestern when I dared to tell an acquaintance that I supported Obama. I noticed a slight but obvious change in his attitude as I revealed this: He seemed uncomfortable. As an international student from Venezuela, I had to remember a piece of advice someone gave me before coming here: think twice before talking about politics, religion and race in the United States.
All of us seem to be very proud of our intense political convictions and our very recent and rising political concerns. However, there are features inherent on our campus and in the American political system that can negatively turn our political dialogue.
Like many college campuses in the US, Northwestern is mostly liberal. Either because young people tend to be more liberal than their parents or because many are tired of the current President, most students here support–in different levels of intensity of course–the Democratic presidential nominee. Funding that political groups on campus receive from ASG is good evidence of our liberal-leaning ways. While the College Democrats received $42,088 in funding, the College Republicans received only $11,162. ASG Financial Vice President Seva Rodnyansky says this is because “historically, [the College Democrats'] programming has been better and their events have been more successful.”
For the purposes of this article, most people I asked said they rarely discuss politics with people that have stances different from their own. Elizabeth Harris, a Weinberg junior and self-proclaimed “moderate conservative,” agrees. To avoid confrontation, she says she “[doesn’t] talk about politics with Democrats unless they bring it up.”
It seems that we at Northwestern talk about politics to comfortably reassert our own convictions rather than to actually be confronted with other opinions on an issue. But part of being politically informed and politically aware is to be able to argue with people with different views and back up whatever ideology or stance one has. From an outside perspective, I’ve found that many students at Northwestern find this very difficult.
“When I get in a political debate with a Republican, I usually feel intimidated because they have a lot of facts because since they’re constantly challenged,” Thompson said. “I cannot back my arguments as well as they do.”
While our liberally slanted campus can create an environment that is sometimes hostile to a variety of opinions, the United States’ two-party system is partially to blame. The United States has only two major parties to represent a wide variety of ideologies and interests. When people must adapt their stance on issues to fit into one party’s ideology, they become compartmentalized to fit into the cookie-cutter description of a Democrat or a Republican.
Those overseas get more exposure to a variety of political ideas as a result of political systems that have more than two major parties. “In Europe, the dialogue is different. There are more parties [to choose from],” said Velid Begovic, a Weinberg freshman from Bosnia. In my international experience, people are more willing to exchange ideas across party lines in other countries—at least more so than Northwestern students.
Once the election is over, maybe we’ll be able to think clearly about actual issues rather than be forced to focus on candidates’ personalities and party lines that don’t really fit us. In order to fully declare our political beliefs, it is important that we challenge ourselves to be able to transform our political discussions from arguments between passive Democrats and Republicans into discussions between people eager to back up their arguments by learning about the other side’s position. To do that, we need to make everyone on this campus comfortable enough to speak up. To be the “change we can believe in,” we need to first replace the stagnant talk that defines common politics with intellectually curious discussions that would truly define Northwestern.