The Evolution of a Campus Conservative

I am a conservative. But I would like to clarify: I am not a racist or homophobe, I acknowledge that the planet’s temperature is rising, and I do not want to build a wall.

My home state, South Dakota, is a consistently red state. It has voted Democrat in a presidential election only four times since its founding, and not once since 1964. My Catholic high school was primarily conservative—a November 2012 survey conducted by the school newspaper found that almost 60% of students supported Mitt Romney in that year’s presidential election. While several of my close friends were somewhat liberal, both fiscally and socially, a majority of my peers agreed with me on political issues like abortion, the minimum wage, and gun control.

I knew that when I left South Dakota for Washington University, I would experience quite the culture shock. While Missouri is a swing state, conservatives consider university campuses—especially those that have liberal arts colleges like Wash U—to be notoriously liberal. On these college campuses, students and faculty frequently protest Republican guest speakers, sometimes threatening the safety of the speaker and audience, and professors have been known to mock Republicans in the classroom. And while I looked forward to the chance to interact with people of opposing views, I feared that I would find few, if any, people at college who would share my political beliefs. I worried that I would have to spend the next four years biting my tongue while my peers loudly championed socialism.

During the first few weeks I spent on campus, it seemed that my fears had been realized. My dorm building was plastered with countless flyers in support of Planned Parenthood, and huge murals in the underpass announced liberal causes. My roommate was liberal, my floormates were liberal, and it seemed as if all my classmates were, too. We got along well when we talked about classes and TV shows, but any time the conversation turned to welfare or Planned Parenthood, I fell silent while my new friends said things that countered my beliefs. I felt that I lacked the energy and knowledge to defend my views; I had, after all, been surrounded by conservatives for most of my life, and so I had never had much occasion to debate policy with liberals. The few times I did discuss politics with left-wingers at my high school, I found myself powerless to sway them politically. I noticed that every time I tried to explain my conservative beliefs about immigration, welfare, reproductive rights, or other issues, I ended up sounding selfish, uninformed, and heartless, even though I had the best intentions and truly believed that conservative politics benefited all members of society. (After all, it’s easy for liberals to dismiss someone who doesn’t want to give money to the poor as bigoted and mean, while altogether ignoring the altruism and reasoning behind conservative views.) I worried that if I admitted I was a Republican, I would lose the respect and friendship of my peers.

So it was with a sigh of relief that I signed up for College Republicans (CR) at the Activities Fair in September. Since then, I have attended meetings that provide a weekly refuge from the rampant liberality of college life. For the first couple weeks of meetings, I was embarrassed to tell people outside CR that I was involved with the conservative group, assuming that they were liberal and would thus judge my political affinities. If someone asked me to get dinner at 7:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, I’d vaguely say, “Sorry, I can’t. I have a club meeting.” If they prodded me for specificity, I would sheepishly admit that I was going to College Republicans. Sometimes, this admission was met with the reply, “Oh, you’re one of those?” to which I always felt the need to defend myself, saying, “Don’t worry! I’m cool with gay marriage and don’t support Trump!” More often, though, their reply was “Oh, that’s interesting. I don’t know many conservatives,” which was, in turn, occasionally followed by a brief discussion of our differing political beliefs. On such occasions, I was surprised to find that my views were met with respect and openness (although almost never with agreement), and over time, I came to feel more comfortable admitting my allegiance to the Republican Party.

Being surrounded by liberals, especially during an election year when even the most lighthearted of conversations can shift to politics without warning, has compelled me to learn to defend my views. As I grew up in a strongly conservative family—one that unironically watches Fox News and whose groupchat generally revolves around Republican primary results—I was rarely exposed to opposing political views. During the 2008 election, my family instilled in me the idea that an Obama presidency was the worst thing that could happen to America. Let me be clear: I certainly do still believe that Obama is horrible for the country. But before I began attending CR meetings, I felt as though my dislike for the president and his policies was uninformed, unjustifiable, and mostly based on things I’d heard at home and in my community. If someone asked for my opinion on Obamacare, I would find myself stumbling out an inarticulate explanation and realizing that I don’t understand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) at all. Fortunately, CR makes a point of educating its members on policy and explaining what Republicans believe and why they believe it; they dedicated an entire meeting to explaining the pros and cons of universal healthcare, which helped me understand why conservatives oppose the ACA. While I am still not the most politically literate person on campus, I am slowly becoming more well-versed in the current political issues, and I now feel more capable of justifying my conservative beliefs.

The challenge of finding a place for myself as a conservative on a liberal college campus has taught me to take action in my political education and to come to my own conclusions rather than blindly agreeing with whatever is shouted at me by Bill O’Reilly. I have begun to make a point of forming my own opinions about politics and have found that, even outside of my hometown’s conservative bubble, I agree with a vast majority of conservative views.

As my friendships have solidified and I have begun to feel more comfortable discussing and defending my political beliefs, I’ve started to enter into political conversations with my non-conservative friends. While I have failed to convert any of them to the Dark Side (i.e. the Republican Party), I have engaged in interesting, respectful political conversations with them. Before coming to Wash U, I never expected that my suitemate and I would be able to civilly discuss the merits and faults of Hillary Clinton while brushing our teeth in the morning, or that I would feel comfortable explaining to people in my French class why I would under no circumstances vote for Bernie Sanders. My liberal friends and I disagree on basically everything, but we are able to discuss our views on highly contested issues and, somehow, still manage to stay friends.

At a recent College Republicans meeting, I received my club T-shirt, which reads: “I’m the elephant in the room.” I proudly showed it to my liberal friends, and for once we agreed on something: elephant puns are fantastic, no matter their political implications. Aside from that, we also agree that there is value in dialogue between people of opposing political views. Such dialogues, which can only exist in a community of people with diverse beliefs, are advantageous to both supporters and opponents of any given issue because they push people to learn how to effectively defend their beliefs.

It took me several months to feel comfortable as a Republican at Wash U, and while I still sometimes shy away from intense political discussion with students from the opposing party, I no longer feel the need to conceal my conservative politics. Now that I have had the opportunity to reevaluate and justify my views outside the context of my conservative upbringing, I realize that my political beliefs have just as much value as those of the people who disagree with me.

I have yet to experience any harsh suppression of my conservative beliefs at Wash U, and I hope that it remains that way, because dissenting opinions add color and opportunities for discourse to a community, especially a community of strong-willed, impressionable young people. I am not asking anyone to agree with my political beliefs; in fact, I encourage everyone to stand firm in their respective politics. I only ask that liberals do not write off conservative views as hateful or bigoted simply because they does not align with their own agendas. Hopefully, they, like me, realize that living among people of opposing beliefs enriches the college experiences of people at all points of the political spectrum.