Why does nobody at NYU want to admit they’re Republican?

We tried to ask people what GOP candidate they would vote for, and they were all commies

NYU is renowned for its political discourse. Walking around campus, it’s impossible not to hear debates about everything from aesthetic theory to the ethics of stem cell research.

Everyone here wants their opinion heard. There are protests, die-ins and endless political Facebook posts.

However, when you try to open a debate about Republicans, suddenly all of that disappears.

I’m on a mission

When I was sixteen, during a phase of my life when it would have been easy to convince me to get a Karl Marx tattoo on my ass, I co-ran the drama club at my school. I soon grew disillusioned — the theatre shone with toilet humor and excessive death. I soon quit. The theatre, that historically lefty institution, had been thoroughly unsatisfying to me and I had failed to engage with my peers.

It was with some pleasure, then, that I utterly failed at something else today. It was at interviewing people about their Republican tendencies. The questions were:

1. If you were forced to vote for a GOP candidate, who would you vote for?
2. Do you care about the GOP?

People gave me reluctant answers, about not knowing enough not feeling informed enough. They shut down immediately when I mentioned there would be a picture of them on the internet alongside a GOP name. Like the refusal of kids to be lefties at drama club, I learned today that there’s no showing off when it comes to being a right-winger either.

At least not at NYU.

“Everything I hear on the news is biased,” said one delightfully disillusioned Computer Engineering student.

“Awesome, can I take your picture?” I said.

“No.”

Maybe some of the people I interviewed were Republican but didn’t want to admit to it. They knew they would be judged, and didn’t want to face the backlash on Facebook if I were to feature them in an article saying they support the GOP.

It makes me wonder if we should be more tolerant of conservative views.

I imagine my sixteen-year-old self as a Bernie Sanders trying to herd a group of unruly children into seriousness.

“We need a revolution!” I say, as one chubby, sweaty twelve-year-old pretends to strangle another, who is laughing manically. “We need to break up the big banks!”

Today, I felt the same frustration but in the shoes of Donald Trump. I found no overexcited Myriam Witchers, screaming “We love you all the way to the White House!” I found nobody ready to even say a Republican name on the internet.

Maybe this is a lesson in how it feels to be in the minority of opinions at NYU.

We think of it as being such a diverse place, and yet there seems to be an all-encompassing liberal ideology that prevails here.

In a place where the debate is Hillary vs Bernie, there is bound to be a lot of anger towards the GOP.

And so I could not avoid my (perhaps tasteless) glee, as I walked dejectedly away from campus, the metaphorical Trump, denied and deflated, my metaphorical blonde tufts ruffling in the breeze, and my metaphorical bigotry trailing towards the sunset.

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