College Democrats aim for quality discussion

Joining the USD College Democrats club at USD was a no-brainer. I’ve been a registered Democrat since 2007, when I turned 18.

During my early 20s, I was focused on student rights and marriage equality. Other issues didn’t pertain to my life too much. And during the last couple of years, I haven’t been too politically active. The closest I got was working as an election judge during the last two elections.

I needed to get involved again. After all, I spent my early 20s politically engaged.

When I went to the first College Democrat meeting, I didn’t know what to expect. My experience in political discussions was specific to higher education costs and funding and marriage equality topics.

During the first meeting, it was made clear that the group wanted to create a welcoming environment for discussion.

Sophomore Brett Ries, the College Democrats president, said one of his goals was to make the group welcoming to people of any political affiliation.

This was an impressive goal to set because of how territorial Democrats and Republicans come across on major issues.

According to the Pew Research Center in June of 2014, both parties are more divided along ideological lines compared to 20 years ago.

According to Pew, expression of consistently conservative and of consistently liberal opinions has doubled during this period, from 10 percent to 21 percent.

In 1994, 17 percent of Republicans and 16 percent Democrats had very unfavorable views of the opposing party. By 2014 these numbers more than doubled: 43 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Democrats had very unfavorable views of the opposing party.

With that spike in mind, Ries’ goal is even more impressive.

The meeting on Sept. 11 showcased why it would beneficial for political groups to create a welcoming environment.

During the meeting, the group tackled Secretary Besty DeVos’ decision to start rollbacks on Title IX.

As the discussion on DeVos’ Title IX rollbacks progressed, we reexamined the preponderance standard in campus sexual assault and rape. It was brought up that Democrats are mixed on this issue, due to the backlash of using the preponderance standard for accused offenders. Having only Democrats discussion limited the opinions we heard.

It sounds like Ries’ approach will be to collaborate with other student organizations to help facilitate discussions. This will hopefully lead to well rounded and informed discussions.

Ries said he’s contacted Spectrum and Student for Reproductive Rights. Spectrum will lead a discussion on current LGBTQ+ issues and Students for Reproductive Rights will lead a discussion on issues similar to Title IX.

Although I can look up the information myself, I prefer having a setting I can it presented to me and discuss it.

This way, I can be exposed to other people’s thoughts and opinions. I’ll hopefully be a more well-informed voter.