Chris Kemp

What is it about politics that causes normally personable folks to turn short-tempered and hateful?

In one of my classes at the beginning of the semester, we discussed the question of whether universities are too liberal. As a journalist, of course, I am an android and have no politics of my own. Or at least that’s what I’m supposed to let readers believe.

So I listened.

Almost immediately, talk turned to the election season. Over and over, my classmates described fears of disagreeing with their Kerry-supporting professors and classmates.

If you said you were for Bush, one student said, everyone in the room would look at you like you had two heads. Another student told of a professor who began each class period with a Bush-bashing political cartoon.

I realized I had never spent a lot of time thinking about the way Republican students are treated in classrooms. I realized it would take guts for them to be open about it.

And I thought with newfound admiration on the sheer bravery of that small but hearty crew of College Republicans who regularly appeared on the Campus Mall with their gigantic Bush-Cheney sign and leafleted passers-by.

Liberals, if you will excuse the economic metaphor, tend to claim to have the market cornered on tolerance and diversity. They champion initiatives to promote equality of race, class, gender and sexuality. They insist we can live in a pluralistic society.

Yet in their passion for these goals, they can abandon respect for those who question those views. And questioning is something that should always be respected.

Last fall, political hostility escalated to a level I’m pretty sure can only exist during an election year. In October, journalist Richard Rushfield conducted a political experiment for Slate. He walked through a left-leaning neighborhood wearing a Bush-Cheney T-shirt and vice versa, gauging the reactions of the people he encountered.

“In my Kerry-Edwards shirt, I enter Red America certain that I am on the verge of inciting to rage a gang of angry yachtsmen who would soon be strapping me and my lefty leisurewear to their mizzenmast,” Rushfield wrote.

“Instead, I encounter only shades of indifference – head shaking, ‘crazy idiot’ expressions from older, very wealthy, very white folks in Newport Beach; terse nods from the middle-to- working-class citizens of Bakersfield, which seem to indicate that people here have much bigger things to worry about than whatever is on my stupid T-shirt.”

Rushfield’s stint as a red in blue territory did not go as smoothly:

“I stand in line for a soda; my T-shirt first makes contact with the locals as the server, a rather prim-looking Asian-American man, double-takes at my unabashedly partisan display, his smile freezing into a look I can only describe as bracing for me to pull out an assault weapon and open fire. … As I finish my soda, two hipsters saunter past. One of them … gapes at my shirt and mutters, ‘asshole,’ only slightly under his breath.”

Rushfield’s piece is far from a scientific experiment. But it reflects my classmates’ comments – no political party is innocent. Personal attacks build animosity and do nothing to resolve conflict.

Political hostility can also hit closer to home. The recent City Council election in District 3 was characterized by extremely negative discourse. I, for one, am glad to see it over.

One of my responsibilities as a news editor is to participate in editorial board meetings. In a recent meeting, the editorial board endorsed candidates for Eau Claire City Council in Districts 3 and 4.

Each candidate had the opportunity to speak with us for half-an-hour about their platform and qualifications for Council. In the hour-and-a-half discussion that followed, we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate.

I argued in favor of one candidate in each race. I’m not going to tell you which ones – what happens in ed. board stays in ed. board. But you know what? As far as I can tell, they’re all great guys. I’d hang out with any of them. The fact that I preferred one to represent me on Council does not mean I respect the other any less.

We need more respect in our politics. We also need more respect in journalism. I’m not going to lie – I’m not really an android. But even though I cannot completely disengage myself from the world, I work to be respectful to the people I cover, no matter what their political leanings.

As long as we view people with different views as crazy or less than human, the conflict and hostility will continue. You don’t have to agree with your opponent to show a little love.

So go on, Dems. Hug a Republican. And vice versa.

Koehler is a senior print journalism and English literature major and a news editor of The Spectator.