Students gathered Tuesday evening in Dudley Hall to watch student-run political groups debate local and national issues as they represented the views of the parties they affiliate with.
This semester’s installment of The Great Debate saw Michael King and Ian Dudar represent the College Republicans, Cassidy Arnold and Brandon Stephens represent the College Democrats and Spencer Cadavero and Logan McCollum represent the Young Americans for Liberty.
“They all had some pretty good points,” said Will Bowen, freshmen in mechanical engineering. “They definitely came more prepared than I expected from some college students, I’m not goint to lie.”
The participants answered and had exchanges on a variety of questions from co-moderators Chip Brownlee, editor-in-chief of The Plainsman and Ken Ward, station manager of Eagle Eye TV.
“I usually don’t like to mess with politics, but this was more the stuff that I actually care about,” Bowen said. “All groups did fairly well. I think the Republicans had a little bit better responses than most of them.”
Topics of discussion included recent news of the Brett Kavanaugh hearing and local accusations of purging voter rolls as well as perpetual points of contention of healthcare, the economy, gun control and education.
The participants in the debate toed party lines on most issues, aligning themselves with the values traditionally held with the party they identify with.
“As usual, they did exactly as I thought they were, which was stick to those mainstream topics and such,” said Vee-I Mills, junior in industrial engineering.
However, Stephens told a surprised crowd that he is a pro-life Democrat, which elicited the largest applause of the debate. But Stephens said that he still does not believe in criminalizing abortion, arguing that there are many factors in a woman making the decision to abort.
Mills said that she wished there was more diversity in the demographic makeup of the participants. Because the participants have similar demographics, she said they have similar experiences and outlooks.
“I was disappointed with the lack of representation,” Mills said. “They all seemed like the had a similar background. That was pretty typical.”
The participants were able to find common ground in being critical of the character of President Donald Trump, but they disagreed on the actual implementation of his policies. With slight variation in practice, they also agreed on voter identification laws.
“Some areas I felt like should have been covered a little bit more,” Mills said. “But they did a good job of covering things at the very topical level. I do think they could have gone a little more in-depth. I think it was because of their age or experience or what not.”
The debate concluded with a series of questions from the audience that ranged from accountability in government to the treatment of victims of sexual assault.
“It was actually a positive experience,” Mills said. It was respectful, and it actually did bring up some things that needed to be discussed.”
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