If you attended Wednesday night's Carolina Clash debate, you’ll doubtless be aware of a few simple things. First, that the College Republicans’ chair can’t answer questions and is woefully unaware of her party’s policies.
Second, that the College Libertarians have no record of governance to point to, and they are furious about that.
Third, that the College Democrats have a new star in second-year business student Seth Ismail.
In their opening statements, the Democrats proclaimed that “the American dream thrives when it is fair for all, not when it privileges a few.” The Libertarians quoted Young Jeezy, as fourth-year business economics student Ross Abbott is wont to do in these fora, stating “Imma do me, you do you,” somehow conflating the lyrics of "Umma Do Me" for political doctrine. The Republicans then paraded themselves as the party of diversity. Multiple people around me laughed at this, given that the GOP is an 89 percent white party.
Throughout the night, the Libertarians and the Democrats traded a number of barbs, while the Republicans seemed content to watch the other two debate matters of substance, even proclaiming “I don’t have a good answer for that.” The Republicans accused Obama of creating IS, despite the common consensus among security experts that it was George Bush’s failed surprise party for the Middle East in the early 2000s that led to the rise of IS. In the question regarding illegal immigration, the Republicans managed to tell the crowd that they don’t support a law that the Republican Party proposed and supports in Arizona.
The Libertarians managed to turn the conversation toward their favorite talking point: the economy and the welfare state. There were a few mistakes in their argument. First of all, the wage gap does exist. Women still make 78 cents to every dollar a man does. Latina women make 54 cents to every dollar a white man makes.
Secondly, the Libertarians argued that the United States had a thriving economy and job growth before the introduction of the welfare state. For reference, the welfare state began in the US with the introduction of Social Security on August 14, 1935. This means that the thriving time before the social welfare state in the U.S. was the Great Depression, which is often fondly remembered for its low unemployment and high indicators of prosperity.
Perhaps the most important question of the night, given the current political climate and the demographic makeup of South Carolina, came when discussion finally turned to the treatment of minority groups. While the Democrats took the reasonable stances that trans and black lives matter, the Republicans managed to somehow state their approval of trans people, then insult them.
If the Republican Party ever wondered why only 13 percent of the LGBTQ community supports their party, that’s probably why. The Libertarians, for good measure, commented on the ridiculous drug laws in the U.S., but failed to mention incarceration rates, violence against people of color and the bevy of other issues that minorities in this country have to deal with.
In the end, this conservative campus in a conservative state was left with the progressive party coming out on top. This wasn’t necessarily a great win by the Democrats by any means, but they were mostly correct in their arguments, letting the other two parties implode in a confusing mess.
While the Libertarians sung the praises of free market economics that sound fanciful, but typically end in markets collapsing, and the Republicans waxed lyrical about something that linguists will be debating for weeks and rolled their eyes whenever racial prejudice was brought up, I was left thinking of Ice Cube’s famous line, “a bird in the hand is worth more than the Bush.”