The second week of my freshman year at Georgetown, I talked my roommate into attending a H*yas for Choice meeting. Not for political reasons, but, clever freshman that I was, so we could “meet girls who will remember to take their birth control.” At the meeting, I volunteered to be a “condom rep,” and upon returning to my room in Darnall, I attached a H*yas for Choice envelope full of condoms to my door. As a personal flourish, I placed a toy Alaskan husky halfway into the envelope, his blue eyes wide with Northern naïveté and his paws offering a Durex to passersbys.
The next morning, I found the little doggy slumped unhappily on the floor among the remains of the shredded manila envelope. I was stunned. I grew up in a neighborhood just outside of Boston where most of the adults are Harvard employees and rallies calling upon Congress to impeach Obama—for being too conservative—are routine. I could count the number of Republicans and practicing Christians I had met on one hand. To me, the thought that anyone might object to free condoms, especially those offered by adorable stuffed animals, was inconceivable.
After I got over the initial culture shock, I found the presence of conservative opposition at Georgetown new and invigorating. When, to my fascinated horror, a Confederate flag the size of a refrigerator was unfurled a few doors down, I retaliated in kind by turning a sign from a gay rights march into a pro-health care reform poster and placing it in the window of my room that faced the Georgetown University Hospital.
The media likes to tout the polarization of American political discourse in recent years. The people who watch Fox News and shop at Wal-mart, the narrative goes, live entirely separate from the people who watch MSNBC and shop at Trader Joe’s. The overwhelming consensus among pundits is that this polarization is a negative phenomenon. However, at Georgetown these poles align for the better. Before coming to Georgetown, I would never have considered the possibility of going to a David Guetta concert with someone I had seen wearing a Glenn Beck shirt the day before.
I came to realize that I like being around people with whom I disagree. I relished having fiery, late-night debates in my common room about evolution, climate change, and immigration. Taking the discussion to absurd extremes—“You can shoot my immigrant grandparents when I can euthanize yours to keep down Medicare costs”—was a cathartic pastime that was only possible in the private company of close friends with different viewpoints (and excessive booze). This astonishingly irreverent political proximity has taught me not to take everything so seriously. Even if I think someone was being racist the night before, I might need to use their printer the next day, so I quickly decided that allowing political animosity to overflow into casual interactions was ludicrously impractical.
With every “pro-choice” or “Obama ’08” sticker ripped off my door, I became more passionate and inspired. I went to rallies for health care, immigration, and marriage equality. By my second semester at Georgetown I was a leader in the College Democrats and working on the Georgetown Progressive, a liberal blog affiliated with the College Democrats. But I probably would not have done any of these things without my conservative hall-mates there to embolden me.
The latest trend in punditry is to deride contemporary political discourse as too partisan, too polarized, and too bitter. On the contrary, I believe that America faces a problem of hypersensitivity. Although I despise many of the things that birthers, Tea Party members, and other right-wingers contribute to the political scene, I admire how bluntly, simply, and directly they express their delusions.
I could have spent my freshman year holed up in my room, bitter and offended, but instead I chose to embrace the passion and opposition of my hallmates with a lighthearted disregard for the sensitivity of others. Wanting to maintain that thrill, I spent much of this summer writing obnoxiously partisan Facebook posts that probably offended people. Now I’m excited to re-enter the fray with the midterm elections in full swing, where I can piss off all the wrong people and love every minute of it.
