| | The night of the election Meredith Forlenza prayed for the first time in years. The night of the election David Rubinstein was returning from canvassing in Milwaukee with hundreds of other Democrats. Brian Apel was proudly sporting his ‘Bush-Cheney 2004’ t-shirt. James Sumers was calling students who hadn’t yet voted and telling them to get off their butts and head to the voting booths.
Northwestern was pulsing with politics.
About a week ago, I cleaned out my closet and found the shirt I had made, John Kerry 2004, looking a little less proud now, crumpled up under some laundry. I had a small moment with my conscience.
What the hell was I supposed to do with it? Wear it? Keep it to show the kids someday- maybe to elicit the same awe I had when I saw pictures of my father with his waist length hair and battered copy of Siddhartha in hand? I mean, I couldn’t throw the shirt away, could I? That would be too depressingly symbolic. That would be giving up.
But have I and those who rooted with me for a Democratic ticket given up? Where were all the diehards now? Where was I? Having been one to swear, post-election, that I was moving to Bali and never coming back, I seemed to have settled back into life quite quickly, and had not so much raised a pen to a t-shirt, let alone a voice, politically.
Sumers, who has stayed active politically by working on the upcoming aldermanic elections, says he has definitely seen “a dying down of the intense participation. It can also be seen with the aldermanic elections, because students don't even seem that interested, even though the aldermanic elections have more of a direct impact on students than the federal elections.”
Maybe we are all just disheartened. We’re sad and disappointed that our belief just wasn’t enough. Or maybe, just maybe, that belief wasn’t there in the first place. Forlenza seems to agree with the former:
“I do feel incredibly disheartened, almost disillusioned,” said Forlenza. “I’ve never seen so many of my friends get so riled up and involved- myself included. I’ve never been so educated on politics before, and it’s just so sad we’re back in the same position we were before the election. Everyone put so much work into it.”
But is being political a college trend? Is it “cool” to be liberal? Politics have always held a prime place in the college image- from the hipster to the hippie, from the frat boy to the freak.
Berkeley, Wesleyan, Northwestern? From coast to coast, various universities hold the reputation of being political hotbeds, constantly embroiled in the latest cause.
The elections were the perfect time for us all to prove just how ‘with-it’ we are. We rallied at the rock. We attended the only two College Republicans meetings we’ll probably ever go to. Maybe we even set CNN.com as our homepage instead of thefacebook.com, just for those few weeks. We protested. We made t-shirts.
“Liberalism in college is definitely influenced by the pursuit of a "college cool" image,” offered up sophomore Ryan Vogt via email.
“I think it’s definitely a trendy thing,” agreed sophomore Whitney Gretz. “There’s the thought that change can only be invoked by voting every four years. Especially at our school, I feel like we don’t really lobby for change downtown or do letter-writing campaigns or anything like that.”
Sophomore Nayna Gupta, however, is more optimistic.
“I don't think of politics as a trend, but it's inevitable that they heat up around election time. That’s the competitive nature of the race.”
Hmmm. And so like all trends- does college political-ism die, or must it die? The party’s over. Whether you got lucky or just have a political hangover, it’s all done. Now we can go back to thefacebook.com. We can watch Monday Night Football instead of go to a College Dem’s meetings. We can paint the rock with our Greek letters instead of the American flag. Right?
Some leaders on campus are concerned about the shelf-life of college political activism, citing that politics should not be delegated to a brief bout of awareness soon to be seen on “I Love the 2000’s- Part Deux.”
“There is a great deal of trendiness to be liberal and outraged. Some people just do it because their friends do it and others for attention. I think, however, that in most of it, there is a nucleus of genuine belief and passion for the issues. While the fervor dies down after not too along, I think that people still care, but they just get caught up in their own stuff and that's fine,” says Rubinstein.
“If everyone cared passionately about politics and dedicated their time to it, the country would stop functioning,” he added.
He plans to run for President of College Dems at the end of the month.
No matter what political affiliation students embraced this fall, campus politicos urge students not to let their awareness go.
“I think we need some diehard activists, but more importantly we need people who are informed and active,” said Gupta. “I think people are fairly well informed here, but that we are still very apathetic in terms of what we're capable of doing considering we're next to Chicago and our intellectual level.”
I’m not going to lie- I threw out that Kerry t-shirt (mostly just because it smelled funky), but part of me regrets that. I kind of wish I could still rock it, or at least have it to show the kiddies some day.
If politics are a trend, fine- I dig it. But hold onto this one. Your Ugg boots aren’t worth anything if you don’t wear them. Your iPod is shit unless you listen to it. And your voice may as well not exist unless you use it. So humor me- dig deep, and find something to protest.
Got any letter campaigns or rally ideas? Emily wants to hear at: e-browne@northwestern.edu
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