GOP presidential candidates offer precious little to young voters seeking inspiration | Opinion
As a 20-year-old student at Yale, I cannot help feeling sorry for my conservative peers who are forced to find inspiration in the 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls. After a second debate in which more blatantly wrong statements were made and personal attacks prevailed, the seven candidates have only further established themselves as hypocrites who have grown comfortable with misinformation.
The way that some candidates — particularly Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — talk about their higher education backgrounds shows that they simply do not care.
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Both hold coveted dual degrees from Harvard and Yale and are cunning in the narratives they choose to present to the world — and to young Republicans who seek to follow in their footsteps.
Famously comparing his education to “political scarlet letters,” DeSantis mentioned that during his early days at Yale, he felt like a “fish out of water” — and these experiences made recurring appearances in his book “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”
He remembered being slammed with a liberal tsunami that drowned out his expression and speech. Although classmates recalled a subsequent growing level of distance between him and the cosmopolitan setting at Yale, DeSantis remained a member of some of the most influential groups on campus. He was a member of the secret society St. Elmo, known for being a feeder of senators and politicians, and DKE, a fraternity with a disturbing history of sexual assault.
The truth is, DeSantis spent his college years rapidly climbing the rungs of elite America, and some of his fraternity brothers noted that he quickly became comfortable with power and bullying at college.
As the child of immigrants myself, a part of me wants to find the space to empathize with DeSantis, whose parents are blue-collar workers. I can’t. Yes, Yale has a checkered past. But it takes a special kind of arrogance not to acknowledge reaping the benefits and galactic fortune of getting into an elite school.
Being a Republican does not equate to being a racist. It does not mean being a liar. It does not equate to being homophobic, or anti-LGBTQ, but the behavior of some of the most high-profile Republicans has and will continue to stifle the chances of younger Republicans striving for a political future in an increasingly progressive climate.
Ramaswamy’s comment accusing transgender individuals of having a mental health disorder — even if some transgender people do experience gender dysphoria — fits snugly alongside DeSantis’ as an example of discrimination.
A fine line separates discrimination and debate, ignorance and deliberately articulated lies. College campuses are criticized by the right for making some students uncomfortable with articulating their conservatively aligned perspectives. But the idea of “cancel culture” frequently associated with Democrats isn’t weaponization against free speech. If done right, the culture is corrective and not condemning, working as a measure to hold individuals accountable for the intellectual property they actively share with others.
This is a lesson for us young Democrats and Republicans. We have a responsibility to curate an environment that sees value in incorporating all perspectives, and this responsibility falls upon people everywhere.
Both of us have a long way to go.
As the younger left learns that the media aren’t always representative of their right-leaning classmates, conservative youth should also feel confident calling out the dangerous stereotypes and lies purported during this presidential race.
Even though the U.S. has the patience for 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds to learn the ropes of what constitutes debate versus sibling shouting watches, the presidential seat — the executive representative in foreign relations and the highest office in our country — is absolutely not for 38-, 45-, and 61-year olds who still have a lot of learning to do.
DeSantis and Ramaswamy, among the other candidates during the GOP debate, have seriously disrespected their Republican supporters.
Their performance on Wednesday night was nothing more than a reminder of just how much America as a whole needs to invest in our fact-checking programs, high school speech and debate classes, and kindergarten table manners.
