<p>Btw, there isn’t a WesRepublican club. The school shut it down, two years ago, when I was a freshman.</p>
<p>Radiances wrote:
Radiances - your sense of hyperbole may stand you in good stead as a poet or maybe even as a latter day “Mad Men” wannabe, but sooner or later people are going to wonder whether you know what the heck you are talking about (and that MAY be experienced as being “shouted down”): [Decision</a> 2012: The Wesleyan CollegeRepublicans - Features - The Wesleyan Argus](<a href=“http://wesleyanargus.com/2012/03/01/31383/]Decision”>The Wesleyan Argus | Decision 2012: The Wesleyan College Republicans)</p>
<p>Part of college life involves occasionally having your head handed to you in a bull session. It happens.</p>
<p>'Like any group, the ability of the College Republicans to coordinate depends upon the availability of its senior members. As several more-involved members have graduated, and Levin has found himself increasingly involved in off-campus fundraising for College Republicans, the group has had fewer organized meetings than in the past.</p>
<p>“This year hasn’t been our most active year,” Levin said. “In general it’s been pretty quiet—we’ve definitely had a little drop-off in the amount of activities that we do.”’</p>
<p>I think this is pretty key.</p>
<p>And the University did shut it down due to the lack of participation and active members. Even though they did receive a mention from the Argus, it doesn’t say anywhere that it’s an active club on campus. And the visit by the mayor wasn’t sponsored by the WesRepublicans, but the Democrats.</p>
<p>And please don’t resort to ad hominem attacks. If you’re just going to call names, I might as well not participate…</p>
<p>And the Student Activities directory gives the most up-to-date information about existing student groups on campus.</p>
<p>[Directory</a> Wesleyan Student Assembly](<a href=“http://wsa.wesleyan.edu/groups/directory/]Directory”>http://wsa.wesleyan.edu/groups/directory/)</p>
<p>And none of the above takes away the fact that my son’s friend is a Republican and has invited him to attend their meetings.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6410LVW using CC</p>
<p>It’s also a far cry from the implication that Wesleyan was going around raiding party headquarters and seizing computers. Just admit that 2012 was a bad year to be a young Republican: a long and cut-throat primary season followed by a nominee who couldn’t pivot if he were a mountain bike - all likely contributed to Wes Republican apathy.</p>
<p>So there was some apathy?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have no idea. The fellow quoted in the article above seemed pretty jacked about the coming year. I wonder what could have happened (besides the fact that some of them graduated) that may have disillusioned them?</p>
<p>Again, I’m not saying the Wesleyan administration is going around “raiding party headquarters.” My original point is there was and is a bout of condescension being a Republican, that’s all. In your words, “some apathy.”</p>
<p>Wesleyan is a very diverse university, and there are many different viewpoints. But people don’t focus much on the GOP because not many have interest in that party. I would not call it “condescension”, though. It seems to be that GOPers don’t attract much interest, which is the norm at most northeastern LACs. You would probably have to go to a place like Washington and Lee to find that.</p>
<p>Sent from my ADR6410LVW using CC</p>
<p>“Wesleyan is a very diverse university…”</p>
<p>How can it be diverse if there is little interest in the second party which makes up 48% of the voters? That’s the opposite of diverse.</p>
<p>I will agree that it’s the norm in east coast LACs. I don’t think it’s a good idea to suggest that people with a conservative leaning should go elsewhere. Shouldn’t schools have a diversity of opinions? How can students exercise their brains if discussion is one-sided?</p>
<p>No discussion of the history of Republicans at Wesleyan would be complete without some mention of the plight of so-called, “moderate Republicans” nantionwide.</p>
<p>A generation ago (maybe, two) moderate Republicans formed the backbone of what was then referred to in common parlance as, the “Establishment” an informal association of law firms, investment banks and businessmen who provided cover for some of the thornier political and economic issues of the day. Broadly defined, their “ideology” included an aggressive stance toward Soviet expansionism, support for a modest welfare state and much later in the formation of their views, a consensus around civil rights.</p>
<p>NESCAC, at one point, provided more members of the Establishment than any single grouping of colleges outside of the Ivy League, starting with the unoffical “Chairman of the Board”, John J. McCloy (Amherst) himself. Others who were almost certainly included were:</p>
<p>Henry M. Wriston (president Brown)
Walter Wriston (Chairman and CEO of Citibank)
John A. Wells (of Rogers and Wells, the law firm)
Edwin Deacon Etherington (former head of the American Stock Exchange)
David Eisenhower (grandson of the ex-President)
Charles Alan Wright (legal scholar and counsel to President Nixon)
Norris Cotton (Senator from New Hampshire)</p>
<p>All of them were Republicans and none of them, IMHO, would recognize the party as it exists today. To refer to the modern-day Republican Party as just one more point along the spectrum of “diversity” is to be just a wee disingenuous. Today, young Republicans are mostly relegated to single-issue advocates of scaling back affirmative action. For a group of colleges, like NESCAC, who have spent the better part of the last half century, making themselves modestly accomodating to members of racial minorities, it w</p>
<p>No discussion of the history of Republicans at Wesleyan would be complete without some mention of the plight of so-called, “moderate Republicans” nantionwide.</p>
<p>A generation ago (maybe, two) moderate Republicans formed the backbone of what was then referred to in common parlance as, the “Establishment” an informal association of law firms, investment banks and businessmen who provided cover for some of the thornier political and economic issues of the day. Broadly defined, their “ideology” included an aggressive stance toward Soviet expansionism, support for a modest welfare state and much later in the formation of their views, a consensus around civil rights.</p>
<p>NESCAC, at one point, provided more members of the Establishment than any single grouping of colleges outside of the Ivy League, starting with the unoffical “Chairman of the Board”, John J. McCloy (Amherst) himself. Others who were almost certainly included were:</p>
<p>Henry M. Wriston (president Brown)
Walter Wriston (Chairman and CEO of Citibank)
John A. Wells (of Rogers and Wells, the law firm)
Edwin Deacon Etherington (former head of the American Stock Exchange)
David Eisenhower (grandson of the ex-President)
Charles Alan Wright (legal scholar and counsel to President Nixon)
Norris Cotton (Senator from New Hampshire)</p>
<p>All of them were Republicans and none of them, IMHO, would recognize the party as it exists today. To refer to the modern-day Republican Party as just one more point along the spectrum of “diversity” is to be just a wee disingenuous. Today, young Republicans are mostly relegated to single-issue advocates of scaling back affirmative action. For a group of colleges, like NESCAC, who have spent the better part of the last half century, making themselves modestly accomodating to members of racial minorities, it would be really like asking a juggler to catch one more buzz-saw by the handle.</p>
<p>My son’s close friend is there. In his case, he looked at peer schools, was thinking about all of them, stepped on Weslelyan ground, and at the end of the day, said, “I’m home.” For him the choice was easy.</p>
<p>‘To refer to the modern-day Republican Party as just one more point along the spectrum of “diversity” is to be just a wee disingenuous.’</p>
<p>-- circuitrider</p>
<p>Very well put.</p>
<p>Today’s lunatic fringe GOP, falling as it is off the ultra-far-right edge of reality, would have been laughed out of polite Republican society back in the 1950’s just as the John Birch Society was scorned by conservative William F. Buckley and others of the “establishment” at the time.</p>
<p>That the GOP might today have trouble developing traction at fine institutions of learning like Wesleyan only shows that said institutions are succeeding in attracting students intelligent enough to tell the difference between an opposing opinion on the one hand and crackpottery, deceitfulness, and nonsensical tin-foil-hat extremism on the other.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you are mistaken if you think students talk about current events in their classes. That simply is not within the purview of most classes. Students may talk about politics outside their classes, but probably no more than anyone talks about politics.</p>
<p>As far as the conservative view not being presented, and discussions being “one-sided” – there is no shortage of conservative opinion on the radio, on TV, in magazines, and in newspapers. Thus, if political discussion is “one-sided,” conservatives are not on the short end of the deal.</p>
<p>It is true that faculty members are overwhelmingly liberal, and students somewhat less so. You may not like that, but the reason for this liberalism is not that people in academia are unfamiliar with the conservative point of view, but that they reject that point of view.</p>
<p>In other words, you’re saying Republicans are “not” intelligent? I find that very hard to believe considering my experience of my peers seem to be a bit out of touch with reality.</p>
<p>I’m really aiming at the artsy students who chastise Wall Street while offering no counter-plan of their own as an example. Those students could hardly be considered more intelligent than the red hillbillies of Mississippi.</p>