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I think it's safe to conflate the two in this context. Someone going through the UC system is bound to experience very strong peer pressure to hide or change an

I think it's safe to conflate the two in this context. Someone going through the UC system is bound to experience very strong peer pressure to hide or change any conservative views may have held. As personal example, I had participated in research group meetings (at a much less left-leaning institution) that included quite vulgar Trump bashing sessions. It goes beyond universities and among the main reasons why Republican candidates usually underperform in polls [1]. > That democratic ideas are more popular for educated people or that rural areas lead to more republican attitudes shouldn't lead to the idea that we need policy to balance either. Rather a plurality of parties and votes would be something to strive for. Fair enough if not for the fact that university education is the gateway (as the OP article mentions) to positions of economic and political power. If very few people with conservative views pass through the social filter, the conservative part of the population becomes disenfranchised, which is bad for democracy. [1] "Second, suburban Republican college graduates are more likely to fear professional sanction for their views and are therefore self-censoring more, including in surveys." https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-did-republicans-outperform-the-polls-again-two-theories/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-did-republicans-out...

divided 4y ago
Was the research group meeting about politics or did this randomly come up during them? And honestly it wouldn’t surprise me for college students to bash Biden as well. Why associate your political beliefs so strongly with one man? Surely someone saying Trump is a criminal business man says nothing about whether your belief on income taxes is legitimate. Not to say my college experience was typical, but it was largely apolitical. There were student groups for Republicans and Democrats and if you didn’t want anything to do with politics you didn’t have to. I didn’t spend my time discussing politics with my friends, my professors didn’t lecture about how much Bush sucks during their Operating Systems course, and my classmates weren’t bringing up how immoral the Iraq war was during the single philosophy course I took. I come from a conservative state, the school population would likely have only slightly leaned left. I didn’t feel pressured about my conservative beliefs. Looking back at the time, though, I shifted from center-right to center. Not because of being clubbed over the head in arguments, but from exposure to ideas and experiences and beliefs that my rural upbringing sheltered me from.

divided 4y ago

Was the research group meeting about politics or did this randomly come up during them? And honestly it wouldn’t surprise me for college students to bash Biden as well. Why associate your political beliefs so strongly with one man? Surely someone saying Trump is a criminal business man says nothing about whether your belief on income taxes is legitimate. Not to say my college experience was typical, but it was largely apolitical. There were student groups for Republicans and Democrats and if you didn’t want anything to do with politics you didn’t have to. I didn’t spend my time discussing politics with my friends, my professors didn’t lecture about how much Bush sucks during their Operating Systems course, and my classmates weren’t bringing up how immoral the Iraq war was during the single philosophy course I took. I come from a conservative state, the school population would likely have only slightly leaned left. I didn’t feel pressured about my conservative beliefs. Looking back at the time, though, I shifted from center-right to center. Not because of being clubbed over the head in arguments, but from exposure to ideas and experiences and beliefs that my rural upbringing sheltered me from.