By: Michael McCurdy

IOWA CITY, Ia-Summer 2016 was vastly approaching for University of Iowa freshman Kolby LeFebvre as he decided to venture downtown with some friends one last time before everyone left to go back home.

It was an abnormally chilly night as LeFebvre headed to Pancheros in downtown Iowa City to get quick bite before heading back to Hillcrest residence hall. Students swarmed the burrito joint as bars began to close creating a long line extending all the way to the restaurant’s entrance.

Before LeFebvre could discuss waiting in line with his cohorts, two of his friends started verbally attacking two University of Iowa students who were decorated in Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush gear.

“My friends quickly started taunting these two obvious Republicans, then they brought Donald Trump into it and all hell about broke loose,” LeFebvre said. “The two Trump guys quickly started asking my two friends about Hillary Clinton, and then the four started cussing at each other, which I then yelled at my friends and took them back to Hillcrest.”

LeFebvre’s story is a common one, many college students and U.S. residents are more divided than ever over politics. This had led to countless acts of violence across the country, like on April 16, 2017 when according to reports by CNN over 21 people were arrested on the Berkley, CA campus due to political riots.

Even though Iowa City has not experienced anything of that magnitude, there are micro-aggressions that still exist between students on campus.

One of the more popular student bars in Iowa City, D.C.’s Sports Bar, is placed right in the center of the pedestrian mall, which had D.C.’s bouncer, Kelynn Wright, worried during election season.

As a bouncer, Wright said breaking up altercations was common and part of the job, but with the right amount of alcohol and political banter things became even more hostile.

“Absolutely it was more hostile during the election, it just seemed like people were worried about the election and their candidate of choice,” Wright said. “It was brought up a lot downtown, people would always be like ‘Hillary or Trump?’, like I would see people downtown with t-shirts supporting either candidate.”

Presidential races are a cornerstone of American democracy, so the question as to why the 2016 election split the country apart more than its predecessors is all relative to its climate at the time.

University of Iowa Director of Graduate Studies and Professor of American Politics, Frederick Boehmke, said the hollowing out of congress and lack of compromise directly correlates to how the electorate over the years has increasingly made it more difficult to discuss politics.

“For the last many decades, there’s been a slow increase in the difficulty people have with different political perspectives in talking to each other,” Boehmke said. “I think that’s because they go so quickly to defensive positions as the parties have done the same thing at the national level.”

To learn more about Boehmke’s views on the root causes of the lack of civility when discussing politics, click here.

Boehmke said he does not see a future of civil political conversation due to an energized spark both on the far left, Bernie Sanders supporters, and people of the far right who belong to the Tea Party and House Freedom Caucus Movement.

A common theme for people who have vastly different viewpoints on subject matter, such as politics, is to butt heads, but Josephine Beddor, a resident assistant at Burge Residence Hall in Iowa City, said the main difference compared to past elections is the erratic and abnormal behavior of President Trump.

Beddor said Trump’s platform of divisiveness came full circle last fall when Trump came to Iowa City and his supporters exemplified his questionable rhetoric by harassing Beddor and other protestors outside of the University of Iowa Field House.

“The Trump supporters in line for the rally were super aggressive towards myself and the other protestors,” Beddor said. “We were peacefully protesting and not even in their space, and we had our posters and were yelling chants but we weren’t saying anything offensive, just reasons as to why we disagree with his policies. Then, a lot of younger and older white men would come up and yell stuff in our faces like, ‘get a job hippie’.”

Beddor said she sees it as Trump and his supporters causing the aggression and polarization from this past election, but the University of Iowa College of Republicans disagree, and see it as a two-way street.

President, Patrick Wronkiewicz and Vice President, Kyle Apple, hosted a constitution trivia night on April 26, 2017 at the Iowa City Sports Column Bar and Grill. There, Wronkiewicz said being a Trump supporter on a liberal college campus is extremely difficult.

He said on weekly basis, because of the “Make America Great Again” pin on his backpack, he gets harassed by other students, being called names such as “racists, bigots, islamophobes, and homophobes” and being told to “watch his back”.

Apple said although he has not experienced the same verbal abuse as his partner has, the entire organization receives a plethora amount of harassment on social media from University of Iowa students, especially on its twitter page.

Many students on the University of campus who identify with the left, such as Beddor, think Trump supporters should be associated with all the controversial and questionable aspects of Donald Trump. Wronkiewicz and Apple disagree.

“Trump has said some stuff that’s obviously indefensible,” Wronkiewicz said. “On the same spectrum, Hillary Clinton also did some pretty indefensible stuff, like the way she handled classified material and Benghazi. People have different value systems, they can’t understand other people who think outside of the bubble of Trump’s personal life.”

Boehmke to a certain extent agreed with Wronkiewicz and Apple, concluding that as voters, people should not be associated with all the facets of their candidate of choice, but relatively speaking to this election said voters on the left are piecing together themes that exist both in Trump’s personal life and political life.

“You support a person who tolerates this stuff in policy and also does these similar things in non-policy, so people say ‘I’m going to hold you to all of that’,” Boehmke said. “The non-policy stuff is part of it because it seems to be intertwined because of the way he presents himself.”

In retrospect, Trump’s damaged his relationships with many Americans, but in doing so Boehmke still thinks there is a chance he can regain some support back from moderate democrats.

Boehmke said before Trump took office he thought the businessman might try and appeal to both the left and right by instilling policy that steers away from the radical sides of both parties. Instead, Trump is sticking to what got him into the White House, a set of policies that many believe to be xenophobic, racist, homophobic, and scientifically inaccurate.

To fix the growing problem of political polarization in the United States, Boehmke said Trump can start by at least implementing policies that resonate for both the left and the right, such as keeping his promise of universal healthcare.

In regards to college campus life, the lack of civil political discussion is a problem that does not appear to be leaving anytime soon. Many liberal college students will be challenged by this nationalist and populist movement that seems to be taking the world by storm.

In Iowa City, Wronkiewicz and Apple said one way to get the ball rolling is to start having political debates on campus between the College of Republicans and the University of Iowa Democrats.

The relationship is already strong between the two groups, but Wronkiewicz said the public needs to see this to represent what political discussion on college campuses should be like in hope it resonates with the student body.

“I think it would be a good way to get both sides of the issues out,” Apple said. “It also could be a good recruiting factor for both organizations by also getting more students engaged, and help to create that atmosphere for discussion instead of people personally attacking each other.