When one thinks of the political environment at Aragon, it’s hard not to think of highly liberal cities nearby, like San Francisco and Berkeley. While San Francisco is a famous liberal hub, and Berkeley is ranked the third most liberal city in America, the political atmosphere at Aragon is not as intense as one may be led to believe.
“I’d say a lot of students are uninformed [on politics] and probably don’t read the newspaper or watch the news stations as much as others,” senior James Garcia comments. “However,” he adds, “everybody has an opinion. Most people I know are liberals.”
While the liberal environment of the Bay Area has contributed to a mostly Democratic student body, a deeper inspection of Aragon’s political community reveals that there is definitely a base of loyal Republicans amongst Democrats and Independents.
On a national scale, politics have currently been heating up. Concerned with America’s fiscal policy, the Tea Party has clearly stated its support for cutting government spending. In spite of the fact that nearly half of all Tea Partiers choose not to identify as part of the Republican Party, many
Democrats see Tea Party Republicans and non-Tea Party Republicans in the same light.
Senior Smita Jain, a Democrat, believes there is no real divide between the Tea Party’s stated goals and Republican Party’s platform. “The Tea Party’s stance on major issues like the federal budget, immigration policy, or taxation is more in line with Republican views than they are with Democratic views. The views of the Tea Party on most issues aren’t different enough to be classified as an entirely different party,” she says.
For some Republicans, this Democratic viewpoint does not accurately reflect how they see their political affiliations. For instance, Garcia, a Republican, believes that the Tea Party is much more radical than the GOP.
“The Tea Party states its plans and beliefs publicly while the GOP tends to hide details. That being said, the GOP tends to attract more on-the-fence voters, while the Tea Party gains the attention of more hardcore Republicans,” he says.
Junior Nathan Zhang, also a Republican, remarks, “The Tea Partiers also favor a small government to a stronger degree than most Republicans.”
Some Republicans feel that, like the Democrats’ perception of the GOP and the Tea Party, many political views of conservatives are over-generalizations.
“People tend to think of each party in its extreme form, as if they lean way to one side or the other, which isn’t really the position of the majority. For instance, all Republicans are not completely right-wing conservatives,” says Zhang.
This generalization of Republicans can be seen on a more specific level at Aragon. Even in a place where the political atmosphere is not extremely intense, Republicans’ political affiliations can lead to some negative stereotyping, which can lead to problems as serious as verbal threats and bullying.
“In my experience, I’ve been accused of hating the environment, being selfish, etcetera, just because of the label ‘Republican,’” says Garcia. “People have jokingly made rude remarks or said something like, ‘Oh, I can’t be your friend anymore because you’re a Republican.’”
An anonymous Republican speaks of a similar experience. “I was the only Republican in my class [in middle school], and… people would make jokes. During Proposition 8, some would approach me and speak against what I’d say,” she says.
The anonymous Republican believes that many stereotypes regarding Republicans can be hurtful and inaccurate. “I think [Republicans] are stereotyped as rich, but I’m not that. I’m actually on financial aid,” she says.
Sophomore Kelsey O’Donnell has experienced similar stereotyping. “A lot of Republicans tend to be pretty religious. But I’m a Catholic and am pro-gay marriage, which is surprising, apparently, to some people,” she says.
Zhang believes Aragon’s liberal majority is a major cause for the misunderstandings local Republicans face. “I feel at Aragon, the Democratic majority doesn’t like the Republican constituency at school. They tend to portray Republicans as self-centered and selfish and only caring about themselves.”
While many Republicans at Aragon have had to deal with an overwhelmingly Democratic student body, senior Brandon Gordon has a much different experience. When he was ten years old, Gordon moved to Republican-dominated Texas, where he attended middle school and high school before moving back to California, seven years later.
“Here the word ‘conservative’ has a very negative connotation, but in Texas, the word ‘liberal’ has the same effect,” he says.
Despite the political tension nowadays, differences in opinion do not always amount to threats and confrontations. “The kind of views I see in the media can be so extreme sometimes, so in that sense I can seem to agree with most of the things they say,” Democrat Smita Jain remarks. “But,” she adds, “I suppose there are more moderate Republicans somewhere along the line who I can see more eye to eye with… I just don’t hear about them enough.”
