On Tuesday, February 13th, the DePaul Socialists and the DePaul College Republicans debated each other at Cortelyou Commons, on the Lincoln Park Campus. The debate was from 6:00-7:30pm. All the republicans sat on one side and the socialists sat on the other. The debate format was quite standard. To start, there were opening statements that each side prepared. Then, the 3 questions, that both sides prepared in advance, were read by Moderator, Wayne Steger, a political science professor at DePaul. The topics included Economic issues; however, it branched out into social issues as well due to the nature of politics.
After the question was asked, the responding side had roughly 3 minutes to answer. Then the side that asked the initial question had 3 minutes to respond. Following that, it returns back to the team that started, so that they can respond to the rebuttal. For example, let’s say the Republicans asked the Socialists a question, the socialists answer it, then republicans respond to that answer and then to conclude, the socialists close the question. After the all the questions were addressed, the audience had the opportunity to ask their questions by writing them on a sheet of paper and passing it to the moderator. Unfortunately, due to the large crowd and short amount of time, not all questions were heard.
I had a chance to speak to a few people on both parties and some that were neutral or apolitical in order to get an unbiased perspective of what the general expectations were coming into the debate. I also had a chance to talk to the same people after and see what they thought of the debate as a whole. Unsurprisingly, the parties involved did not treat it as an opportunity to share ideas and understand the other party, but to “destroy them” and “ show who’s boss.”
One socialist said, “I want to see a republican not be a sexist pig, but someone who accepts socialism and joins us.” When I asked one of the Republicans what they want to achieve through the debate, one of them said, “I enjoy proving them wrong because they get so upset. It’s cute and it makes my day.” Oddly enough, I spoke to people that identified themselves as democrats, apolitical and libertarians, and they all said that they were looking forward to understanding both parties a little more and they hoped that “it doesn’t turn into a sh!t show.”
At the start of the debate, there were three rules that were to be understood by the debaters and the audience. First, to uphold academic discourse. Second, maintain civility at all times. Third, be respectful even if you do not agree. And lastly, the audience may only clap, cheer after the answer is completely finished. The audience is to not to interrupt either side. This means no booing, snapping, clapping or chanting when the debate is taking place. The rules were very clear and they were said multiple times. Unfortunately, the rules were not upheld completely throughout the debate by both the debaters and the audience. The moderator did try his best to maintain civility, but the actions of some students that attended and participated in the debate were unprofessional, obnoxious, distracting and immature.
After speaking with several people from both parties and everyone in between, the responses I got were not very surprising. The Republicans said the Socialists used more emotions and hypothetical scenarios than facts. They said the Socialist half of the audience was unprofessional and ignored the rules by snapping consistently throughout the debating in between arguments. A few noticed that one of the debaters on the Socialist side was behaving unprofessionally by face palming, rolling eyes and other actions while the Republicans were speaking. The Socialists had similar remarks about the Republicans. One noted that the debaters on the Republican side were rolling their eyes, smirking and not paying attention to Socialist arguments.
Needless to say, both parties accepted quite quickly that they won, even though that was never decided, nor was it ever a priority. But, I’m glad that both winners had a good time. One of the audience members said, “I’m glad there wasn’t a riot or that no one got hurt.” They brought up a good point. Some people were expecting a riot or some physical alteration. And fortunately, the attendance was very peaceful, which is a victory all together. Also, another positive outcome from the debate was that at the end, the debaters shook hands. That was very refreshing to see after the behavior I witnessed.