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Welcome to The 1909, the podcast that takes an in-depth look at The State News’ biggest stories of the week, while bringing in new perspectives from the reporters who wrote them.
It's Wednesday, October 2nd, and this is the 19 09, the state news weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters. This week, election season is in full swing on campus, and our politics reporter has his ear to the ground. Emilio, welcome back to the show.
Emilio:Thanks for having me, Alex. It's an honor.
Alex:It's great to have you. I appreciate you saying it's an honor. It's a great show. Yeah. Well, tell me this.
Alex:Okay. When students left campus in May, maybe stop listening to 19 09 because we we were off for the summer. This was a very different election season. You know? You get your Joe Biden, your Donald Trump, different race.
Alex:Over the summer, shake up. Kamala Harris is in there now. Tim Walz, JD Vance. It's a whole different race, and you've written a couple stories since we've gotten back to campus about how people are feeling. You've got your your finger on the pulse as they would say in various expressions.
Alex:So tell me this first. Do you talk to students about how they're feeling on the left? Their candidate, Joe Biden, is gone. Now they've got Kamala Harris. What's the vibe?
Alex:What's it like? How are people feeling?
Emilio:I mean, to start, I guess, we can just talk about how it was before the switch up came this summer. And, I mean, really, it was it was low energy among young voter. Young voters were not feeling Joe Biden. And really until the switch up came, people were really thinking that this was a very, very bad race for Democrats. And now the way it's looking on college campuses, people have really opened up to Kamala Harris.
Emilio:And part of it has definitely been thanks to this really online, really young, marketing campaign that they've kinda pulled through recently.
Alex:All this talk about coconuts, brat.
Emilio:Yeah. Stuff that the young people just love eating up.
Alex:So tell me about, you know, you talk to college Democrats, people here on campus about what they're doing, and they told you that the this online stuff has, like, a new level of enthusiasm. Right? I mean, are people people are more engaged than they were before?
Emilio:Yeah. I mean, definitely I mean, if you take talk to the call of Democrats, for example, they'll just say that their own experience has seen they've seen a lot more student engagement this year compared to past elections. Also, given the fact that it is an election year, obviously, then the question becomes, how do you turn that young energy into actual concrete votes?
Alex:And you also covered, Tim Walls. Harris' running mate was actually here on campus. He was at the graduate in East Lansing. What was that like going there, you know, seeing people interact with him in person?
Emilio:Yeah. So you're right. He went to the graduate, which is, I mean, you know, for our viewers, our home who may not have a map open, is right across the street from campus.
Alex:Yeah.
Emilio:And, I mean, they packed the graduate. We weren't allowed inside, but we were talking to people as they came out. And the energy from them was that they really enjoyed what he had to say out there.
Alex:He was able to connect with some of the young voters.
Emilio:Yeah. Exactly. And I think they got a clip of him talking to some frat guys too that's been making the rounds on social media. So they I
Alex:saw that, and it's kind of like a a great distillation exactly what you're talking about where it's like these MSU frat guys talking about how they weren't gonna vote, they weren't engaged, and then they're, like, I saw Tim Walz speak, and now I'm gonna vote, which is, like, you know, great for his campaign or or whatever. But it's kind of an amazing encapsulation of, like, what you're talking about.
Emilio:Right. Exactly.
Alex:That viral clip. But what about what you just talked about? So everybody's excited and they're engaged on the left and whatnot, but how are they gonna actually translate that into people, you know, going and voting in November and not just, you know, TikTok ing about it?
Emilio:Well, I can if you're the Democrats, I think the quest the the key to that is just getting people to do stuff. Right? The more the more of an engaged club member you have, for example, the likely they are to get themselves, their friends out to vote. So for them, that'll take the form of, you know, tabling outside of the of dining halls and residence halls, trying to get people registered to vote. Even some students are canvassing.
Emilio:And, again, all that is to make sure that, like you said, students aren't just liking TikToks and sharing things. Mhmm. But when November comes, they'll have a reason to show out to the polls.
Alex:And you talked to an expert that said that that might be uniquely challenging with young voters. I mean, what is it about young people, college students that makes it so hard to, you know, translate the kind of social media and just generally social energy around an election into actually participating in it?
Emilio:Yeah. So so, again, I spoke with, director of the American Community Project, Dante Cinney. And he State news alum. State news alum. Exactly.
Emilio:And he was just kinda getting at this idea that young voters in general, while they might well, a lot of them might be engaged with politics as in the news that they consume, they often have just a lot of life circumstances that make it harder for them to show out to the polls. A lot of them might simply say, you know, I've got a lot going on. I'm a student. I might work. I might also have to study.
Emilio:And standing in line, especially at a campus like MSU, where if we remember midterm elections a couple of years ago, those lines were long. And a lot of students simply aren't willing to wait in those long long lines.
Alex:No. And people were there, I mean, pretty much all night, especially at Brody. We wrote actually, like, a first person piece about it, one of our reporters who was in the line. Yeah. I mean, that'll be an interesting challenge of getting students, you know, to, you know, really participate fully even when it means taking time out of their day to to vote or just stand around in line for many hours.
Alex:Right.
Emilio:But I guess I would say the energy is there.
Alex:Well, we'll see how it pans out. What about, you know, this kind of wrinkle in that. Right? Is that your, you know, more so than, like, your liberal students, your your truly progressive students seem to not be so much in line with this energy. If anything, they've actually protested when members of Biden's administration have come to campus because of this division over the handling of the, you know, Israel Gaza conflict.
Alex:I mean, what is that like? How is that a complicating factor in the race?
Emilio:I It definitely makes it harder among young voters, especially. They're like you said, the Kamala, Brad, coconut thing hasn't worked exactly on everyone. And for students who are particularly concerned about the Biden administration's handling with the war in Gaza, that's a serious weak point. And it's one that I'm not entirely sure that they have a good answer for yet. I think a lot of the times, Kamala's kind of, presented as this compromised candidate except on that one issue.
Alex:Mhmm.
Emilio:It seems to be that for the most part, they kind of skirted around it in hopes that people will end up settling on Kamala Harris less so out of her position on Gaza and more so because she isn't Donald Trump.
Alex:Yeah. Well, really interesting to see if that resonates with some of the more progressive students on campus who've been so vocal about this issue. And and I I feel like we're already seeing it turn a little bit. So much of, at least, you know, the talk we've heard on campus about Gaza has been about, you know, what students say is MSU's role, in the conflict. They talk about divestment from certain funds that they feel are, you know, contributing to the conflict.
Alex:But it'll be interesting. We've seen already, and we'll see over the next few weeks the way that that shifts into more of, like, a national political thing as students are voting rather than, you know, going to board of trustees meetings and all that. But then tell me about this. Other side of the aisle, not the Liberals, not the progressives, campus Republicans. What's the energy like there?
Alex:Has there been as much movement, events, excitement?
Emilio:It's definitely been more low key as of late. They haven't really had any super high profile events. I think just this weekend, the governor of Nebraska, I believe. North Dakota. North Dakota.
Emilio:Was, at the frat party. Exactly. It was
Alex:like a frat party. Like a Trump theme.
Emilio:Yeah. Trump fan
Alex:for the Ohio State game. Mike Balow has been around campus a lot. He's running for MSU board of trustees on the Republican ticket, but he doesn't really talk about national Republican political issues. He's really solely focused on MSU stuff. He's just a Republican as you know, that's the party that put him on the ticket.
Emilio:Right. And you would come to expect that on Michigan State's campus. I mean, generally, it tends to be more level like most college campuses, especially given the location. But, yeah, they haven't had the sort of, you know, high high profile events. The most, the biggest one has probably been Ben Carson's visit to campus, which was, again, last week.
Alex:Well, you wrote a really insightful story about that and kind of, you know, not just the specific kind of policy talk at this event, but there was a a a broader energy that I feel like maybe is an insight into how Republicans on campus are feeling about the state of the race. Tell me, you know, what was this discussion with Ben Carson on campus?
Emilio:Yeah. So just to give a bit of background information. So Ben Carson came on, Wednesday night, and it was through a group that maybe some of us are familiar with Turning Point USA. They're a conservative action group that typically focuses on getting conservative energy to rise up especially on college campuses. I think 2 years ago now, they brought Candace Owens who's a pretty prominent conservative speaker to campus.
Alex:And that was a really high profile event. It generated a lot
Emilio:of controversy.
Alex:And it was a big, a big room just physically the number of people that showed up, and it was, that was quite the spectacle.
Emilio:Yeah. And this here was a little more of a low key event. It was held in Wells Hall. I counted maybe 200, 300 people in attendance. So still, you know Yeah.
Emilio:Sizable attendance, but not as big as 2 years ago, for example.
Alex:Well, Matt Carson, you know, especially for those who don't know, I mean, he's a big deal. He was a cabinet member in Trump's administration. There was a time when he was vying for the Republican nomination to be president. So this is a national figure here on campus talking to students. What do you
Emilio:say? Yeah. So for the most part, he gave a pretty typical conservative speech. Right? He hit on a lot of really, prominent issues that conservative cares about, like, abortion, talked about, you know, the this kind of the the idea of this collapse of the American family, and just generally got it a lot of social ills that he argued were worsening the country and we need to do something about.
Emilio:Yeah. Yeah. And he got at some pretty interesting specifics. I think the most interesting well, one of the more interesting parts of the night, when he made a reference to something called the current communist goals, which was this kind of red scare era, list of activities that supposed communists were doing in America. This was spoken into the congressional record in 1963, and some of it includes stuff that you almost hear today about, you know, communists aim to control the media.
Emilio:They aim to control the schools that disseminate propaganda, and they, you know, promote. I think it I think it describes promoting homosexuality, for example. It's something that's normal, and that's something that Carson apparently is opposed to.
Alex:So this is him sort of bringing back these kind of, you know, red scare talking points.
Emilio:Yeah. It seems eerily similar to them at
Alex:least. And then what about his central kind of message for, like, okay. You've heard me talk about society's ills. Here's what we need to do as conservatives on campus who are outnumbered and whatnot. I mean, what was what did he implore the audience to do?
Emilio:I mean, he speaks about bravery. He speaks about this idea that even if the media is biased against you or even he brings up canceling a lot. He brings up this idea that even if people people shouldn't be scared of cans of being canceled just to stand up for what is right. He even he makes references to the to the soldiers who storm Normandy on d day and saying that we need to harness that kind of energy if we want to really reclaim America. But I think the most interesting part of the night definitely comes in the q and a section.
Emilio:Yeah. When an audience member asks them essentially, you know, it's a it's a 2 parter. It's a 2 part question where he starts with asking, you know, how do you reach across the aisle with these people who I think he used something described them as having no light behind the rise. So clearly, this
Alex:Yeah.
Emilio:Semi dehumanizing language. But how do you work with these people? And Carson gives a fairly diplomatic answer about reaching across the aisle. And then an audience member follows up asking, do you think that, like, in the revolutionary war 2 centuries ago, we'd have to give up our lives? And Ben Carson just kinda looks at him for a second and then goes, we may have to.
Alex:We have to give up our lives for this fight against, you know, woke.
Emilio:Yeah. That was the interesting part.
Alex:The Yeah.
Emilio:The target of of this supposed moral fight is a little unclear. It could just be the ruling class, the left, the woke. But whatever it is, it seems that Carson has endorsed this idea that it's a sufficiently pressing issue that requires that we may have to die for it.
Alex:Wow. That's a hardcore stuff. Yeah. Well, Emilio, thank you for giving us a little update on the politics of campus, what's going on. We'll have to have you back on as we get closer to the election or maybe after the election to talk about how this actually ends up shaking out.
Alex:But I think this is a nice primer as people are getting into election season. Yeah. Well, that's all for now, but we'll be back next week with fresh reporting from these great minds here at State News. Until then, all the stories we discussed and plenty more are available online at statenews.com. Yeah.
Alex:Thank you again to Emilio for coming on the show. Thanks to our podcast coordinator, Taylor. And most of all, thank you for listening. For the 19 09, I'm Alex Walters.