Had A Student Try And Get Into Politics With Me (prior To Going In For Surgery) The Other Week And It

Had a student try and get into politics with me (prior to going in for surgery) the other week and it has stayed with me. If you're unaware, Professors are not supposed to push, espouse, or support any particular political party or rhetoric. We have major policies about it with very considerable consequences. Even courses where things might have a political nature, that are not polisci because they're different, have to be touched upon very carefully lest there be some blowback (e.g. a professor at Texas A&M was talking about Texas's drug laws in a criminology course and how they were ineffective and got in trouble because someone who knew Paxton was a student and felt offended because their "uncle" couldn't be bad).

So of course I didn't say anything. My policy is just to go "yeah, I'm gonna vote" and leave it at that.

Said student went on a mini-tirade though about how Kamala is obviously the better choice, but that they might vote for Trump because Biden and Kamala have been "facilitating a genocide". Said student then had the self awareness to admit that a Trump presidency wouldn't be better, more people would suffer, and it wouldn't "stop the genocide", but they wanted to "punish the Democrats".

My TA and I looked at each other a little wide eyed and the student came out of their fugue state to realize what they'd just said in front of their Professor and TA, gathered their things, and then mumbled something before hurrying out the room.

It's clear they care about the I/P conflict, but also about domestic and foreign policies that would result from this presidency. But their behavior is so quintessential college age activist that I had to highlight it here.

Being passionate about something doesn't mean burning everything down because you don't have the perfect response, especially if you are fully aware that your burning everything would actually make it worse.

Why do that?

It's a completely juvenile and immature response that really shows the quality of the person in that moment, where they are in life, and their intellectual and emotional development.

At least they became cognizant of how unhinged they sounded by the time they were done.