By: Zara Abubakar | Staff-writer
This weekend I had the pleasure of interviewing Abigail Twombly, president of the SRU Republican Club, which is in the process of being approved. E-board members Emma Wojcicki (Secretary) and Eric Peck (Vice President) were also present.
Zara: I’m here with Abigail Twombly, who’s in the process of creating a Republican club on campus. First thing’s first – what prompted you to come up with the idea of creating a Republican club on campus?
Abigail: Well, we don’t have a Republican club right now. We only have a Democrat club, and we also have a Centrist club. And so, I figured well we need to balance it out by adding a Republican club as well, because that’s only fair.
Zara: That is fair. What would you say is your primary goal in creating the club?
Abigail: Definitely to get a political conversation started. I want kids to all be interested from all sides of the political parties, I want to hear all voices, I want people to hear Republican opinions, I want them to hear our thoughts. I don’t want us to be silenced. I want our voices to be heard.
Zara: Good point about your voices being heard, as Salve students have been generally very vocal on campus about political issues. Do you feel like this campus has been generally liberal, or are Republicans a silent majority? Or do you feel that most students just don’t care about politics?
Abigail: I think it’s very political, and it’s definitely a liberal campus. I do think there’s probably a lot of silent Republicans on this campus, I’ve been getting a lot of DMs and people talking to me about how they’re too scared to voice their opinions, but they really like how I’m kind of the voice for all the Republicans on campus. So I think more and more people will come up to us and want to have their voices be heard as well as things keep moving along with the club.
Zara: That’s fantastic. And it’s great that the SRU Dems have expressed interest in debating with you guys.
Abigail: I know! I’m really excited about that, that was a really cool promotion.
Zara: Yeah! What do you guys think are the main topics you’re going to be debating with them?
Abigail: I think all sorts of topics. Definitely anything that’s current right now in the news, like pro-life versus pro-choice, anything that’s mainstream that we’ve been dealing with.
Zara: And are you guys scared of drawing any controversy?
Abigail: No, not really. I think it would be good actually in some way to draw controversy, again, that’s going to get the conversation started.
Zara: Exactly.
Abigail: We want more people to be involved. We want Republican’s voices to actually be heard on this campus instead of being silenced by a lot of the liberals that are on this campus as well.
Zara: It can feel very one-sided at times.
Abigail: Definitely.
Zara: And forming a Republican club at a Catholic institution – do you feel like Republican values match more with Catholic institutions and Salve’s Mercy Mission?
Abigail: I think so. I think that Salve’s Mercy Mission does a good job of that. Balancing all sides, it’s all about everyone being treated fairly and equally. I do think it tends to lean a little bit to the left with their mission statement, but I think Catholic values are also in there as well. And I think having this club will also be a way to balance it all out like I said before.
Zara: I agree. So, election day is coming up very soon – what did you guys think of the first round of debates September 29th?
Abigail: Ooh. It was a little rough. I think Donald Trump made some pretty good points. I think he definitely dominated the debate. But again, he could have been way less aggressive than he was. And obviously the moderator, Chris Wallace, was way too biased. He and Biden were kind of ganging up on Trump the entire time. But it was nice, because I live-posted during that debate. A lot of students voiced their opinions about it as well, and a lot of people agreed.
Zara: So – recently Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett. If she ends up on the Supreme Court, do you think she’ll deliver? The opposition has labelled her as backwards, and even someone who opposes women’s rights. Do you think that’s too far?
Abigail: I think definitely. I think a woman who wants to be on the Supreme Court should be on the Supreme Court. I think it’s ridiculous that a lot of people who call themselves feminists are going against a woman being on the Supreme Court. They are literally protesting against a woman. And they call themselves feminists, they say they want men and women to be equal and treated fairly. And yet, they’re targeting a woman, which goes against their values.
Zara: Some people are saying she might overturn Roe v. Wade – do you think that’s a possibility?
Abigail: I don’t know, I think that’s definitely going to get a lot of opposition if that happens. I think a lot of people are going to disagree with that, so I don’t think it will get quite there, but more power to her, I’m obviously for that, but I think it might be a little bit too controversial.
Zara: I agree. There’s a lot of pro-choice people in our generation.
Abigail: Right.
Zara: Besides the election, we’re living in pretty turbulent times because of this virus. How do you think the Trump administration has handled Covid-19?
Abigail: I think they’ve handled it extremely well. They’ve been getting a lot of hate from the other side because of how strong they’ve been handling it. First of all, they shut down the border from China as soon as they heard about it. They didn’t want any Chinese flights coming into the U.S. And yet people still call Donald Trump and his administration xenophobic for doing that. I think that’s ridiculous because they’re criticizing him for being a strong leader and not wanting other people coming into his country during a pandemic. And yet they’re still saying he ended up causing all these deaths because of his weak leadership. But he was strong from the very beginning by cutting off China.
Zara: People have labelled him as racist or xenophobic because of the China remarks and acts he’s made, but they’re also blaming him because he refuses to wear a mask sometimes, and sometimes at rallies his supporters don’t wear masks. Do you think that’s true?
Abigail: I think at the rallies, they could definitely wear masks. I think masks, technically are important. But again, when you’re talking in front of a large group of people and nobody’s around you, I don’t think you necessarily need to wear a mask. I know Biden he loves to put on the mask when there’s no one around him. Because the mask issue is definitely a big thing right now, I think a lot of people have opinions about it. And you don’t have to wear a mask when no one is around. It’s a political tool right now and Trump knows that, that it’s a political tool for the Democrats. It’s unnecessary to wear a mask when you’re talking in front of a crowd of people when you’re more than six feet away.
Zara: Some people say he had it coming, because he didn’t treat it seriously in the beginning, and now he has tested positive for the Coronavirus. How do you feel about that?
Abigail: I mean yeah. As a president, you’re dealing with tons of people. It’s almost a matter of time, it doesn’t matter if you’re wearing a mask consistently, or you’re following social distancing, when you’re president, you’re dealing with a whole bunch of people. So it makes sense that he got Covid because of the role that he’s in, and tons of people are going to be talking to him. In a way it was a matter of time because any person that is in that high position of authority dealing with all sorts of people and being exposed to those people would most likely get it.
Zara: Young people today are increasingly liberal rather than conservative. Why do you think that is?
Abigail: Definitely celebrities. I think definitely the media as well, and social media platforms like Instagram for example. I think a lot of kids look up to celebrities for their ideas, and voice what they want to say based on what a celebrity says just because they think, “Oh that’s trendy right now! I want to go along with what the herd is saying”. I think it’s mostly about celebrities and mostly social media that’s making kids become liberal.
Zara: Speaking of social media, you said you’ve been the voice of Republican students on campus. Besides the debates that you guys are going to organize with the Democrat club, how else are you going to reach out to students on campus?
Abigail: We definitely want to put up posters. We’re going to make a social media platform dedicated to the Republican club, we’re going to post videos, podcasts as Eric has mentioned, we’re definitely going to talk about our opinions. We want to get our voices to be heard online especially. I think that’s a good way for kids to hear about things, through social media.
Zara: Fantastic. That’s all from me, thank you so much for this interview!
Abigail: You’re welcome!
Disclaimer: This interview was conducted by Zara Abubakar, Class of ’23, and does not reflect the views of The Mosaic newspaper.
