Students from CMU, United Kingdom debate US Presidential election
Two students from the United Kingdom visited Central Michigan University to engage in a debate with CMU’s debate team at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15 in the Park Library Auditorium.
The students from the U.K. paired off with two students from the CMU debate team. CMU is just one stop on the National Communication Association’s Committee on International Discussion and Debate tour which started in September and will continue through November.
David Jones, a graduate of the University of Wales, and Danny Province, a second year graduate student at CMU from Missouri, were given the task of encouraging the audience to vote for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“What Trump is doing is effectively doing is a piece of performance art,” Jones said. "Without the kinds of comments that Trump has made, he never would have been able to capture the Republican machine."
James Baross, graduate of the University of Warwick, and Danny McQuarters, a first year graduate student at CMU, were on the opposing side.
They were tasked with not necessarily encouraging the audience to vote for Clinton, but to not vote for Trump.
Before delving into the issues Jones taped a picture of the Queen Elizabeth to his podium to bring some royalty to the debate he joked. His debate partner Province later taped a picture of Beyoncé to their shared podium when it was his turn to speak as she is "American royalty," he said.
“The Republican party itself is perfectly happy to go along with sexist actions, as long as it’s not called out into public,” Jones said. "(Trump) calls attention to the hypocrisy within the Republican party."
Trump has already called attention to the hypocrisy during his campaign, Baross responded. Making him president would not advance that mission, he said.
Kingsley sophomore Audrianah Shavrnoch agreed with Jones and Province on the point that to actually break down the party and make policy changes, what Trump's done on the campaign isn’t enough. He would have to be president to do so, she said.
Joseph Packer, director of debate and communication and dramatic arts professor closed the debate by asking for a show of hands as to who had won. A large majority of the audience raised their hands for Jones and Province’s argument in favor of Trump.
“The thing that I really enjoy about debating as an intellectual activity is that it forces you to consider both sides of an issue before creating an argument about it," Mount Pleasant graduate student, Rebecca Conklin said."The people that were defending Trump, maybe in their real lives don’t actually defend Trump, but they had to exercise their intellectual abilities to be able to find convincing reasons that you might vote for him.”
Baross said travelling on this tour allows him to see all the bits of the U.S. that he would never have seen as a tourist.
This tour also allows him to have a “proper cultural exchange,” he said.
“It’s really valuable and useful to be able to have some sort of outsider perspective on our election,” Packer said.
