The first Rose Cafe of the semester was a shift from the cafes I’ve been accustomed to. Instead of a lecture, it was largely a conversation. It focused on the recent developments in US politics.

One of my favorite points that Professor Enns talked about was how quick people are to accept their parties’ position on a topic. One reason is that people don’t care as much for some issues as others, so they might as well take their parties’ position on everything. I feel like this is counter-productive. It is hard enough to have a discussion about an issue when someone doesn’t understand the opposition’s argument, but it is even harder when a person doesn’t understand the argument for a position either. I think this phenomenon also happens because people will assign a whole list of positions to you as soon as you reveal preference for a candidate of either party. At some point people just adopt a position since they are always assumed to have it anyways.

Another interesting topic that was touched upon was people having double standards for their party vs the other party. Professor Enns discussed how it is important to recognize whether you dislike something based on principle or because it is being done by the other party. One example of this was how much Republicans were decried for obstruction for many years, but now Democrats in office face strong pressure to oppose everything proposed by the Republicans. It is a valid argument to say the situation is vastly different; however, Democrats now see obstruction in government as a valid, even admirable, tactic. This is why I think they should’ve spent more time trying to gain support for their ideas instead of arguing that Republicans were unfairly blocking Obama’s agenda and that obstruction was ruining government.