There’s an honest-to-god Republican in one of my classes. Except… he’s not a Republican like the bunch of shirtshows staing the meltdown. He’s opposed to the government shutdown, and blames ‘30 representatives’ and somehow doesn’t think it reflects badly on the rest of the GOP.

I asked him his opinion on basically every plank of the GOP, and he opposed them. He didn’t know they were the GOP planks. He didn’t know the GOP supported creationism in schools, he thought the percentage of our budget we sent as foreign aid was like 10%, etc. He’s being— rather gently— informed by the professor how wrong he is in the way he thinks the US government works and what we spend our money on, and he’s actually changing his mind and adopting the new info. It’s kind of fascinating, and pretty nifty to see. For some reason he likes talking to me, and tomorrow I’m going to try to get him to really, really take a look at the shudown, at just how cowardly and dangerous it is, how much it is holding party above country in the worst and most despicable way on the part of the GOP, and not just 30 dudes.

He’s an alright kid. I think he grew up in the Hamptons surrounded by incessant whisperings of privilege, but he actually thinks about stuff.