Alistair Browning & Goni Wong
Yale Daily News
On Sept. 29, the Yale Political Union hosted Aaron Withe, the CEO of the Freedom Foundation, who debated for the resolution, “Ban Public-Sector Unions.” It’s not a popular argument at Yale. At least, that’s what you’d gather from the YPU Instagram poll posted in the hours before the debate: nearly 80 percent of respondents were opposed.
Would it surprise you to learn that, at the end of that evening, the YPU voted 35-25 in favor of the resolution? The same argument, roughly as popular as herpes, won a comfortable victory. How did an initially marginal view end up sweeping the room? What mattered was that right-wing party members turned out — and left-wing ones didn’t. What mattered, ultimately, was that conservatives showed up to debate — and progressives didn’t.
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