One leads the College Democrats, the other heads the Young Republicans: How roommates defy political polarization
At Salve Regina University, two friends are modeling what political disagreement should look like.
This story is excerpted with permission from a Boston Globe article from Thursday, October 23, by Dan McGowan.
When I met up with Jennie Battcher and Leah Spengler at their apartment in Middletown earlier this week, I was fully expecting to encounter a college sociological experiment gone haywire — two roommates on opposite sides of America’s political divide.
Battcher leads the Young Republicans at Salve Regina University, and Spengler heads up the College Democrats, so surely these 21-year-olds couldn’t see eye-to-eye on the important things, like which flavor of High Noon pairs best with Ramen noodles?
Their living room must have two televisions, I imagined, because Battcher must be glued to Fox News every night for her daily dose of MAGA, with Spengler’s flatscreen stuck on MSNBC and the soothing sounds of Chris Hayes, a Brown graduate, before bed.
I pictured their bedrooms as shrines to their heroes, a wall-size mural of Trump with a Marjorie Taylor Greene lamp for Battcher, and a Zohran Mamdani poster next to a selfie with Bernie Sanders and AOC for Spengler.
What I actually found was something far less dramatic — and maybe more interesting. Two young women who care deeply about politics, but even more about respect.
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