On Aug. 8, around 1:00 a.m., a screenshot from the Yale College Republicans’ Twitter account surfaced on the Facebook feed of Overheard at Yale: “NEWS: The Yale College Republicans will not be supporting Trump in the fall. More information to come.”
Several days earlier, the Harvard Republican Club’s choice not to endorse Donald Trump instigated a media firestorm: Fortune and the Washington Post broadcast the story across the internet and in print. Many Yale undergraduates expected their school’s equivalent to follow suit; inevitably, then, comments on the Overheard at Yale post like “meaningless unless they vote for Hillary” from Isaac Kirk-Davidoff, JE ’18, demonstrated a lack of surprise at the announcement. As dawn broke, however, discord devolved into confusion.
That morning, Emmy Reinwald, TD ’17, Co-President of the Yale College Republicans, commented on the post to share that the Twitter account responsible for the renunciation of Trump—@YaleRepublicans—was impersonating the Yale College Republicans, whose real Twitter account is @YaleGOP. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the Yale College Republicans released an official statement, which the organization affixed to the comments on the original Overheard at Yale Post. This time, the Yale College Republicans were endorsing Donald Trump for president.
Commentators like Kristen Wright, TD ‘18, quickly demanded clarification: “Does this mean the Yale GOP supports Trump?” she asked online.
Within days, it became clear that the more appropriate question was not whether the “Yale GOP” had endorsed the Republican candidate, but instead if this organization existed at all. On Aug. 11, the Yale Free Press announced the formation of a new student group, Yale Conservatives Against Trump (YUCAT). Just one day later, word spread about the creation of another conservative organization: the Yale New Republicans. Tables at the annual undergraduate Extracurricular Bazaar, held at Payne Whitney Gymnasium, would be especially crowded this fall—and with Republican student groups, nonetheless.
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The question of whether the Yale College Republicans should endorse its party’s presidential candidate had long been a source of contention among members. Mike Fitzgerald, SM ’19, former treasurer of the Yale College Republicans, said: “About a week before the Overheard Post, we had a debate among the board members about whether or not we were going to endorse Trump. The consensus was basically that we weren’t going to say anything, and if people asked we would just say that we were committed to supporting Republicans.” When the Overheard at Yale post surfaced, Ben Rasmussen, JE ’18, former vice president of the Yale College Republicans, messaged the organization’s members to discuss what to do. It was then that he heard the news: “The statement was already up.”
The presidents of the Yale College Republicans, Reinwald and Michaela Cloutier, CC ’18, had released the statement without the knowledge or support of the group’s members. This was a shock to Rasmussen: “I mean, I was the vice president, and I was just like, ‘What? The statement’s up?’ Nobody ran anything by me. So I felt stabbed in the back, betrayed, because we had the numbers: the majority of the group did not want to endorse Trump. That’s when ideologically and morally I just couldn’t stand by the group anymore.”
Both presidents refused all requests for an interview. Instead, Reinwald said in an email: “Our group’s constitution (which was unanimously approved by our board members in April) states we will support all Republican nominees up for election.”
Rasmussen’s initial response was shock: “I thought we had the numbers to stop the group from supporting Trump. I thought that we had the majority and could keep the group silent, so I wasn’t thinking of leaving as that serious of a threat.”
But he may have been the only one—Fitzgerald, the treasurer, resigned immediately. He never second-guessed his decision: “The week before it happened, I told them that if they endorsed Trump I would resign,” he said. Soon, over half of the executive board of the Yale College Republicans had resigned.
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For many, however, resignation was just the beginning: within hours of his resignation, Rasmussen approached Fitzgerald about creating the Yale New Republicans. “We really didn’t want to be a part of [the Yale College Republicans], but we also really didn’t want to give it up altogether so that’s when we began talking about creating a new club, and it spawned from that,” Fitzgerald said. Jay Mondal, CC ’19, and Grant Gabriel, TC ’17, also resigned from the Yale College Republicans to join the New Republicans.
Immediately, the group sought to establish itself as principled and forthright: “We emailed the co-presidents of the Yale College Republicans before we sent out our statement saying why we did what we did on the New Republicans’ Facebook page,” Ben Rasmussen said. “We didn’t really want them to feel like we were stabbing them in the back in any way. We wanted to be completely transparent.”
But relations between the Yale College Republicans and New College Republicans have remained strained: “I do not think they were expecting other board members to resign,” Fitzgerald says. “I think there’s definitely a level of frustration, especially because there aren’t many Republicans at Yale, so I know they went a few months last year with open board positions. Now they’re in a position where they have to fill four slots, and I don’t think that’s an easy process.”
Reinwald and Cloutier responded to the New College Republicans’ email over the summer. Their response, Rasmussen said, was “cordial on the surface but definitely tense—kind of like, ‘I don’t know what the need for another conservative party on campus really is, but I guess you have your reasons.’”
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This question—of whether there exists room for a group like the New College Republicans—has guided Rasmussen and Fitzgerald as they look to define themselves in relation to other conservative groups on campus.
Fitzgerald explained: “Our focus is creating a more inclusive, conservative Republican message that can draw people into the party. Our vision definitely does not end in November. We are looking to be a long-term organization and to fill the spot that the Yale College Republicans never filled.” Rasmussen reiterated Fitzgerald’s sentiments, emphasizing in particular his desire for an active on-campus presence: “[The Yale College Republicans] doesn’t really do too much. Last year I think we me met one or two times in the entire year. Attendance is dropping. It’s really just seen as laughable. So I think that my motivation was to create a conservative political action organization on Yale’s campus.”
It is this emphasis on long-term community building that distinguishes the Yale New Republicans from other anti-Trump conservative organizations. YUCAT, for one, focuses its efforts exclusively on preventing Trump from entering the White House. Alexander Michaud, DC ’17, the founder and president of YUCAT, told the Yale Free Press earlier this year: “Our work will be done when Trump is defeated in November.”
But Karl Notturno, SM ’17, a Trump supporter, has another theory: “Yale Conservatives against Trump—I’m not sure about this, but just from looking at what it is, I have a feeling that it’s a front group for the Party of the Right. So I think that it’s probably a tool.” Notturno highlighted Michaud’s central role in the Yale Political Union’s Party of the Right. The Herald reached out to Michaud for a comment, but received no response.
Regardless of whether there is space for the Yale New Republicans within Yale’s political community, other on-campus groups are making room for those who have rejected the Republican presidential nominee. Josh Hochman, BK ‘18, who serves as the Yale College Democrats’ campus and community coordinator, said: “We would love to engage with more people who don’t consider themselves Democrats but share a goal with us. Our organization is about winning elections and passing bills. We’re not about maintaining a level of ideological purity.”
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That the Yale College Democrats are more eager to work with disenchanted conservatives than are the Yale College Republicans attests to a broader reorganization of the political spectrum, both here at Yale and beyond. Of this phenomenon, Rasmussen said: “If we take a step back on those sorts of issues and focus on issues that have always been very beneficial to our party such as strong national defense, strong conservative economics, and take it back to the party of Lincoln, Reagan—the great Republican presidents that have come and gone through our party—then I think we can get more voters.”
While Rasmussen and the Yale New Republicans believe that the future of conservatism at Yale lies in rejecting Trump, Notturno sees things differently: “Republicans have everything to lose if they don’t vote for Trump. What those people are banking on is that Trump will lose, the Republican party will just snap back to what it was, and that they’ll be viewed as the heroes who never left. However, I think that if Trump loses, then the Republican Party self-implodes, because almost everyone who was for Trump—which is now about 90 to 95 percent of the party—will look at those never-Trumpers as whiny jerks who cost them the election.”
Then again, some of this friction is unique to Yale’s limited conservative scene—where the rejection of Republican candidates is often a personal affront. “You’re talking about relatively small groups whose dynamics are largely defined by individual people,” Notturno explained. Rasmussen and Fitzgerald, too, admitted that the founding of the Yale New Republicans was in great part a response to their feeling disrespected by the choice of the Yale College Republicans’ presidents to endorse Trump without consulting them.
Beyond Republican circles, too, students identify conservatism here at Yale in terms of its most vocal advocates. John Chirikjian, TD ’17, described Notturno and Reinwald as “famously vocal about their support of Trump”—and, as a consequence, well-known around campus. A sophomore in Silliman, who asked to remain anonymous, shared that some members of the residential college’s community differentiate between Fitzgerald and another student with the same first name by calling him “Republican Mike.”
Over the summer, approximately 20 people emailed the New College Republicans to express interest in the organization. Another 30-35 students registered with the group at this year’s Extracurricular Bazaar.
Outside Yale’s gates, too, conservatives have grappled with the very same question: whether to embrace the changing face of the Republican party or to reject it—to stand with Reinwald and Cloutier, or to defect with Rasmussen and Fitzgerald. In July, notorious Republican billionaire Charles Koch told Fortune of the presidential race: “If I had to vote for cancer or a heart attack, why would I vote for either?” Earlier this week, the Arizona Republic endorsed a Democratic candidate for the first time in its 126-year history. Even President George H.W. Bush is said to support Clinton over Trump.
Rasmussen sees this shift within the Republican party not as a rift, but instead as an opportunity to affect much-needed change. “We are certainly a bit more moderate, because the only way that we’re going to achieve our goal of getting a, more support and followers, is to modernize,” Rasmussen said. “This isn’t just our problem; this is the Republican Party’s problem.”