Picture this: it’s an average Wednesday morning, and you’re off to your 10:50 a.m. generic 300-level political science class. The impeachment trial is on everyone’s mind, and is clearly about to set off your professor during his self-indulgent current events discussion at the beginning of class. After you get settled, the door opens behind you and in he walks – wearing a suit, carrying a copy of the Binghamton Review, and displaying a “facts don’t care about your feelings” sticker on his water bottle, it’s the dreaded Devil’s Advocate looking extra-smug today.
This was the reality for many disgruntled political science majors this morning at Binghamton University. A quick glance around the campus will show mostly indifferent or distraught faces, with just a couple of smiles on the faces of smug white Long Island boys. For 20-year-old sophomore Emma Harris, this change in the Devil’s Advocate persona has made class insufferable.
“I swear to god, it was like he walked in with a list of Fox News headlines and other alternative-fact based conservative bullshit ready to piss off the entire class,” Harris said. “I get it, Trump is about to be acquitted, but I wish he’d realize that being a dick ike that will decrease his already low chance of getting laid.”
Ben Wilson, 21, a junior, echoed the sentiments of his classmate in speaking of how empowered his Devil’s Advocate seemed upon entering the classroom today.
“He used to be bad before this, but the second I saw that smirk today, I knew I was in hell,” Wilson said. “On a normal day, he’ll badger and interrupt people incessantly as an argument technique and refer to women as “females” in an uncomfortable way, but today it was just so much worse because he seemed to think he was justified now.”
The BUTT secured an exclusive interview with the very Devil’s Advocate both Harris and Wilson described – Brett Johnson, a 21-year-old junior. Unlike other professional interviews that BUTT reporters have secured, this one lasted barely five minutes before they gave up due to Johnson beginning to reference ‘feminism is cancer’ arguments.
“I have been oppressed on the academic scene for so long with only Reddit as my outlet, who can blame me for having a bit of fun?” Johnson said. “After all, the acquittal is about to happen, and if a President can be acquitted after committing crimes and spewing hateful, racist, sexist, rhetoric, why can’t I be allowed to do it too?”