By Joey Hart, Asst. Editorial Editor
Jared Krauser, political science major, says he regularly leaves his laptop open with Politico articles on the screen to show other students that he knows about politics.
Krauser, a sophomore, explains that he usually does this in general education classes so that other students know he is majoring in political science. He says he even leaves open videos on occasion to ensure that passersby notice what he has been browsing.
"Yeah, it's pretty cool that everyone is paying attention to politics right now because there's an election," Krauser says. "But I just want to make sure you guys know that I'm a total political junkie, no matter the time of year."
Explaining that he has already finished two poli-sci courses at Miami, Krauser says he knows what he is talking about. He notes that he loves telling friends about the latest FiveThirtyEight election forecasts and how Gary Johnson could still technically be chosen by the House of Representatives. He proceeds to list off every election where the candidate that won the popular vote didn't win the electoral college count.
"It's like a sport to me, politics is," Krauser says. "I guess I'm just a really unique guy in that I love it so much. Hey, did you know that two democracies have never gone to war with each other?"
Krauser explains that in between retweeting posts from political analysts that none of his friends have ever heard of, one of his favorite pastimes is debating obscure acquaintances from high school on Facebook about the election.
"My favorite opening phrase to use on social media is 'Coming from someone who actually studies politics,'" he says. "It just lets people know that I have an enlightened opinion."
Krauser says he will be spending his election day drafting tweets that all in some way indicate that he knew exactly what the result would be before it happened.
"All the tweets are mostly written, I just have to fill in the name of Trump or Clinton depending on who actually wins the election," he says. "After that, I have to make sure that I save enough time to copy people's analyses from the politics subreddit and post them on Facebook as if they were my own."
hartjt@miamioh.edu