It all started with an Instagram picture of President Donald Trump and a eight-paragraph caption.

Justin Buckner, the president of Chapman Republicans, and the rest of the political student organization wanted to promote a message supporting Trump’s accusations of voter fraud in the 2020 general election. The intention was to simply support the legal system and the right to a fair election, Buckner said. No big deal.

Except left-wing and right-wing Chapman University students, alumni and external commenters flooded the Nov. 6 post, creating a battleground of political and personal dissent. Chapman Republicans usually receive somewhere between 10 to 20 comments on their Instagram post. But the number on this Instagram post exploded to over 1,500.

“All publicity is good publicity … My phone was lighting up for 24 hours straight,” said Buckner, a junior broadcast journalism and documentary major. “We put our views out there, and they responded with their views.”

The Chapman Republican’s caption argued that “an attempt to win this election (was made) through dishonest and criminal means.” The student organization then went on to specifically denounce four actions, all of which have not been confirmed as fact: the alleged ballot counter tampering, the alleged inaccurate news coverage, the alleged illegitimate voting and the alleged coordinated social media and news organization censorship against Trump.

Initially, as more liberal students began to share the post around and comment, there were approximately 300 messages criticizing the club, Buckner said. However, when conservative political commentator James Klug shared the post on his Instagram story – out of the blue, according to Buckner – the comments section turned into an ideological debate.  

“People came in and said we should change the name of our club to some pretty terrible things, so it was pretty obvious that they didn’t respect our viewpoints at all,” Buckner said. “It wasn’t a cool thing to do, especially when you’re trying to preach tolerance of other people’s ideas and beliefs … It was almost like the commenters got what they deserve when somebody else put it on their story.”

Not many comments within the post involved constructive dialogue, as most were instead inflamed with ad hominem attacks from Democrats and Republicans alike. However, Megan Williams, a junior communication studies major, made one of the few compassionate statements. Williams asserted that although she voted for President-elect Joe Biden, she believes freedom of speech grants others the ability to freely express support for their candidate of choice.

“I don’t believe there was any fraud involved … but the comments actually made me feel pretty upset,” she said. “I don’t believe (Chapman Republicans is) saying anything that they think is invalid or saying anything just to get attention … For me personally, it was enough that I voted, and I wish others felt that way too.”

Williams added that there should either be respectful discussion on both ends of the political spectrum or no attempts to change people’s political perspectives at all. Benjamin Kieda, senior animation and visual effects major, came to a similar conclusion, noting an argument he had with another social media commenter who claimed he wasn’t xenophobic, but asserted Muslims invoke crime and violence. 

“A lot of the people are so backwards thinking,” Kieda said. “It’s better not to engage. You really can’t change anybody’s mind over the internet.”

In one particular response to a “Y'all are goofy as hell” comment left by Olivia Harden, a Chapman 2019 alumna, Chris Moore, a Chapman 2020 alumnus, wrote back, “you look more like a he/him,” in a rebuttal to the alumna’s expressed “she/her” pronouns in her Instagram biography. Buckner defended Moore’s right to free speech.

“She obviously criticized our viewpoint on the situation, and he criticized her lifestyle,” Buckner said. “You can argue that one is worse than the other, but they’re both freedoms that both parties enjoy.”

News of the inflammatory language associated with the Instagram comments wasn’t contained within the student body. The word spread to Chapman University staff and Dean of Students Jerry Price, who told The Panther “social media can be an ugly place.” Price said the university won’t insert itself or become involved in social media disagreements unless an individual is physically threatened or targeted in a harassing manner.

“There’s certainly some ugly things, but they seem to be more generalized comments,” Price said. “The ones that are targeting are things that seem to be related to someone’s appearance, which again is ugly and probably deserving of some type of conversation, even if it doesn't come out to a violation.”

Buckner mentioned that he believed the discourse over the political divide between Trump and Biden supporters was taken to extreme levels. 

“We’re witnessing history right now, so people should sit back, enjoy life on their own and stop caring about it so much right now,” he said.