Hello Red State Readers! My name is Nicholas C. Fondacaro, but you can call me Nick.  I attend Binghamton University and I am a part of the conservative minority on this liberal campus.  I am a political science major one of the few conservative students in the program.  I am an Associate Editor of our campus’ conservative/libertarian paper, the Binghamton Review.  I am heavily involved in our campus’ College Republicans branch.  I am also heavily involved in our campus political system; I am the Speaker of our Student Assembly.  I have attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (in DC) for the past two conferences.  I describe myself as more of a libertarian with conservative leanings.  I call myself a conservative because I see conservatism as the “big tent of conservatism” that goes back to the 80s.  I am a proud young warrior for our movement, but I was not always a solid conservative warrior.

In high school I called myself a Republican, but I was more of a right leaning moderate.  I was very naïve about politics.  I didn’t know much about the constitution, the effects of liberal policies, and corruption in the system.  I thought government had the ability to solve our problems and for the most part only did good deeds.  I was oblivious to what progressivism was founded on and negative effects it has had on our country.  I put too much faith in what my liberal teachers were telling me.  There were conservative teachers in the school but not as many as liberal ones.  Conservative ideas made more sense to me then some of the stuff my teachers said but I lacked a proficient ability or knowledge base to question or rebut them.

When I was a freshman in college (2008-2009) I still was very naïve about politics.  When I talked politics with some liberal students I would try to hear them out and remain civil.  They on the other hand would be little my views my views and generally not as open mined as they claimed to be.  During that spring Obama administration policies showed me what liberalism and big government were all about.  Late in that spring semester there was a new political movement started helping me articulate what I knew made sense to me (Hint: it starts with a T and ends in Party).  It wasn’t until my sophomore year (2009-2010) that I learned what it really meant to be a conservative.

That year was a very important year in my development as a conservative warrior in our movement.  From its first rally on tax day that year I was drawn to the Tea Party.  To me what they were saying made sense, one would say it was common sense.  An influence on me at the time was Glenn Beck.  I would watch his show on Fox News whenever I could.  I would go out and by some of the books he would recommend.  I also read almost all of Glenn’s books and listened to his radio show.  From there I started reading any conservative book I could get my hands on.  I started listening to Rush Limbaugh and a little bit of Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.  I could not better articulate and debate my conservative point of view.  I would often get into long argumentative debates with my roommate who, I found out through our debates, is one of the left’s useful idiots.  As the year progressed I became more entrenched in the Tea Party.

I became so entrenched in the Tea Party that, when I was a Junior, I tried to start a Tea Party chapter on campus, as a student group.  To get the group started I needed to collect 100 signatures.  So to get them I went to a meeting of our campus’ college Republicans.  It was the first time I attended one of their meetings.  At the time they had a pretty good following and they were pretty open to Tea Party ideals, naturally.  At the time I also started writing for the Binghamton Review where I became their Tea Party liaison.  Between these two student groups and the fight I would have to go through for our share of the limited student funding, I decided to not create the group.  Instead I decided to utilize both groups for Tea Party ends, I have been pretty successful.

Finding all this other conservatives on this liberal campus filled me with a new zeal.  The new zeal found its way into my classes.  I would call out my liberal professors for their blatant idiocy and their hypocrisy.  I had a professor named Patrick Regan (look him up), for a Issues in World Politics class, I would sit in class with my laptop calling him out on nearly everything he said.  At the end of the class he said to me “Because of you I will no longer allow laptops in my class.”  During the class I got him to admit how bogus a lot of academia is.  He said “I’m in academia I don’t need to worry about real world application.”  With another professor who is a self proclaimed communist I was able to talk her in a circle and agree with Tea Party ideals.  I challenge all my professors to this day.

What helps fuel this resistance is a book I read.  The book is Righteous Indignation by Andrew Breitbart.  His book motivated me like no other book had before.  It spurred me to more actively combat the left where ever it is.  I was motivated to become a part of the new media movement.  I got a twitter account and apply to get this diary.  Andrew Breitbart helped me find a direction I want to go with my degree.  He played a huge role in shaping who I am today and what I want to do in the future.  I have one more year of college and I hope to leave in a blaze of political glory.

You can follow me on twitter @NickFondacaro, the Binghamton Review @binghamtonrev, and the Binghamton University College Republicans @BingRepublicans.  Thank you for reading!