The Bowdoin Orient

In this column two weeks ago, I tried to write about my understanding of the relationship between conservatism and the mission of the College. At the risk of harping too much on the subject, I want to expand a bit on that column and be a bit more specific about what I mean by “conservatism.” There are a lot of misconceptions and unfair caricatures surrounding the term, no thanks to our current commander-in-chief, and I thought it would be helpful to clarify for the sake of improving dialogue between the left and right.

At the outset, I should note that conservatism is not a single political ideology. According to British political theorist Michael Oakeshott, it is a disposition which inclines people to prefer “certain kinds of conduct and certain conditions of human circumstances to others.” The vagueness of this definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation in particular cases, but there are some defining characteristics of the conservative disposition that remain more or less the same.

Conservative thinker Russell Kirk drew some of these traits from the intellectual tradition he carefully traced from Irish statesman Edmund Burke to T.S. Eliot in his seminal book “The Conservative Mind.” These include adherence to custom, belief in the principle of prudence and the preference of voluntary community over forced association. At its heart, the conservatism Kirk describes is not inherently political but is a way of seeing the world that intimately informs the way we live and act within it. This has definite political implications, but these are always secondary to conservatism’s primary concern for ordered and peaceful life.

When these general traits are applied to more specific political programs, it should not be a surprise to see some variety and disagreement. In fact, this is one of the great strengths of conservatism. There is room for those who put an emphasis on liberty and classify themselves as libertarians, as well as “crunchy cons” like “American Conservative” blogger Rod Dreher who place more value upon the communal and traditional side of conservatism. Because there are no thought police to enforce uniformity among its ranks, conservatism has always thrived on vibrant debates over its foundational principles.

Of course, if you think I am painting too rosy a picture of conservative unity, then you are correct. It would be a stretch to say that all conservatives are equally devoted to the principle of prudence in politics, for example. But my point is not to justify what every conservative believes or says as a legitimate expression of conservative principles. Rather, I wish to give a slightly more personal take on conservatism and why I think it is so important to recognize the virtues of that self-identification.

For me, the most important aspect of conservatism is its tendency to approach politics with caution and not to endow it with the characteristics of a life or death struggle. There is a temptation in modern politics to engage in a “politics of the eschaton” where every battle will lead either to salvation or Armageddon.  In contrast, the conservative recognizes that politics is a necessary but secondary realm of human activity. It is not important as an end in itself, as if political action could save souls or usher in the Kingdom of God. Rather, it is necessary as a means to living a peaceful collective life, where every individual is left with a sphere of freedom in which he or she can live out a moral and meaningful life.

This is an especially important outlook to have in today’s political climate. It allows us to focus not on the grand political schemes but to turn the light on our own souls to determine whether we are using our freedom in an appropriate manner. As the recently departed scholar Michael Novak noted, there are two kinds of liberty: “one precritical, emotive, whimsical, proper to children; the other critical, sober, deliberate, responsible, proper to adults.” If the former type of liberty dominates among a population, no amount of state control can maintain order. But if the latter does, then order can be maintained with a limited amount of state action and the individual can be truly free to pursue the good life for him or herself.

So as a conservative, I am far more interested in cultivating the virtues in my own life that are conducive to sustaining a free society and in assisting my neighbor in doing the same. I have no grand vision for society that I would like to impose on everyone else. Contrary to popular perception, being a conservative does not mean wanting to bring society back to some “golden age” where everything was supposedly better. I know that history is always far more complicated than the narratives we build to explain it, so I don’t have any illusions about the dangers of naïve nostalgia. But if reclaiming the virtues necessary to sustaining our republic means going back in time to determine how we can be better citizens, I am all for using the wisdom of past ages as our guide.  

With these brief thoughts on my own political inclinations, hopefully I have at least done a little to reclaim some intellectual respectability for conservatism. Given the current political climate, I think that’s a necessary first step to improving political dialogue on campus.

Last Friday, the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good partnered with a number of student organizations to put on an event called “Partisanship on Campus: Confronting a Culture of Caution.” In keeping with President Clayton Rose’s mission to foster intellectual diversity on campus, the discussion focused on both the nature of the problem of political homogeneity and ideas for possible solutions. There were a number of good questions and comments, but one student posed a question that particularly intrigued me. Essentially, he asked whether conservatism is underrepresented on campus because its values are in fact opposed to the mission of the College to advance values of equality and inclusiveness.

The thrust of the question may have been aimed more at the appalling opinions held by some Trump supporters than at conservatism in general, but I think there is a point to be made about the incongruity of conservative values with the mission the College has set for itself today. If this is the case, then it is possible that the deficiency of political diversity on campus is driven by more than just a dearth of conservative students. The problem lies instead with the fundamental assumptions of the College that directly contradict the core values of conservatives.

 For at least the last half-century, the American academy has on the whole viewed conservatism with skepticism at the very best and downright hostility at worst. This is probably not due to any personal animus on the part of individual professors, but is largely a function of how colleges and universities frame their own role in society. By seeking to advance scientific knowledge in both the natural sciences and the humanities, some colleges largely disregard conservatives for their stubborn insistence upon the value of the past and their reticence towards the very notion of historical progress. When the goal is not to preserve the wisdom of past ages but to change this one for the better, the conservative can only act as an impediment to the very goals of higher education.

New York University moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done extensive work to point out the inherent biases in the social sciences and in academia more generally. He is the director of “Heterodox Academy,” a site that provides a great primer on how the underlying assumptions of disciplines such as sociology psychology and to an extent, political science, actually constitute a very particular way of envisioning human nature. These assumptions happen to be based entirely upon what we might generally call a liberal worldview. Haidt identifies several of these “entrenched but questionable” assumptions, including the view that humans are “blank slates,” that humans naturally possess universal human rights and the role that society plays in “constructing” the individual through impersonal social forces.

These beliefs provide the foundation for those disciplines which hope to not only describe social conditions, but also to change them. This outlook has spread beyond the confines of the social sciences and has affected how many modern academics envision their task—that is, to draw attention to unjust social relations, to expose them to critical analysis and to work toward reform in the name of social justice. These are such verities in academia today that to question them does indeed seem very heterodox, perhaps even heretical. Indeed, you might say that any worldview that denies these accepted facts is not really worthy of inclusion in an academic environment.

But I submit that conservatives offer a perfectly reasonable alternative to many of the orthodoxies held by academics and students today, for conservatism is not simply a political ideology. It is a disposition that inclines people to regard any attempt to change human nature for the better with skepticism. It recognizes that man is a flawed creature and that any attempt to improve society by reducing man to an object of study is bound to end in failure and will often make us worse off. 

The goal of the social sciences and humanities to improve the world we live in is laudable, but only insofar as they take into account the accumulated wisdom of the past and the inherent limits to human endeavors. The conservative acts not only as a boring scold who puts roadblocks in front of human progress, but rather as someone who questions the very notion of historical progress in the first place. For conservatives, the academy is important not because of its revolutionary capacities, but because of its function as a repository of the wisdom of the past. It is at this unique place that we meet with the great minds who came before us and dealt with many of the same perennial problems that we encounter with human nature. What we find may challenge our most deeply held convictions, but that is precisely the point of a liberal education.

The liberal assumptions challenged by this outlook are deeply entrenched in our campus culture, and many will find it offensive even to suggest that they are open to questioning. But if we are truly interested in intellectual diversity on campus, we must allow this alternative worldview to have a place in academic discourse. Rather than writing off the conservative view of human nature as outdated and wrong-headed, we would do well to take it seriously enough to chasten some of the assumptions that lie at the heart of the College’s mission.

On January 10, 2017, former President Barack Obama delivered his farewell address to the nation. It was a classic showcase of the rhetorical skill that brought Obama to the national spotlight years ago, which served him well in his two terms as president. But tension lay at the heart of his message between his attempt to frame the successes of his presidency and his rather urgent call to action to save our democracy in the face of Trump’s presidency. The tension between his promise of change and his ability to keep those promises raises questions about how his presidency will be remembered, especially in the face of the uncertainty surrounding the new administration. I know I am painting with broad strokes here, but I believe Obama will be remembered for his largely successful domestic policies, failed foreign policies and dangerous expansion of executive powers.

As far as domestic policy goes, I believe his record on the economy will be remembered as quite successful. Our recovery from the 2008 recession has been long and slow, but it has been much stronger than recoveries in most other developed countries and employment has rebounded to higher levels. How much of this should be credited to Obama’s leadership is certainly up for debate, but as presidents usually receive blame or praise for the state of the economy when they leave office, I think Obama will be well-remembered on this score.

Obama’s single greatest accomplishment in domestic policy was the Affordable Care Act. Healthcare reform was one of Obama’s central campaign promises in the 2008 election, and whatever you think of the law, everyone can agree that he did accomplish something significant. Twenty million people gained insurance as a result of the law, many of whom would have previously been denied coverage due to preexisting conditions. But the law remains deeply controversial, mostly because of the structuring of the heavily regulated individual exchanges and individual mandate that requires everyone to purchase health insurance. As premiums rise and competition in the state exchanges decreases, it is possible that some of Republicans’ worst fears will come true and the law will end up costing taxpayers more than originally promised. That is, of course, only in the unlikely event that Republicans don’t pull the plug on the law before it gets that far.

In foreign policy, Obama came into office with a fairly promising agenda. He intended to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reorient our priorities away from spreading democratic values through unilateral military action. Throughout his presidency, Obama remained deeply suspicious of military intervention and even used the mantra “Don’t do stupid shit” as a sort of guiding philosophy for his foreign policy.  

While no one will disagree with the wisdom of that statement, it is an open question whether this skeptical attitude really helped him develop coherent foreign policy positions in response to international conflict. If we look at his policies in the Middle East, it seems he has not fully succeeded in this regard. There are still American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan—granted, there are far fewer than when he came into office. We have engaged in bombing campaigns and supported various factions in civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen, all of which are far worse off than they were eight years ago. Obama’s skepticism toward increasing military commitments may be wise, but that doesn’t change the fact the U.S. is today just as involved in military conflicts with no clear aim and no end in sight.

Of course, it is unfair to blame Obama for things out of his control, such as the rise of ISIS and foreign civil wars that would have happened regardless of his actions. But the president does have considerable power to shape the strategic objectives of American foreign policy and take actions consistent with those ends. I believe his main problem was a lack of clarity in his view of America’s place in the world. He rejected the idea that America is endowed with a certain moral authority to enforce democratic values around the world, but his actions in response to the Arab Spring and Ukrainian uprising show that he was just as willing as his predecessor to use American power to shape the world in our image. And despite his skepticism of “nation-building,” our troops are committed to that very task in Afghanistan for years to come.

Finally, the Obama administration has continued to expand the powers of the “Imperial Presidency,” which refers to a president’s executive powers that have grown unchecked for the better part of the past half-century. His ordering of extrajudicial drone strikes, expansion of National Security Agency surveillance capabilities and liberal use of executive orders are a legacy that even Democrats have expressed concern with. Especially now that all of these tools have been handed to Donald Trump, a man whose lack of respect for rule of law and restraint are, shall we say, not exactly encouraging.

All things considered, I believe President Obama had his share of successes and failures, but his inability to bring about much of the change he promised leaves his legacy in an ambiguous position. And although many will remember him more kindly as the Trump presidency wears on, I think it is wise to reflect critically on Obama’s accomplishments before donning our rose-colored glasses.

In the wake of this year’s presidential election, I think most of us in this country are ready for some Christmas cheer to liven our spirits as we count down the days to Donald Trump’s inauguration. But before we rush to forget our collective sorrows in the ritual consumption of the holiday season, I think we would do well to remember that Christmas is still a few weeks away, and we are just now entering the Christian liturgical season of Advent. Although today it is drowned out by the good cheer marketed by corporations looking out for their bottom line, we should not forget that Advent is primarily a time for somber reflection in anticipation of the birth of Christ. And I think there is no better time for an honest evaluation of the seemingly hopeless nature of our political situation.

Now I know many of you may not share the Christian faith that informs my reflections here.  But I do hope that what I have to say about what this time of year means to me may provide you with some degree of hope in light of the present political circumstances.

Christ’s Advent is the fulfillment of centuries of Messianic expectations of the nation of Israel, which remained at the hands of foreign oppressors through much of its history. God promised his people that he would send a Messiah to sit on the throne of David and to conquer their enemies. Many of these promises come out of the Book of Isaiah, which was written at a time of great political turmoil. King Ahaz had formed an alliance with the Assyrians to protect Judah against attack, but because he did not trust in God to deliver them, that alliance would lead to years of Assyrian domination.

It was in this context that Isaiah wrote the words of prophecy that form a common backdrop to Advent reflections: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). In the face of imminent political oppression, this promise gave Israel the hope of a ruler who would not only conquer its enemies, but would also establish an everlasting Kingdom founded with “justice and righteousness.”  The message of Advent is that this king has come and that he arrived in the unexpected form of the infant Jesus.  

The good news for us is that with the coming of Christ, the promise of deliverance God made to Israel is applied to all of humanity which yearns for liberation from the oppression of sin and death. Christians believe that we are now living in the time between Christ’s first coming, when he conquered death through his resurrection and established his eternal Kingdom, and his second coming which will bring that Kingdom to full fruition on earth. In the meantime we live under the authority of rulers on earth while still bowing to Christ the King, whose first coming we celebrate and whose second coming we await in eager anticipation. All political activity exists within this framework, in this in-between time that the season of Advent represents.

Now what has any of this to do with our own political situation? I suggest that these Advent reflections should give us a hopeful outlook on all the uncertainties and political troubles of our time. President-elect Donald J. Trump is just another of a long line of rulers to assume power during this time of waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promised Kingdom. But the important lesson of Advent is that power does not belong to him, nor does it belong to the political structures that he now has authority over. Trump may turn out to be a good or a bad ruler, but his power is no more than temporary in light of the Advent promise of the establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.

This is the hope that I wish to inject into some of our more depressing political conversations.  Now, I obviously don’t expect everyone to share my faith in Jesus Christ, but I do hope that there is still something very valuable to be gained from these reflections. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of political happenings and forget that there are things that lie far beyond the horizons of our recurring election cycles. These lasting things should give us grounds for hope by allowing us to see all of our troubles within a much more comprehensive framework. For me, it is my faith in Christ’s Advent and in the coming of his Kingdom that allows me to set my sights beyond the uncertainties of our political moment.

One salient feature of this year’s electoral season has been the resurgence of populism as a potent political force. This came as a shock to many in the United States, but if we look elsewhere in the world we will find that ours is not an isolated case. Last spring, the United Kingdom (U.K.) saw a similar wave of populist resentment sweep the nation in the “Brexit” vote in which the U.K. bid an unceremonious “adieu” to the European Union (E.U.). The unexpected nature and tremendous consequences of that vote have drawn obvious comparisons to our own situation and, for that reason, it might be helpful to look to the U.K.’s handling of Brexit in considering how America moves forward from this election.

The big issue currently facing the U.K. government is how it can obey the will of the people by leaving the E.U. while also following proper constitutional procedure. A recent High Court ruling has thrown a wrench in the government’s plan to start negotiations with other E.U. nations by requiring Parliament’s approval before it can begin. It is a complicated issue. Basically, Prime Minister Theresa May had planned on negotiating the terms of Brexit under the powers of royal prerogative that give Her Majesty’s Government the power to make decisions regarding international treaties. This is how May and her cabinet intended to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and trigger the exit from the E.U. in accordance with the will of the majority of citizens.

But the court’s ruling asserted the sovereignty of Parliament over any action that would affect the rights of citizens. And because Brexit revokes certain rights granted to U.K. citizens under the 1972 European Communities Act, it is necessary for Parliament to give its approval before any negotiations take place. The government had already planned on repealing that act in Parliament, but would have only done so near the end of negotiations to finalize the formal split. In effect, this ruling has allowed Parliament to get involved at the beginning of the process, giving members of parliament a greater say regarding the terms of the U.K.’s exit.

Not many people believe that Parliament will not go through with Brexit at this point. But the ruling does raise some very interesting questions about the role of popular sovereignty not only in the U.K., but anywhere else where the will of the majority bristles against the established rule of law. It is important that constitutional norms are followed, but at the same time Parliament must do its best to respect the will of the people as it promised to do before the vote, no matter how much individual members may oppose the outcome.

The problem with the Brexit vote is that it did not really do an adequate job of expressing the will of the people regarding the terms of the exit from the E.U. The Leave campaign made some misleading promises they knew they couldn’t keep and it appears that those tasked with executing the exit are now the targets of populist resentment. In the event that Brexit doesn’t significantly affect Britain’s immigration levels or remove it from the European common market, it is precisely the politicians who made these promises that will pay the price for betraying the will of the people.

And lest we think that this is only Westminster’s problem, we should remember that the popular mandate to exit the E.U. was not really the will of the U.K. as a whole, but more like the will of England and Wales against the protestations of Scotland and Northern Ireland. In a union already strained by multiple rounds of devolution and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, this divide makes the future of the U.K. even more uncertain. Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish nationalists are already threatening to hold another referendum should the terms of the exit be unfavorable to the parliament in Edinburgh. So in addition to a crisis of legitimacy surrounding its political institutions, the U.K. may be facing an even more pressing threat to its continued existence.

All of these issues may be specific to the U.K., but they can nonetheless serve as a warning to America, which has now seen the same populist forces wreak havoc on an election of its own. Whatever you may think of Trump’s victory, it is hard to deny the importance of the forces he has unleashed in American politics. The will of the people has triumphed over every convention that would normally have prevented this outcome. If we consider the health of democracy at the moment, we can certainly find some good and some bad. It is at once encouraging to see the will of the people prevail and also very alarming to consider its possible impact on the rule of law in this country. We would do well to consider how this has played out following the Brexit vote, and hopefully learn a thing or two about how to deal with the new realities of populism in America.

As Election Day approaches, the prospect of actually filling out my absentee ballot and mailing it to the city clerk becomes more and more dreadful. After this year-and-a-half-long nightmare of an election, the point is fast approaching for me to stop griping about the state of the election and choose the person who I believe is most fit to serve as President of the United States for the next four years. The problem is that I believe the only two plausible candidates are both thoroughly unfit for the job.

I will spare you my litany of complaints against each candidate and quickly sum up the reasons I will not be voting for either one. Donald Trump is an immoral man who has neither the temperament nor the mental capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has quite a track record of making big decisions in a variety of situations, but her foreign policy experience indicates that the consequences of her judgments are quite often disastrous. But at the same time, I don’t think either candidate is so terrible that I feel compelled to cast a vote for their opponent. So at the end of the day, I am left with the options of either voting for a third-party candidate or writing in one of the many people I think is more qualified than the two major-party candidates.

But in our two-party political system, such a decision is bound to be open to questioning. One objection many political commentators raise is that no matter how unsavory the options may be, it is necessary to vote for the "lesser of two evils." Trump and Clinton supporters both employ this argument and each side wants us to understand that the other candidate is obviously the greater evil. This argument gives great moral significance to the act of voting, for if one abstains from voting for the lesser evil, then he or she is culpable for the consequences should the greater evil be elected.

But this argument against voting third-party is rather short on substantive moral reasoning. It employs a consequentialist definition of morality, which basically means the moral worth of a decision is determined only by looking forward to the consequences of the action. For example, if a vote for Trump will result in an increase of economic inequality, his voters can be held morally responsible for this consequence of their vote. The problem with applying such reasoning to an election is that we cannot be certain about the actual consequences of voting for either candidate. I have a feeling that a Trump presidency would be more disastrous than a Clinton presidency, but this is no more than a feeling, for it could very well turn out to be the other way around. Whatever may happen after Election Day, there is no way to read backwards from an imagined future state to supply us with a moral imperative on how to vote in the present.

Another objection I have encountered is the more practical argument that by voting third-party I will "throw away" my vote and shirk my democratic duty to choose between the given options. In one sense this objection is more convincing, for there is certainly no chance that whoever I vote for will be the next president. But this fact does not justify the conclusion that such a vote is wasted. It may very well be the case that I do not want my vote to count for either candidate and that I would like my objections to be registered in this way. A vote for a candidate with long odds does not indicate naiveté, but is rather a conscious decision to abstain from voting for one of two unacceptable candidates. Doing so does not entail a rejection of our nation’s democratic principles, but only involves a considered judgment regarding the fitness of these particular candidates to serve as our nation’s president.

So to those of you who, like me, are not satisfied with the given options, I offer you this advice. These two objections, the one moral and the other practical, are not good reasons for you to betray your conscience and vote for a candidate who you find morally or politically unacceptable. Refusing the options given to you is not a retreat from the hard realities of politics to the moral high ground, but is a morally defensible action that is perfectly consistent with your duties as an American citizen. If you are also repulsed by the thought of voting for Clinton or Trump, I urge you to vote for whoever best fits your idea of a good president, even if that person is your favorite professor or family dog. You may not be voting for the next president, but that doesn’t make your participation in the election any less valuable.

In an election year where almost nothing has gone as expected, one of the biggest surprises may be the critique of free trade that has arisen from the populist wings of both parties. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders railed against the detrimental effects of globalization in their respective primaries, and both performed far above the expectations of the party leaders who largely support the globalist agenda of free trade and open borders. Even Hillary Clinton, who in the not-too-distant past pined for a “hemispheric common market,” has hopped aboard the trade skeptic bandwagon.

While I regard these challenges to free trade orthodoxy as a largely positive development, the rhetoric surrounding the issue has unfortunately not risen above the generally depressing tenor of this election cycle. Where Trump could make good points about the uneven distribution of the costs and benefits of free trade, he instead blames Clinton for her part in every bad trade deal of the past two decades and the resulting demise of America’s once-prosperous manufacturing sector.

This gives the misleading impression that Clinton and her free trade deals are responsible for the struggles of every community that has suffered from a loss in manufacturing jobs. While trade is undeniably an important factor in explaining the decline of the American economy’s manufacturing sector, the reality is far more complicated.

A good case study in the mixed costs and benefits of free trade is the Maine pulp and paper industry. For the first half of the 20th century, Maine led the nation in paper production.  Today, there are only six mills with operating paper machines, and those that still make paper are doing so at a fraction of their former capacity. At first glance, this looks like the perfect example of an industry destroyed by international competition enabled by bad trade deals. But a closer look reveals a more complex picture than this “Trumpian” narrative might suggest.

On the one hand, international competition has certainly taken its toll on Maine paper mills.  Earlier this year, a mill partially owned by the New York Times in Madison announced that it would be shutting down. This closure was at least somewhat due to competition coming from a mill in Nova Scotia that produces a similar paper and receives subsidies from the Canadian government. Despite the imposition of a 20 percent tariff on the mill’s exports, the depreciation of the Canadian dollar has kept the imported product cheaper than what the Madison mill could produce domestically.

But to blame the industry’s recent struggles on free trade would be to ignore other economic strains that have put pressure on Maine’s mills. One major factor is the decrease in demand for paper products prompted by the increase in the availability of e-books and digital news sources. This trend is evidently not going to reverse itself in the future, so mills that fail to adapt in some way to the shrinking market for paper products will lose out to competition from mills both foreign and domestic.

An example of a Maine mill that has effectively planned for the future is Woodland Pulp in Baileyville, which is in the process of commissioning two new paper machines. These machines will produce products such as toilet paper and paper towels, which are not quite as vulnerable to changes in demand prompted by technological improvements. And for Woodland Pulp, international markets have been a key to its survival, as the Hong Kong firm that owns it is responsible for investing millions of dollars in capital improvements at the mill.

On its surface, the Maine pulp and paper industry appears to be the perfect example of a once-prosperous American industry brought to its knees by the increased international competition brought on by free trade. But there are many factors that complicate this narrative. Technological advances and energy costs have been more decisive factors in the most recent mill closures, and while competition in international markets has certainly pushed some mills to the brink, others have stayed afloat only because of foreign investment.

The complexity of the issue unfortunately means that both sides of the debate are prone to oversimplification. The lesson we should take from the example of the Maine paper industry is that neither protectionism nor unrestricted free trade will solve the problems faced by U.S. manufacturers. The populist anger directed against free trade has its source in legitimate grievances, but real solutions require a more careful attention to the economic realities facing each industry that has been adversely affected by trade. Perhaps it is too much to ask for such attention to policy details from the candidates in this year’s election, but hope springs eternal.

The 2016 election season has a lot of people fearing that the end is nigh. People on both sides of the aisle share this feeling of impending doom, although there is intense disagreement over which candidate is actually going to usher in the end of days. On the left, the general conclusion is that if Trump is elected, his policies will be so disastrous that he will precipitate all sorts of catastrophic events. Slate even has a “Trump Apocalypse Watch” to update readers of the chances of a Trump victory in November, which they say would trigger “an apocalypse in which we all die” (presumably opposed to less-fatal versions of the apocalypse).

On the right, there is a similar sense that a Clinton presidency would be a complete disaster. An anonymously written article entitled “The Flight 93 Election” has set the conservative media abuzz by comparing this election to the situation facing the passengers on United Flight 93, who stormed the cockpit to wrest control of the plane from the hijackers and crashed it into a field in Pennsylvania. The author’s provocative thesis is that “…a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the revolver and take your chances.” The choices are grim, but the consequences of not acting (voting Trump) are certainly catastrophic.

Now, I do not think that the state of the election is nearly as bleak as this, but I do agree that this election is apocalyptic, in a sense. But rather than thinking of apocalypse as a fiery end-times scenario, I am thinking more along the lines of the Greek word apocalypsis, which originally meant an “unveiling or revealing.” That is, I think this election is apocalyptic in the sense that we are seeing problems which have been around for a while but that have not shown themselves in such a dramatic way until this election.

The problem I am especially concerned with here is illuminated well by Clinton’s recent remarks at a New York fundraiser, in which she stated that about half of Trump’s supporters could be placed in what she called the “basket of deplorables.” This sort of sentiment is nothing new for Clinton. She has always held that her opponent is a dangerous demagogue who whips up racial resentment among his supporters. What is different here is that she classes as much as a fifth of the American population as “irredeemable” bigots—those who are too far gone to be even considered by the Clinton campaign.

Clinton’s point was to contrast these people with another basket that is deserving of our empathy and is comprised of those who feel let down by both parties and are only looking for someone to change things. The problem with this distinction is that people cannot be so easily sorted into opposing “baskets.” There are doubtless many Trump supporters who are in dire economic straits and deserving of our empathy, yet who Clinton would label “deplorable” for their support of Trump’s immigration policy. What Clinton is doing is projecting her idea of the “virtuous” working-class voter onto the real people who support Trump. She is imagining that the only Trump voters deserving of her empathy are those who basically agree with her, yet feel so disenfranchised that they are duped into voting for Trump.

Such sentiments come across as obnoxiously elitist coming from a fundraiser where the most expensive seats cost $250,000. This kind of out-of-touch statement at an expensive fundraiser has become almost expected in the past few election cycles (see Obama’s “bitter clingers” and Romney’s “47 percent”). What is different this time is that the people denigrated in Clinton’s remarks have found a voice in the unrefined and unapologetically brash rhetoric of Donald Trump. And rather than empathizing with their concerns, Clinton makes it clear that those who are suffering from feelings of alienation must first prove that they hold the correct views on immigration, race and contemporary gender ideology, or else they belong to their own class of people deserving to be labeled “deplorable.”

The real “apocalypse” of this election is the unveiling of the resentment of downtrodden Americans toward the global elites who claim that the solution to all of their problems lies in free trade, unrestricted immigration and the entrepreneurial spirit. Even Clinton was forced to acknowledge this opposition to liberal orthodoxy (cheers, Bernie), but it has apparently not changed her attitude towards the Americans who hold beliefs that she finds repugnant. As with Trump, there is a class of people that she cannot make room for in her vision of America.  And in this apocalyptic election, that is bad news for all of us.

Ryan Ward is a member of the Class of 2017.

Whatever you may think of Donald Trump, it is hard to deny that his campaign’s slogan has resonated with a significant portion of the American public. Among people who think America’s best days are behind her, the rallying cry “Make America Great Again” is a call to reclaim something that has been lost, something that Trump wants us to believe that he can restore to our country. Since Trump is not exactly clear on what he means by “greatness,” we are left to fill in the details of what America the Great might look like under a Trump presidency. Noting his appeal among the white working class, some commentators have pointed out the racial nature of his appeal, as if with this slogan he is saying, “Let us return to the good old days when white people had a fair shot at getting ahead in life.” This is taken to imply the exclusion of the non-white population, since they have allegedly taken the jobs that used to belong to hard-working blue-collar men and women.A more charitable reading of Trump’s idea of greatness would entail the reversal of the decline in economic conditions that have deprived so many Americans of the hope of a stable and comfortable life. In this case, greatness means bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, or at least restoring the fortunes of those who have been left behind by the globalizing economy.  Additionally, we could construe it as greatness in the realm of foreign policy, such that making America great again would include a retreat from failed endeavors in the Middle East and assuming a posture of “America First.” And after our generally acknowledged failures to make any sort of progress in our post-9/11 foreign policy, this critique does have a certain plausibility to some observers.But as much as the implied critique of recent American politics may resonate among some people, it still leaves us wondering about what exactly Trump proposes that can make America great. Can national greatness be defined merely as a return to the economic and political conditions of the 1950s? One can see why this might appeal to the displaced workers longing for some golden age of American manufacturing, but it is certainly less apparent that anyone else—particularly minorities—should be so sanguine about a “return” to this time in our national history. So if we cannot look to some imagined past to restore our country to greatness, then where can we look to fill in this vague notion of what makes a nation great?I would argue that the desire for a specifically American brand of greatness has deep roots that transcend the hot-button political issues bandied about every election cycle. It is not something that can be gained or lost as politicians come and go, but is something fundamental to our democracy. French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville penned what is probably the best description of America’s true greatness in “Democracy in America,” which was written in the early stages of the republic. As an aristocrat, Tocqueville lamented the loss of the great human endeavors apparently engendered by aristocracy, but he saw a new, milder greatness in America’s fledgling democracy. He noted that “equality may be less elevated, but it is more just, and in its justice lies its greatness and beauty.”That equality and justice could be reasons to regard a nation as great certainly struck Tocqueville as a novelty, but he was able to recognize that it nonetheless represented a real advance in the condition of humanity. At the heart of the American democratic project is the idea that greatness is not reserved for the privileged few, but that it is something to which every person can aspire by living in a condition of freedom with the promise of equal justice under the law.That we as a country have often failed to attain this goal is a regrettable fact, but it should not detract from the conclusion that America’s greatness is not in fact a function of economic and political conditions. Rather, it is inherent within the moral fiber of our nation and is nurtured when citizens refuse to let trying circumstances detract from the noble goals of our political community.This is not to downplay the very real struggles that many supporters of both Trump and Clinton are facing. But it should give us pause before being too quick to uphold our respective political opinions as the one way to return America to greatness, however that might be conceived in terms of economic and political well-being. Greatness is indeed a noble thing to pursue, but only when we understand what it means in the context of our American democracy.​

Ryan Ward is a member of the Class of 2017.