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Amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global actors are recalibrating their grand strategy, and Russia is among them. The Russian government’s impartial stance on the current conflict is much more than its conventional approach to Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Behind the curtains, The Kremlin hopes to benefit from the unexpectedly flamed tension in Palestine. Since Russia’s offensive in Ukraine began, Vladimir Putin has embodied a strategy of “Running out the clock.” The strategy assumes that the united Western support behind Ukraine will crumble if the war comes to a dead end and Ukraine fails to deliver a conclusive victory rapidly. Putin’s strategy resembles Alexander I’s tactic against Napoleon Bonaparte during the French invasion of Russia. Like Putin, the Czar believed that the time was at their side and dragged Bonaparte into the Russian hinterland by ordering his forces to retreat until that famous winter arrived. However, has the contemporary Czar’s strategy worked out as it did for Alexander? So far, no. In the first stages of the war, Russian officials expected that a cold winter in Europe without a Russian natural gas supply would cause an energy crisis that would eventually force European governments to reconsider their Ukraine strategy; yet, that winter had not arrived. On the contrary, Europe had one of the mildest Winters it ever had. Similarly, the Russian government hoped that internal disputes within NATO, such as Turkey’s approach to Sweden and Finland’s membership bid for the organization, could break the united front against Russia but that did not happen. However, the recent increased Republican opposition in the U.S Congress against foreign aid for Ukraine implies that Vladimir Putin’s strategy is not dead and that the ongoing conflict in Palestine can help the Kremlin. There are at least 100 House Republicans who could be considered 'Ukraine skeptics.' If Iran’s involvement in the conflict gains momentum, an exacerbated energy crisis is inevitable since in that case, the United States would have to impose harsher sanctions on the Iranian economy. This would benefit the Russian Federation as the United States might be forced to reconsider its strategy toward Russia. It is worth noting that in the first stages of the Ukrainian war, the United States had to reformulate its approach to Venezuela and Iran – two important oil producers – because of the imposed sanctions on the Russian economy. Additionally, a new battlefront in the Middle East would force the United States to reallocate its capabilities in a world order where the conflict is not concentrated but dispersed. Time is on the side of Vladimir Putin and his bet can still pay off.

If you’ve been watching Fox News lately, you probably have noticed a few trends: the ‘two-tier justice system,’ ‘Biden impeachment,’ 'Hunter,' among other typical talking points. But there’s something else on Fox News pretty often these days, or rather someone. No I’m not talking about Vivek Ramaswamy or Robert Kennedy Jr. I’m talking about the Democratic Governor of California, Gavin Newsom. As far as major Democratic figures go, Newsom is really the only one consistently engaging with the Right. Last year in June, he was the most prominent Democrat to join Trump’s Truth Social Platform at a time when his peers refused to give it credibility. When he isn’t on there “on calling out MAGA lies,” you can catch him in interviews with Sean Hannity, calling out hypocrites on the right, discussing his political philosophies and their impacts on Californian legislation, or consistently voicing his support for incumbent Joe Biden, calling him a “man of decency and character.” In a polarized time such as our own, a lot of Newsom's actions seem to contradict each other. They don’t fit into the division we’ve grown accustomed to. Very few Democrats are actively working to engage in discourse with anyone on the Right, but that is a new top priority for the California Governor. Newsom, a historically popular Governor in California’s history, was challenged by political commentator Larry Elder in an attempted recall in 2021. However, Newsom retained his position with about the same amount of the votes by which he won it. He is the second Governor in California history to face a recall, and the first to survive one. Though it was certainly not a narrow defeat for Newsom, and most polls predicted he would persevere, he was left intent to never underestimate the power of conservative media again. He has, since that day, become increasingly vested in understanding the landscape of conservative media. An article from Semafor reports of Newsom tuning in to The Ben Shapiro Show and The Faulkner Focus on a daily basis. On September 28th this year, Fox News posted another interview between Sean Hannity and Gavin Newsom, filmed live in the Reagan Library spin room following the second Republican debate. The two start off the interview in a light-hearted, joking manner, with Hannity even stating Newsom told him off-air that Newsom “loves doing [Hannity’s] show the most”. At first, Hannity is keenly interested in asserting that the Governor, deep down, is eager to run for President and challenge the “cognitive mess” Joe Biden. Though Newsom continued to voice his support for the incumbent, expressing admiration for Biden’s extraordinary political record. “I couldn’t be more proud,” said Newsom. It is clear Gavin Newsom is putting in effort to justify the work he has done as Governor, and staunchly defend the leader of his party. Across every important point of contention (and perhaps a potential future agenda), Newsom asserts that the progressive solutions of his party work, and that he will continue to support them in every way. He knows exactly who’s watching, and he knows a lot of them strongly dislike those solutions. But many on the left and right dislike Joe Biden even more. Newsom’s familiarity with conservative talking points makes him much better equipped then most of his contemporaries to handle a Hannity interview, and appear to many conservatives not as a crazy radical whom they should fear, but rather a respectable, albeit misguided, figure. If the goal is to convince moderates or people on the opposite side of the spectrum to support you, the contemporary media strategy of staying within echo chambers, media bubbles, and friendly podcasts seems a very ineffective mode for doing so. Many of Newsom’s appearances on right-wing media have incited positive reactions from the left and even a few on the right. His interviews with Sean Hannity seem to be doing the trick for many Democrats, especially at a time of declining Democratic support of Joe Biden. Despite his accomplishments, Biden is not the spokesperson he once was; he isn’t motivating or inspiring Democrats. What Newsom is doing fundamentally boils down to building credibility, on both sides. Time will tell if Newsom's strategy is working, but his second term as Governor ends in early 2027, leaving enough time to organize a substantial effort for a bid in 2028. Stay tuned, this is only the beginning for Gavin Newsom’s new strategy. Fox News announced a 90 minute televised interview between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis to take place on Sean Hannity’s show on November 30th. Assuming Biden stays healthy, Gavin Newsom isn’t trying to get your vote in 2024, but four years from now, he will be. The current work he’s doing may be in the hope that come 2028, you’ll think of him as someone who kept fighting when others gave up.

Stanford Classics and Politics Professor Josiah Ober thinks about the Roman Empire five times a week — but for good reason. The frequent musings form the basis of his latest book, The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives, which posits that the bedrock of democracy is mutual negotiation, a concept that has largely slipped from contemporary discourse. At its core, Ober's argument is simultaneously simple and profound: democracy depends on a "bargain" – a consensus among individuals with differing opinions. The only way democracy can thrive is if these individuals can reach an agreement, recognizing that all parties involved are better off within this shared understanding than outside of it. This inherently means that democracy will never reach a state of perfection, as the essence of a bargain requires compromise. Ober told us to think of it as “haggling over a used car;” neither party can leave with everything they initially wanted. Ober visited CMC to present his book at the Athenaeum and attend an American constitutionalism conference hosted by the Salvatori Center. He is the author of numerous books, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989), Political Dissent in Democratic Athens (2008), and Democracy and Knowledge (2008). When I collected Ober for our interview, the juxtaposition was cinematic: a towering academic in his 60s, exuding gravitas yet crowned with a playful newsboy cap and smile, struggling to fold his way into the confines of my compact passenger seat. He eventually squeezed in, launching into thoughtful responses even before my questions fully left my lips. So how does a society reach this critical juncture, the civic bargain? Ober tells us that history provides valuable insights, with Athens, Rome, the UK, and the US as illustrative examples. In each instance, the fundamental agreement that delineates how the people coexist democratically is preceded by a series of political bargains. These can be among the elite or between the elite and the masses. The journey towards democracy, defined as self-governance by the people who determine their own citizenry, is never instantaneous. Often, a central figure or authority is the precursor, steering the society towards the eventual ideal of self-rule. For any democratic system to be resilient, it must have the flexibility to evolve. Ober uses the US Constitution as an example, as it began imperfectly, it possessed the intrinsic ability to be amended, ensuring its relevance across changing times. The civic bargain, then, doesn't promise perfection from the outset. Instead, it creates conditions that allow a society to edge ever closer to an improved version of itself. Ober also spoke of the importance of scaling up in democracies. In a world with multiple superpowers, with contrasting ideologies and governance systems, democracies must scale to withstand autocratic rivals. Autocracies can scale more efficiently due to their hierarchical structure. For democracies to counteract this, they must properly maintain their civic bargain. The issue of scale in Rome became a significant challenge. By the end of the Roman Republic, the sense of citizenship became so diluted that it no longer resonated deeply with the people. Why engage in complex negotiations when following Caesar seemed more profitable? In the early evolution of democracy, separating it from religious ideologies was a radical yet crucial step. In places like the United Kingdom, religion had led to significant societal upheavals and violence. Addressing religious conflicts and ensuring basic security and welfare were paramount for democracy to take root. Ancient societies like Athens and Rome integrated public religion into their political system differently, but they all ensured that religion didn't equate to an unchallenged rule. A democratic society seeks to curb extreme passions, focusing on rationality and mutual benefit. The ultimate aim is to prevent politics from becoming a zero-sum game, where one side's gain is another's loss. Unfortunately, the zero-sum game defines most 21st century political issues. There's a tendency to view the national-level impasses as issues that will simply shift to state governments. Such bypassing impacts national security; Ober draws historical parallels with the failure of the Articles of Confederation. While the federal system can delegate various responsibilities to the local communities, it's essential that some crucial matters remain within the national purview. This feeling of being "stuck" isn't new to the United States. Both the House and Senate have been bitterly divided for the better part of the last three decades. There have not been consecutive Presidents from the same party since H.W. Bush was elected in 1988. The last several Presidential elections have also been decided by razor thin margins. Deep-rooted systemic power imbalances, voter suppression, and issues like gerrymandering have been persistent challenges as well. With the advent of technological advancements, these issues have become more sophisticated and often less conspicuous. In the face of increasing division, Ober proposes reviving what Aristotle termed as 'Civic friendship.' This doesn't imply an actual camaraderie but rather an understanding and acknowledgment of being part of a collective enterprise. To rebuild this civic friendship, Ober points to civic education. This isn't just about academic education; it's about equipping each citizen with the tools to engage, communicate, and sometimes, compromise with others – even those they may disagree with. A society's fabric is woven from conversations, from talking to people, understanding perspectives, and not necessarily agreeing but finding a common ground. It's about delineating boundaries on some issues while leaving room for negotiations on others. Ober emphasized the importance of fostering "civic friendship" through civic education, where citizens help educate their fellow citizens. However, a fundamental concern arises when individual interpretations of civic understanding start diverging extensively. Throughout history, such divisions have led to devastating outcomes like civil wars. To avoid reaching such extremes, Ober says there's a pressing need for historically accurate information and a diversity of perspectives. Ober tells us that the US doesn't need to overhaul its constitution or introduce a slew of amendments. Instead, institutions and individuals can champion civic education right now. A call to action could be as simple as approaching professors or educators to emphasize the importance of courses that unpack what it means to be a modern-day citizen, dealing with racial inequality, technology, constitutional tenets, political theory, and history. Ober proudly noted a new course at Stanford designed with this intent that has already seen ⅔ enrollment for the freshman class (75 sections — 1 syllabus). Ober knows change won’t happen inside the halls of Stanford, but if he has one message, it’s to pass it on.

In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell examined what he saw as a decline in writing, arguing that it was intertwined with a deteriorating political discourse. To him, bad prose wasn’t just an aesthetic problem. It signified foggy thinking and the avoidance of honest debate. Orwell criticized political jargon for its ability to make "lies sound truthful and murder respectable," pointing to the misuse of language as a tool to defend the indefensible. This analysis was not confined to political rhetoric. Orwell also dissected the hollow prose of journalists and academics, highlighting their reliance on clichés and "humbug." For Orwell, the misuse and degradation of language was both a symptom and a cause of a more profound decay in critical thinking. Fast-forward from post-war Britain to contemporary America, and Orwell's concerns remain salient. In a political age dominated not by radio and slogans, but instead by social media memes and soundbites, evasive language continues to corrupt thought, even as sloppy thought continues to corrupt language. While this pattern exists on all sides of the political spectrum, the language problems are most evident in relation to the politics of gender, race, and political economy. As a student at the 5Cs, or any elite colleges for that matter, you are likely to encounter this type of muddy language everyday. Many, for fear of retribution, avoid asking questions or clarifying. One pattern is the attempt to evolve familiar terms in favor of more inclusive alternatives: Latinx for Latino, LGBTQIA+ for an array of sexualities and gender identities, and “womxn” for women. Like most neologisms, “womxn” starts from a place of good intentions: to create a more inclusive gender category that includes trans women. But in its obscurity and un-pronounceability, the term sends a message of exclusion more than inclusion. Get the fast-evolving political jargon right, it tells the uninitiated, or find yourself unwelcome in the conversation. The very use of these terms glosses over debates that proponents of the words aren’t interested in having. If you use "BIPOC" as a consolidated descriptor for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, you are folding in any argument about the shared outlook and interests of marginalized people, while skirting the question of who qualifies as a person of color, and what different communities do and don’t have in common. Jargon often originates on the Left before being co-opted – and further corrupted – by the Right. This fate has befallen terms including “politically correct,” “fake news,” "woke," “critical race theory,” the investment term ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), and “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). Woke, which once signaled an awareness of social injustices, has been contorted, politicized, and is now used almost exclusively as a hammer to bash progressives (itself a term Orwell deplored in the 1940s). "Critical Race Theory," a theory with academic roots taught primarily in law schools, often finds itself misused as a blanket term for any discussion of race in schools. "DEI" too has primarily become an easy, bureaucratic-sounding target for those hostile to greater racial diversity. We then come to the category of more abstract political ideas. There’s no better example than “neoliberalism,” a term so vague and imprecise that it’s used to describe political leaders ranging from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama. Historically, this term referred to an extreme vision of unregulated, free-market capitalism -– the worldview of Milton Friedman. Now, its contours have been broadened and blurred to such an extent that it tends to mean, “anyone more fiscally conservative than I am.” It has become a catch-all used attribute blame and bypass discussion. Words like “colonialism,” “stolen-land,” “genocide,” “apartheid,” and even “violence” are all at risk of a similar fate. If you want an illustration, have a look at the horrifying recent statement on the attacks in Israel from Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP): “This uprising is part of continued decolonial struggle and an affirmation of Palestinians’ unwavering fight for liberation.” SJP assumes Hamas represents most Palestinians despite not holding an election since 2006, obscuring actual questions about justice and democracy in Palestine. The italicized words are meant to preempt natural revulsion at the massacre and kidnapping of civilians, including children. They make savage “murder sound respectable,” by piling radical cliché upon cliché. “The invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases…can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain,” Orwell wrote. Meaningless words abound, intentionally or inadvertently suffocating genuine debate and discussion. Those who aspire to think more critically must attend to their terminology.

In a recent article for The Forum, Henry Long argues that CMC’s pre-professional focus stands at odds with its liberal arts mission. While articulated forcefully, a close analysis reveals his argument’s surprising lack of merit. CMC’s pre-professional focus not only does not detract from its liberal arts orientation—it serves to enhance it. In his article, Henry begins by distinguishing liberal arts from the servile arts, positing that liberal arts ought to be concerned with intrinsically valuable knowledge. He cites an observation made by Professor David Corey: “Only at a great liberal arts college do we find people engaged in history, science, physics, music, and art as ends in themselves, not as a prelude to a job or a stepping stone to ‘success.’” Yet, I would argue, that is exactly what is found at CMC. By virtue of the GE system, Literature majors learn to take derivatives and Math majors learn to read poetry. Both may drag their feet when confronted with such realities, but it is a reality at CMC nonetheless. All in the same day, you can find Data Science majors debating politics, IR majors enjoying literary theory courses, Physics majors playing music in Marks Hall’s basement, and future investment bankers listening to an Athenaeum talk. There is no evidence that CMC’s offerings geared toward professional success detract from the vibrant culture of learning on campus. Henry’s next claim is that a liberal arts education ought to transcend a deliberation of means to achieve a goal and include a deliberation of ends and values. While I do not disagree with his premise, Henry’s further analysis suffers from the notable disadvantage of being an inaccurate representation of student life at CMC. For example, in the College’s PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) program, students engage in interdisciplinary studies to not only evaluate what policies best achieve a goal but also whether or not that goal is politically feasible or even valuable. Rather than an outlier, this method of inquiry is found in every corner of campus, from the classroom to career coaching. The principal dividing line between those who pursue intrinsically valuable knowledge and those who do not is not the level of engagement in pre-professional activities, but rather the level of value one places on intrinsically valuable knowledge. The addition of a pre-professional focus, then, serves not as a detriment to the liberal arts, but as one more facet of excellence that the Renaissance student can pursue. Lastly, let us turn to Henry’s claim that CMC’s motto — crescit cum commercio civitas — runs contrary to its liberal arts mission because it constitutes an institutional stance on a political issue. Specifically, Henry writes: “The motto makes debatable claims about the nature of civilizational flourishing and the value of commerce” and that it is “an affront to the liberal arts for a college to assert it dogmatically.” What his statement achieves in hyperbole, however, it lacks in ratiocination. To begin with, I hardly think a claim as apodictic and empirically verifiable as CMC’s motto constitutes a political expression of a debatable viewpoint. But even if it does, a liberal arts college can simultaneously teach students how to think while also expressing what it thinks, just as a liberal government can simultaneously promise freedom of expression while also espousing its own view. Henry not only concedes this point— he wrote a whole essay articulating it. At the core of Henry’s argument is a profound skepticism of the compatibility of a liberal arts label with learning that is useful for external purposes. Yet “learning for the sake of doing” need not preclude “learning for the sake of learning.” In fact, it is often a prerequisite for it. College students will always be concerned about the professional world they will soon enter, regardless of their studies. Unfortunately, as documented by the Economist, liberal arts students are consistently outcompeted in the professional world by those who study economics or math at top universities. That trend forces students, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds, to abandon liberal arts altogether. CMC’s unique value proposition lies in offering pathways to lucrative professionals while maintaining a liberal arts posture. The College focuses on professional success precisely so that its students do not have to choose between financial success, making an impact, and pursuing purely intellectual ends. Henry and I often spend our free time sparring over issues ranging from free speech absolutism to the utility of Rawls’s Theory of Justice. In a completely different sphere, we also both took advantage of CMC’s pre-professional resources to secure internships in the management consulting field. The two spheres have not conflicted with each other, and any suggestion that our professional pursuits detracted from our liberal arts endeavors or discussions of fundamental values is patently false. If anything, the security that stems from building a strong professional future frees up time and energy for more intellectual pursuits. This healthy duality need not be viewed as a jarring juxtaposition of two irreconcilable missions—rather, it should be celebrated as one of the features that make our college so special.

“As a society, you were unwilling to reflect on the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire world was rocked,” a Pakistani man remarks to an American colleague in the aftermath of 9/11 in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. As violence in Israel and Palestine escalates, people from all sides beg for human rights to come before political agendas. But no one actually knows what that looks like in an arena where human rights themselves are politicized. On October 7th, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack from Gaza. They fired rockets towards nearby Israeli towns. They blasted through the iron wall that separates Gaza and Israel, using a mix of drones, grenades, and assault weapons to attack nearby military bases, population centers, and a music festival. They killed over a thousand Israeli civilians and soldiers and took over 200 people hostage. While many details of the attack remain shrouded in controversial uncertainty, it is undeniable that Hamas’ offensive was incredibly brutal. In response to Hamas’ attack, Israel declared war, targeting what they claim are Hamas hotspots with airstrikes. Targeting Hamas in Gaza, where over 2 million people are packed into less than 150 square miles, has translated to targeting the most populated areas, including refugee camps, schools, and hospitals. Although civilians are given extremely limited evacuation notice, there is often nowhere to go. Israel has also stopped all entry of goods into Gaza, including food, water, medicine and fuel. Israel has recently also commenced deadly ground operations. Both sides have already committed actions that constitute war crimes, including indiscriminate violence against civilians and civilian infrastructure, use of chemical weapons, and humanitarian blockades. Palestinian civilian casualties are significantly higher than Israeli civilian casualties. The world responded loudly on all media platforms. Initially, the outcry was this is Israel’s 9/11. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They’re barbarians beheading babies and raping women. Then came the opposing camp: Israel must examine their own culpability. They’ve oppressed Palestinians for decades. Resistance is violent. Soon after came those that tried to bridge the initial polarization with their middle ground advocacy for ‘humanity.’ Hamas is not Palestinian liberation and Israeli citizens are not Netanyahu’s government. If you care about Palestinian lives, you should care about Israeli lives too. It’s immoral to try to justify violence. To this, the pro-Palestine contingent responded: Israel has been doing the same thing to Palestinians and the world has been silent. As the conflict has escalated, discourse once again has shifted. Allegations of intended and attempted genocide have been levied by both sides. Both sides also continue to claim moral high ground – Palestine was rightfully fighting for freedom. Israel has the right to protect themselves. On face value, the ‘human rights’ camp seems the most reasonable. But the influx of posts that encourage everyone to adopt an apolitical human rights perspective and simply condemn all violence are frustratingly devoid of critical thinking. We wouldn’t have an escalating civil conflict if it was possible to perceive all violence as wrong, independent of its justification. For those that have personal investment in Palestine or Israel, that ask is near impossible. That’s because the violent events unfolding today cannot be analyzed in a vacuum. Most attempts to do so clearly have a political agenda, despite often hiding behind the facade of wanting to depoliticize the conversation. Violence has been present in the region for centuries, and it has always been inherently political. As such, victimhood is also inherently political. The presence of discourse itself when certain populations experience violence (or the lack thereof) is entrenched in necropolitics. In the early 20th century, Britain pledged in the Balfour Declaration to establish a national home for the Jewish people in British-controlled Palestine. The unfathomable horrors faced by the Jewish people of Europe during World War II created an urgent need for a safe haven for the Jewish nation. The issue is that Palestine had become a home to other people in the many, many years since biblical Israel: Arabs who fought back against what they considered a European colonial movement. Arab resistance to British control and mass Jewish immigration led to the first waves of violence in the 1930s. In 1948, Britain handed over the issue of Palestine to the UN, who called for the partition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. The Palestinians refused to accept the proposed partition, as it did not grant them territory proportional to their larger population. This worried Zionist leaders, who conceived “Plan Dalet” in response, in order to reorganize Palestine into an assured Jewish-dominated state before the British Mandate ended. The plan provided a blueprint for the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian towns and cities and the displacement or massacre of their residents. The Haganah –the Zionist paramilitary– commenced what Palestinians refer to as the “Nakba,” the destruction of more than 500 Palestinian villages, towns and cities and the systematic massacre or displacement of their residents, violence that forced 700,000 Palestinians to flee Palestine. On May 15, 1948, Israel formally declared independence, catalyzing the Israeli-Arab War, with five Arab states fighting against the creation of Israel. Israel, backed by Western nations, ultimately won. Modern-day Israel would look very different if not for the initial systemic removal of Palestinians from the Holy Lands. The Zionist movement’s drastic actions during the mid 20th century permanently entrenched the narrative that the existence of a strong, populous Palestinian nation inherently threatens the survival of Israel. To this day, the 7 million descendants of the 20th century Palestinian diaspora have not been granted the right to return to Palestine. Since the 1950s, Israel has (explicitly and de facto) ruled the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) by severe military rule. They have also increasingly facilitated the construction of Israeli settlements within the OPT, continuing to marginalize Palestinian territorial claims and sovereignty. The Human Rights Watch, along with numerous other international human rights organizations, continues to condemn Israel for creating a textbook definition apartheid state through their numerous policies that ensure Israeli domination and Palestinian subjugation. The Gaza Strip – coined ‘the largest prison on Earth’– has been closed off from the rest of the world since 2007, with Israel controlling all movement of people and goods in and out of the territory. Gaza lacks needed imports, is not able to establish trade with other regions, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and grapples with constant electricity cuts and dire shortages of clean water. More than half of its population is impoverished, and only 20% of its population does not heavily rely on humanitarian assistance. Israel’s oppression has rendered stable governance and economic development impossible within Gaza. Almost all scholarship on the root causes of extremism suggest that structural denial of economic opportunity and power vacuums are the conditions that enable militant groups like Hamas to thrive. Hamas arose after the first Intifada –first Palestinian uprising– seeking to take back all of historic Palestine through violence and replace the Israeli state with an Islamic society. In 2006, they defeated the Fatah party and gained authority over Gaza. They are the closest thing to a government that Gaza has, although their mission certainly does not represent the median Palestinians viewpoint. And Israel has certainly supported them as a “government” to counterbalance PLO influence in the West Bank when it was convenient for them. The past few years have been characterized by unprecedented increased violence between Israel and Palestine, especially in the West Bank where Israeli settlements have been ramping up. Israel launched Operation Breaking the Wave in early 2022, conducting army raids in response to attacks by individual Palestinians on Israeli settlers. Israeli settlers themselves are also taking revenge into their own hands and violently attacking Palestinian communities, often with relative impunity. This Times of Israel article describes the aftermath of the court proceedings of an Israeli extremist on trial for burning a Palestinian toddler (Ali Saad Dawabshe) and his parents alive in their home. As members of the Dawabshe family walked out of the courthouse, extremists chanted “Ali’s on the grill.” Extremist groups that call for the ruthless killing of the other exist in both Palestine and Israel (including within the Israeli Defence Forces). While there is a history of mutual violence, there is also a clear dominant force (hint, it’s the only state). The image of a Palestinian youth throwing a rock starkly contrasts with an IDF soldier wielding the advanced military technology. Prior major examples of Palestinian uprisings –the two Intifadas– both ultimately resulted in significantly heavier Palestinian casualties by nature of the immense power imbalance. As such, those that are critiquing Israel right now are not just critiquing Netanyahu’s government. They are criticizing the decades long systemic oppression of the Palestinian people under a securitized order where Palestinian subjugation is seen as imperative to upholding Zionism. When it comes to democracies, it is not possible to separate critiquing a government from somewhat critiquing its people, as the line between government will and popular will is inherently blurred. That’s why many see the Israeli people as partially responsible for the actions of their government over time, and not just as innocent passive actors. Given the above context, to say that Hamas’ attack on Israel was unprovoked, unexpected, or unpredictable is weaponized ignorance. To say that Hamas’ attack is a terrorist attack entirely independent from the Palestinian liberation movement is weaponized ignorance. To say that the war has just started is weaponized ignorance. These acknowledgements are critical because the way that we frame discourse about the violence carried out by terrorists is fundamentally different from how we describe the violence carried out by parties during war; violent acts of resistance (especially in response to settler-colonialism); and violence pursued in the name of security and self-defense. For example, Native Americans carried out brutal campaigns against white settlers in colonial America. In the modern day, we don’t see the colonists as victims, even if they were objectively victims of individual violence. The question of whether or not Hamas is a terrorist group depends on how one defines “terrorist.” While Hamas is an extremist group that employs terror tactics, they are also explicitly a landed resistance movement created in response to Israeli oppression. The perhaps more critical question to ask is this: why is it strategic for Israel to paint Hamas as a terrorist group rather than a violent resistance/separatist movement? (Note: there is an important distinction between the textbook definitions of terrorism and its modern loaded connotation). Reducing Hamas to a terrorist organization enables Israel to deny an active role in catalyzing Hamas’ violence. It also weaponizes the West’s islamophobia against Hamas, as the more we see an organization as falling into the “barbaric brown fundamentalist” trope, the less we see them as rational actors. Violence is always a tragedy. However, our decision to focus on the impact of the violence versus the intent behind the violence is shaped by our conception of its justifiability. To criticize people for “trying to justify violence” on either side of this conflict is to ignore how discourse about violence functions in all political spheres. Seeing violence as ‘justified’ does not by any means necessarily indicate enjoyment of brutality or lack of care for certain loss of life. Most states in the world –including Israel– consistently attempt to justify violence. The nature of state power dictates that those with authority get to define what is ‘violence’ and what is ‘security.’ The only true difference between ‘violence’ and ‘security’ is that ‘security’ claims ethical high ground. To criticize third parties for looking to the root cause of violence is also dangerously unproductive. The best way to prevent future violence is to look to what caused it. With all of that in mind, it is also incredibly important to be empathetic to the Israeli “we are innocent victims of a brutal terrorist attack” outcry, even if that is seemingly at odds with productive discourse. Michel Foucault’s Society Must Be Defended and Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics are particularly helpful reading to better understand the deep complexity at hand for all parties involved. Foucault argues that modern genocidal colonization is born from state power becoming intertwined with modern racism, which “appeal[s] to the principle that the death of others makes one biologically stronger” (Harcourt, referencing Foucault p. 258). This logic enables the elimination of entire populations “in the protection and survival of a nation, a people and/or a class” (Pele). This is how the Nazis justified the genocide of more than 6 million Jewish people. But this argument also underpins how Zionists justify the subjugation of Palestine: a strong Palestine is seen as an inherent security threat to the survival of Israel. “The most accomplished form of necropower is the contemporary colonial occupation of Palestine,” Mbembe affirms in Necropolitics. The colonial state –Israel– legitimizes their sovereignty from their history of oppression and diasporic identity. They believe they have a divine right to that territory, which is fundamentally incompatible with a Palestinian territorial right (p. 27). Both actors in this conflict have a history of facing structural oppression and ethnic cleansing in the name of the survival of the state authority in power. Histories of oppression complicate how nations perceive violence – any violence is a lot more likely to implicate as a precursor to genocide, which also means that adversaries are seen as existential threats. Balanced co-existence is not possible if you believe the other side will eradicate you if given the chance. Thus, it makes complete sense that Hamas’ attack was a new level of terrifying to Jewish people, even if intuitively Israelis wield significant power over Palestine in the status quo. Israel’s systematic subjugation of the Palestinian people is also thus explainable, although no less morally abhorrent. When examining the events of the status quo, Israelis are clearly victims of individual violence: they or their loved ones were brutally attacked, killed, raped, taken hostage. But much of the world really struggled to see the state of Israel as a victim and voiced as such in the days following Hamas’ initial attack. Unsurprisingly, that discourse was not well received. When you are in a state of panic and shock and grief, it is an incredibly difficult task to critically examine one’s role as an oppressor in a system of structural oppression. That ask feels like it is robbing you of your right to individual victimhood. When one’s children are taken hostage, it is incredibly human to want to see the aggressors as monsters, not rational actors. The world asked Israelis to think at a structural level before they had time to grieve individual losses, to grieve the sudden bursting of their security bubble. But what the pro-Palestine contingent did not (generally) do was care about only certain loss of life, contrary to claims about hypocrisy made by many of those that support Israel. Rather, the contingent sees violent resistance to violent colonialism as justified. Both sides propagated information to uphold a narrative that supported their particular political agenda. The vast majority of Israelis and members of the Jewish diaspora who have spoken out profusely over the past week do not speak out almost ever about the loss of Palestinian lives that results from Israeli violence. That’s not because they don’t care about the loss of human life. It is because they accept the tragedy of loss of life as a necessary evil to uphold the socio-political order that benefits them. There are almost no viewpoints that can claim the ethical high ground of being apolitical and purely humanitarian in intent when the right to life itself has become politicized. The fight to oversimplify Israel and Palestine’s civil conflict into black and white bad-guy-good-guy narratives is a competition that will be won by no one. If we want discourse to be productive, we need to acknowledge political agendas, not fight to prove that our side is ‘putting them aside.’ When keeping one population safe requires oppressing another, it is unquestionable that we need radical political change.

On March 31, Turkish people headed to the polls for a highly anticipated municipal election, traditionally seen as a vote of confidence for the ruling parties. The unexpected defeat of President Erdoğan’s AK Party (Justice and Development Party) and the significant victory of the main opposition, the CHP (Republican People’s Party), suggest potential shifts in Turkish political dynamics. Erdoğan’s Future: Having dominated Turkish politics for over two decades, President Erdoğan’s tenure is full of personal and party victories, establishing him as one of the most influential figures in modern Turkey. However, after a narrowly won general election in 2023 and his party’s defeat against the CHP in the recent municipal election, it's evident Erdoğan’s influence is waning, signaling a period of uncertainty for Turkey’s political landscape. Amidst economic turmoil and hyperinflation, Erdoğan faces one of the toughest challenges of his political career. Once seen as the architect of Turkey’s remarkable economic development in the early 2000s, Erdoğan now finds himself grappling with widespread discontent and skepticism regarding his leadership abilities and the direction of the country's economy. Particularly, his traditional support base of lower and middle-income voters is disillusioned by rampant AK Party corruption and the severe impact of hyperinflation. These voters played an important role in the outcome of the recent election and tilted the favors toward the main opposition party, CHP. Yet, it's crucial to not overemphasize the election results as solely a repudiation of Erdoğan’s policies. Because Municipal elections often reflect the electorate’s immediate concerns rather than a comprehensive political shift, the outcome could serve more as a call for increased accountability and economic reform from Erdoğan’s administration. Furthermore, Erdoğan’s enduring connection with his supporters may mitigate current dissatisfaction, especially if he addresses their economic grievances effectively. New Welfare Party: Another surprising development was the resurgence of the Yeniden Refah Party (New Welfare Party) in the ballots, which secured over 6% of the vote share. As The third-highest vote-receiving party, Yeniden Refah emerged as a significant player alongside the CHP. Established by Fatih Erbakan – the son of Turkey’s first Islamist Prime Minister — Yeniden Refah is an Islamist political party with a more right-leaning ideology compared to Erdoğan’s AK Party. Throughout the election campaigns, Yeniden Refah staunchly criticized President Erdoğan for his mismanagement of the economy and accused him of hypocrisy for not taking sufficient action against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Aware of Yeniden Refah’s growing momentum during the election campaign, Erdoğan exerted pressure on Fatih Erbakan to suspend his party’s campaigns in critical cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, and Şanlıurfa. However, Erbakan refused to comply unless Turkey cut all of its economic activities with Israel and shut down US military bases operating in Southeast Turkey. Following the elections, it seems  that conservative voters disillusioned with Erdoğan’s AK Party and their handling of the Gaza crisis found refuge withYeniden Refah. The party’s relative success makes Fatih Erbakan look like a potentially key figure in the upcoming general elections. CHP Triumph The CHP’s historic election victory came after a recent leadership reshuffle in the party. In his first election test as CHP’s new leader, Özgür Özel delivered much more than was expected of him. In key cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, CHP candidates won the elections by a landslide, boosting hope among CHP voters ahead of the general elections in 2028. Nonetheless, rifts are going to continue within the CHP ranks as CHP-affiliated mayors of Istanbul and Ankara – Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş, respectively – will continue to contest Özel to become the party’s presidential candidate in the upcoming general election. The fate of the CHP depends on who will emerge victorious in these intra-party power struggles.

Melissa Schwartzberg, the Silver Professor of Politics at New York University, brings a sharp analytical lens to the study of democratic institutions and their philosophical underpinnings. By bridging democratic theory with the classical tradition, Professor Schwartzberg studies how historical principles shape our contemporary political landscape. At a recent Salvatori Center conference focusing on Civic Constitutionalism and Epistemic Democracy, Caroline Bullock (CM ‘24) and Henry Long (CM ‘25) sat down with Professor Schwartzberg to discuss her book, Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule. Q: Could you start us off by describing your academic journey and how you ended up where you are today? Melissa Schwartzberg: I thought I wanted to be a journalist. I was the editor of my junior high school newspaper, my high school newspaper, my college newspaper. It was what I always wanted to do. I came from a family that did not have traditional educational pathways. And for me, I really wanted to have a traditional education. So I really wanted to study the classics, and I wanted to study Ancient Greek in particular. And then I got very involved in the presidential election in 1992, and got more and more interested in politics. So I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll also study political science. But then I took a course with a wonderful professor of political theory, Jack Knight, who now teaches at Duke. And then I thought, oh, I can actually bring my interest in politics with my interest in classics together. Q: What’s the main thesis of your book, Counting the Many: The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule? Melissa Schwartzberg: Well, the book has two parts. The first part treats supermajority rule as an alternative to unanimity rule, and I argue that that was the circumstance under which it originally arose. And I think it solves certain problems with unanimous decision making—unanimous decision making, of course, means that everybody has to participate. But in the modern era, it serves as a remedy for some of the deficiencies of majoritarian decision making. And so I take up a bunch of the different reasons that are given for introducing supermajorities against majority rule and I show that they basically don't work including for what I take to be the most important reason why we might want them, that is, the protection of vulnerable minorities. Q: What are some examples of supermajority rules? Melissa Schwartzberg: The filibuster is the most notorious one right now. But you can also think about constitutional amendment rules. Sometimes people think that constitutions require them because they make change more difficult to make. And that keeps what's called the hierarchy of norms stable, by which I mean the distinction between higher law, like constitutional law, and ordinary laws, so that constitutions can enable ordinary laws to emerge from legislatures. And I suggest that you might need a slower, more complicated process. But, it doesn't necessarily require supermajoritarian decision making. Q: Have supermajority rules ever been effective at stopping what you see as misguided legislation? Melissa Schwartzberg: When legislation is likely to be thwarted by supermajorities, it never comes to the floor. There are probably all sorts of bad legislation that never came to the floor because of supermajority rules, because people knew that it wouldn't get a hearing. I am positive that supermajorities have blocked constitutional amendments that I would have been very sorry to see enacted and amendments that I think would have been very beneficial, including the Equal Rights Amendment. The supermajority rule means that there's a built-in strong status quo bias which is important for certain constitutional fundamentals. I think there are constitutional essentials, and I think there are constitutional inessentials. And I think we could imagine stratifying the vote threshold necessary to modify each type of norm. That's another thing that people could propose to do. Q: You mentioned how We The People can institute different mechanisms to make majoritarianism more complex. Can you define complex majoritarianism and talk about the nuances that differentiate majoritarianism, complex majoritarianism, and supermajoritarianism? Melissa Schwartzberg: I think people are worried that a majority acting immediately could change any norm. Complex majoritarianism is designed to say we can understand majority decision making just in terms of a decision rule, that 50% plus one needs to be the default norm—but that doesn't mean that that needs to happen immediately. There can be time delays for decision-making, you can require successive majorities to vote on a given matter. You could have different types of majorities: for instance, you can have a majority of the population, a majority of states, and a majority of both houses of Congress necessary to enact significant changes. When you're empowering the minority to block or to veto a particular decision that a majority wants to make, it is insensitive to who that minority is. That minority could be a really powerful one, or it could be a vulnerable minority. I think it is really important that vulnerable minorities have their say. If there are fundamental interests of a specific minority that you want to protect—let's say water rights for an Indigenous group—I think it's much more helpful to give them a targeted veto over some circumscribed set of decisions than to specify a supermajority threshold for decision-making that a vulnerable minority may not even be large enough to reach to exercise a veto. Q: How can we ensure that under our increasingly polarized society that the minority still have a voice within majoritarian or complex majoritarian decisions? Especially when it seems like our legislators are ideologically and politically farther away from each other than ever? Melissa Schwartzberg: It's a really hard, important question. I think that we tend to worry excessively about policy and stability. I think there is a live possibility that if we had had majoritarian decision making, we would have less stability: Congress would enact rules that would be repealed shortly thereafter. Think of Obamacare as an example. Enacting significant legislation now is so difficult, and rare, that the stakes seem extremely high. However, I think if it were less hard to revisit legislative decision making, in a way it would lower the stakes. And that itself might be a partial remedy for a degree of partisan polarization. Over time, I believe we would achieve a new equilibrium. Q: You mentioned that equal epistemic respect is an important principle of democracy. Can you describe a little bit about what you mean by that when you say equal epistemic respect? Melissa Schwartzberg: So that is part of the justification of majority rule. Majority rule weighs votes equally. That's a technical point about how it's formed. I think that we need to think about voting as a means of rendering judgment—that's a basic theme of my work. And the claim is that when we're voting, we're not merely expressing brute preferences or something like that: rather, we have judgments that need to be taken seriously, and that those judgments ought to be weighed equally. I think that gerrymandering and unequal districts are ways in which the promise of equal epistemic respect is undermined. I think equal voting weight is absolutely crucial for democratic decision making. And I think in the United States today, we fall very far short of that. Q: Can you attribute some of these failures to the Constitutional Rot or the inability of Constitutions to function? Melissa Schwartzberg: Oh, absolutely. Passing constitutional amendments is so extraordinarily difficult because of the supermajority threshold. This basically shifts who gets to make those changes away from The People and their Representatives and towards Judges. Judges do a lot of the work of bringing constitutions into line with contemporary needs. This is problematic because Judges are less accountable than Legislators by design. Another issue is that ordinary citizens are largely disempowered. If people just know about the Constitution, but they don't feel like they can do anything, they can't modify the Constitution, they can't engage with the Constitution, they just have to leave it up to Judges. That, if anything, is a recipe for feeling even more disempowered. Q: You mentioned that Article V makes it pretty difficult to address at least the Constitutional amendment portion of supermajority rule. What would you suggest the best mechanism is to transition away from supermajority rules and practices since it's already so deeply saturated within our Constitution and political system? Melissa Schwartzberg: Within our existing constitution, I think there's no way out except absent some type of Constitutional Convention, and even getting a Constitutional Convention would be quite difficult. So that's a very difficult challenge. One remedy for some of our problems would be to eliminate the filibuster. That said, there are lots of Senators who worry that their minority voice is going to be lost. So there are tradeoffs. We still will have bicameralism, it still is very difficult to pass a law under a bicameral system. It's not as if immediate majorities can do whatever they like. Q: You've written this book that we've been talking about almost 10 years ago, how have you seen these theories play out in the past decade? And can we attribute anything that's going on currently, to these theories? Melissa Schwartzberg: I think you can attribute absolutely nothing to the book itself. I was astonished to find Jamelle Bouie, who I think of as an absolutely brilliant opinion writer, found the book interesting and worthy of discussion in his column. However, I do think that there's been increasing suspicion of supermajority rules because of the filibuster and a real worry about tyranny of the minority as opposed to tyranny of the majority. There's a new book by Levitsky and Ziblatt taking up tyranny of the minority that is on the New York Times bestseller list right now. So I think there's a lot of interest in those questions. And I think the book is right now finding an audience because it seems to speak to some of those issues. It is a strange afterlife for this book. But I'm pleased to see it.

From Vladimir Putin to Viktor Orban to Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Stanford Professor Anna Gryzmala-Busse has tracked the rise of Autocrats in Eastern Europe and the global stage. Professor Gryzmala-Busse specializes in the historical development of the state, political parties, religion in politics, and post-communist politics. She presented some of her findings at her Athenaeum presentation — "Is Autocracy Contagious? The Limits of Anti-Democratic Diffusion." In the talk, she asserted that autocratic regimes concentrate on domestic issues, which form a nationalist identity and have little to do with international influences. Looking to Hungary and its despot Viktor Orban, the relationship between autocracy and international coalitions manifests. Since gaining an absolute majority in 2010, Orban has transformed Hungary from a liberal democracy into an autocracy. His reforms have fundamentally undermined Hungary's post-Cold War liberal consensus, shifting Fidesz, his party, from liberalism to populist nationalism. These changes include controlling public media and reducing the number of parliamentary seats, which has helped solidify his power. ​Orban continuously bashes against NATO and the EU, even likening EU membership to occupation under Soviet rule. He opposes the Schengen zone as a violation of Hungarian sovereignty that allows swaths of immigrants to enter the country and degrade its culture. Using this notion as justification, Orban has tightened Hungary's borders to the point of strangulation. Professor Gryzmala-Busse scorns Orban's nationalist supposition. Hungary has sent more people out of the country through open Schengen borders than they have ever accepted. Moreover, she indicates that EU membership is entirely voluntary, and Hungary is, in fact, one of its most significant beneficiaries of subsidies. Orban uses these large subsidies to fund his autocratic regime, delivering cheap EU prices to the people and claiming credit. In Poland, the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski has similarly moved his country towards an illiberal democracy. However, in a recent election, Polish voters chose change, electing three opposition democratic parties, which indicated a repudiation of PiS's rule. The new government faces the challenge of undoing changes made by PiS since 2015. The PiS had turned state media into its propaganda arm, a change the new government certainly hopes to reverse. The Law and Justice Party (PiS) is cut from the same cloth of right-wing populism that succeeded in its takeover of Hungary. However, where Orban succeeded, the PiS failed. Professor Gryzmala-Busse attributes the defeat of the PiS to party incompetence. The country witnessed the overreach of autocratic policy targeting democratic institutions, abortion, the media, and LGBT+ individuals; Voters were disgusted by what they saw. The incompetence in the Law and Justice Party starts at the top. In the most recent election cycle, Kaczynski vehemently attacked opposition leader Donald Tusk for his German ancestry. He claimed that Tusk was a German flunky, claimed that Tusk took orders from Berlin, and even claimed that Tusk's grandfather was in the Wehrmacht. For the record, Tusk's grandfather was a Pole who was captured by the Nazis and conscripted into military service. Professor Gryzmala-Busse sees this blatant xenophobia and asks, "Who cares?" For any Pole under 40, Tusk's grandfather's role in Nazi Germany does not make Tusk any less Polish than any other Pole. In Eastern Europe, no event takes precedence over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Professor Gryzmala-Busse identifies Eastern European countries' lack of international autocratic diffusion when analyzing the conflict. In the interactions between Putin, Orban, and Kaczynski, she sees three autocrats who have independently built their politically focused platforms. Consequently, their stance on Ukraine is based entirely on material necessity and political benefits; it has nothing to do with a more extensive spread of autocratic doctrine. Why, then, does Poland act as Ukraine's most vigorous supporter in the EU while Hungary cozies up to Russia? Hungary and Poland have had a historically fractious relationship with Russia, yet stand on opposite sides of international opinion on the conflict. Professor Gryzmala-Busse accredits this to cheap Russian oil. Hungary, a landlocked country dependent on Russia for its energy needs, vocalizes support for Russia in exchange for oil and gas. On the other hand, Poland has access to alternative forms of energy production and has been able to wean themselves from reliance on Russia. Orban, reaping the rewards from EU subsidies and cheap Russian oil, has succeeded in Hungary, where PiS in Poland failed. Since 2010, he has transformed the constitution, nationalized large sections of the economy, and driven out all independent media. In Professor Gryzmala-Busse's words, he has "implemented a full throated autocratic regime." Orban's calculated deconstruction of Hungary's democratic systems has prevented meaningful opposition to his reign. Opposition is outspent, outforced, and gerrymandered at every turn into a decisive defeat. The deck is stacked so heavily in Orban's favor that competitors can not get the votes. Orban's illiberal democracy in Hungary has made him an appealing figurehead for conservatives in the United States, who rally behind his doctrine and support his system of governance. Beyond his political success, he fuels the fire of hatred by spewing previously unimaginable vitriol. Professor Gryzmala-Busse regards his words as "truly horrific," with him even saying that "Germans know how to deal with gas." When Orban pushes the political Overton window, he enables imitations in the United States. This is perhaps the most remarkable example of diffusion from Orban's regime—his audacious push to redefine the boundaries of acceptable speech, brazenly pushing the limits of what was once considered socially permissible. Indeed, American politics have reflected this. Donald Trump has, since his explosion onto the political stage, shocked Democrats and Republicans alike with his scathing rhetoric. In an increasingly dark world, Poland's recent election serves as a beacon for opposition to autocracy, showing us that democracy can prevail.

Vigil for Jaahnavi Kandula On a January day this year in Seattle, Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old Indian graduate student, tragically lost her life when she was struck by a police car in a busy crosswalk. The officer was driving 63 miles per hour without a continuous siren while responding to a drug overdose call, and the street had a normal speed limit of 25 miles per hour. A day after Jaahnavi Kandula was fatally struck, another officer, Daniel Auderer– a “drug recognition expert” – was sent to see if the officer whose vehicle hit her had been impaired. Auderer responded to the scene and found no impairment in the officer but made callous remarks about Jaahnavi Kandula’s death, sparking outrage, particularly within the South Asian community. In the footage, Officer Daniel Auderer laughs, suggesting a mere $11,000 in compensation for the incident, saying, “She was 26 anyway” and “she had limited value.” In response to an investigation of his actions, Officer Auderer wrote to the city’s Office of Police Accountability and attempted to flip the script. He wrote, “I was imitating what a lawyer tasked with negotiating the case would be saying and being sarcastic to express that they shouldn’t be coming up with crazy arguments to minimize the payment.” The officer was reassigned but is yet to be fired despite outcries and rallies demanding justice for Kandula. The public widely condemned Auderer’s comments – particularly the reference to Kandula’s supposedly “limited value” and mistaken reference to her age – as insensitive and demanded accountability for the officer. Kandula’s story, marked by dreams, laughter, and untapped potential, is emblematic of a disturbing trend observed by critical legal and economic theorists: the persistence of racial devaluation in legal damages despite societal advances. Professor Martha Chamallas’ work on social justice in tort law is central to the discourse on racial devaluation. She critically analyzes forensic economics’ role in perpetuating inequality through the law. At the heart of Chamallas’ argument is the early 20th-century case of Griffin v. Brady, in which George Griffin, an African-American man, was awarded a measly $300 in a false imprisonment lawsuit. The decision on damages was marred by racial bias. Justice Durgo explicitly considered Griffin’s race as he reduced the damages amount, saying Griffin “would not be hurt just as much if put in prison as every man would be.” He explained that the impact of wrongful imprisonment “depends on a man’s standing, what his circumstances are, and if he is a colored man, the fact that he is a colored man is to be considered.” Ultimately, Justice Drugo considered Griffin’s life and standing to be worth less than that of a white man and decided on this basis that he deserved shockingly low damages. Like Griffin v. Brady, the recent death of Jaahnavi Kandula and Officer Auderer’s comments illustrate how racial bias impacts legal valuations. These cases, using Yale law professor Reva Siegel’s words, exemplify the theory of “preservation through transformation.” This concept suggests that, while discrimination may evolve and even lessen over time, its core prejudices and hierarchies can remain deeply embedded within societal structures, including the legal system. The shift from explicit and outright stated racial bias in cases like Griffin’s to more covert expressions in incidents like Kandula’s underscores this ongoing issue. Just as Justice Dugro believed Griffin’s suffering was less significant because of his race, the modern legal system, which remains reliant on the calculations of forensic economists, continues to undervalue some lives based on demographic factors. In Jaahnavi’s case, the term “limited value” doesn’t just represent a dollar figure but implies an entire world of biases, preconceived notions, and deeply rooted prejudices. It speaks to how society, and by extension its legal system, views the worth of an individual, particularly when that individual belongs to a marginalized group. While we may have reached a point of progress where it is no longer permissible for our judges to specifically reference victims’ race when sizing up their suffering, racial bias still pervades the attitudes and practices of street-level bureaucrats like Auderer. Recognizing both overt and subtle forms of discrimination is crucial for achieving genuine equity and justice in the legal system. As societal norms evolve, so too must our legal frameworks, ensuring they don’t just change in form but also in substance, truly upholding the values of equality and justice for all.

On December 19th, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a historic ruling in Anderson v. Griswold.  In a 4-3 split, the Court held that (1) Donald Trump is not qualified to be President of the United States under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and (2) that the CO Secretary of State cannot place his name on the state’s primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court issued a pause on its ruling from going into effect to allow the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. This is an unprecedented move, but it shouldn't necessarily be viewed as incorrect, especially given the unprecedented actions taken by President Trump that directly led to this ruling. The case is complicated. Let’s start with the basics: a group of GOP primary voters alleged that President Trump is not “qualified” under the Colorado Elections Code to be President because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars officers of the United States from office for “engag[ing] in insurrection.” The Colorado Supreme Court determined that the presidency was covered by this prohibition and that Donald Trump had “engaged in insurrection” by inciting the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. As expected, many politicians and pundits on the Right reacted hysterically to the decision. But beneath the uproar, many conservatives are broadcasting incomplete portrayals of both the law and the Constitution in this case. They ironically ignore the same power of state legislatures within the Electoral College which they often vociferously defend when it serves their interests. Most recently, Trump’s lawyers pushed the “Independent State Legislature Theory,” which essentially argued that partisan state legislatures could overturn the will of voters. The criticism from the Right fails to correctly identify the legal authority which the Colorado Supreme Court acted under, so it becomes easy for them to argue that the Court acted absent any authority at all. One House Republican, speaking to Axios, insisted that the U.S. Supreme Court would surely overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision because “there is no way that the 14th Amendment was intended to be applied this way.” On her show, The Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham—a former Thomas clerk—cried that “they [took] the Constitution and turned it into a piece of Silly Putty for political ends. That is classic judicial activism, is it not?” In essence, the right-wing narrative is simple: the 14th Amendment does not give state courts the power to strike a candidate’s name from the ballot, and by doing so, the Colorado Supreme Court twists the Constitution to take more power than the 14th Amendment gives. There’s one problem with this argument: the Colorado Supreme Court acted under the command of the Colorado Election Code, not the 14th Amendment. And that distinction makes a world of difference. To understand why the state law in this case is so important, we need to first understand the constitutional power of the states within the Electoral College. In 2024, Colorado will have 10 electoral votes. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, of the U.S. Constitution—the Electors Clause—asserts each state’s authority to assign their electoral votes “in such Manner that the Legislature thereof may direct.” In Colorado, as is the case with most states, the state legislature chose to assign their electors to the winner of a popular vote. To provide for these popular elections, using the power given to the states by the Electors Clause, Colorado’s General Assembly adopted the Election Code. Among other things, the Election Code commands that only “qualified” candidates be listed on the ballot. Colorado’s electoral votes, just like those of other states, come with conditions. Addressing the Electors Clause, the Colorado Supreme Court determined that “the U.S. Constitution authorize[s] states to assess the constitutional qualifications of presidential candidates” and that state courts can assess the constitutional eligibility of candidates, “provided their legislatures have established such authority by statute.” The Election Code satisfies this provision: Limiting ballot placement to “qualified” candidates must necessarily exclude candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming presidential office. The Griswold majority concluded that President Trump failed to meet the requirements of Section 3 and thus could not be a “qualified” candidate. When deciding if state courts can remove Trump from the ballot, the explicit command of state law is critical. On December 27th, the Michigan Supreme Court denied review of a similar 14th Amendment argument and left Trump’s name on the state’s primary ballot. Dissenting from the majority’s decision, Justice Welch argued that Michigan state law had a critical difference from Colorado’s Election Code. While Colorado law requires candidates to be “qualified,” Michigan law makes no such requirement. In the Michigan case, there was no provision that authorized state courts to assess the presidential eligibility of a candidate for primary ballots. The contrast between the Colorado and Michigan decisions should highlight the importance of state electoral law and the exact authority it gives to state courts. Beyond Section 3, the U.S. Constitution imposes clear restrictions on who may become President. The Eligibility Clause in Article II requires the President to be a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years of age, and a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years. Before ascending to the U.S. Supreme Court, then-appellate Judge Gorsuch upheld Colorado’s exclusion of a citizen not born in the United States from the presidential ballot in Hassan v. Colorado (2012). Hassan had argued that even if he was ineligible from assuming office, it was unconstitutional for Colorado to remove him from the ballot. To this, Gorsuch responded, “A state's legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.” If Colorado has the power to enforce requirements under the Eligibility Clause, why would the state lack the power to enforce requirements imposed by the 14th Amendment? It is true that the disqualifying criterion in Section 3—“engaged in insurrection”— is less objective than those found in the Eligibility Clause. And many dispute that Section 3 imposes any presidential criteria at all. But these are secondary issues. Because the Colorado Supreme Court only reaches the 14th Amendment question under the command of state electoral law, critics should at least respect their authority to interpret the Constitution even if they disagree with their interpretation. Most legal analysts think the U.S. Supreme Court is all but guaranteed to take this case. So how will this issue of state power affect their decision? Michael Luttig, a conservative and former Fourth Circuit Appellate Judge, is confident that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the Griswold decision. The main reason? The Colorado Supreme Court made it clear in its 133-page opinion that it “resolved each and every [constitutional question] as required not just under state law, but, more importantly, under federal constitutional law”—the Electors Clause. If the justices agree with Luttig’s assessment, there are a few routes which the U.S. Supreme Court could take. First, they could simply hold that while the Colorado court had the authority to consider this question, their interpretation was incorrect: the 14th Amendment imposes no presidential eligibility criteria. This option would not only be contentious (many constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum, using a variety of interpretive methods, would disagree), but also far-reaching: In approximately 15 states, there are ongoing cases challenging President Trump’s eligibility to appear on primary ballots. This decision would represent the most significant political involvement in a presidential election by the Court since Bush v. Gore. Given this, the Supreme Court could exercise deference in a few different ways. First, the Supreme Court could state, definitively, that the 14th Amendment imposes presidential criteria, but it is up to each state to decide if their law calls for constitutional assessment of eligibility. This ruling would not “strike Trump from every ballot” as many conservatives claim because his removal depends on the exact letter of state law. This option would clarify a key constitutional question and still give states the ultimate say over determining candidate eligibility. A second option would be to recognize that state courts, so long as their electoral law grants it, have the authority to decide if the 14th Amendment imposes eligibility criteria at all. This second option does not clarify the pertinent constitutional issue as much as the first, but it also gives more leeway to state legislatures in the authority that they prescribe to state courts. The Framers recognized that the Supreme Court’s awesome and “terrible” power to undo the actions taken by the federal and state governments must be balanced with restraint. Past Supreme Courts have shown apprehension toward issuing broad-sweeping declarations that curtail the sovereignty of the states and could significantly impact the democratic process. As this case will impact both state authority, under the Electors Clause, and one of the most important elections in this nation’s 247-year history, judicial deference to the states is highly warranted. Most recently, California decided to keep Trump on the primary ballot while Maine decided to remove him. This is the precise beauty of federalism. The Supreme Court should recognize that it may be best to leave this critical 14th Amendment question to those who control their electors in the first place: the states.

On Sunday, February 4th, the Pitzer Student Senate deliberated on resolution 60-R-5, a proposal to suspend the college’s study abroad program with the University of Haifa in Israel. This initiative, spearheaded by the Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), seeks to discontinue any further academic exchanges or programs with institutions in Israel until they cease their alleged involvement in discriminatory practices against Palestinians. Proponents of the resolution stressed the significance of this measure during open debate. They underscored direct requests from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) and Right to Education, a campaign founded at Birzeit University in the West Bank, emphasizing the proposal’s alignment with the wider Palestinian-led movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) founded in 2005. Other advocates cited reported incidents of racism against Arab students at the university, its hosting of Israeli military training, Israel’s ongoing trial in the International Court of Justice, and Pitzer’s commitment to social responsibility as reasons to support it. Some senators argued that Pitzer’s study abroad partnership with the University of Haifa is already defunct: one student claimed that Pitzer staff in the study abroad office do not even have current contact information for the program, and another senator noted that no Pitzer students had participated in the program for several years. This outnumbered group recommended that the resolution instead focus on compelling Pitzer President Strom Thacker to communicate the college’s opposition to “all actions deemed genocidal.” Another student referred to a proposal currently under review by faculty committees to clearly define the process for closing programs in the future. Yet, the resolution’s proponents saw these as administrative attempts to close the program quietly and disagreed with any attempts to modify the core aims of the resolution, stressing the symbolic value of 60-R-5 to set a precedent for subsequent academic boycotts at colleges and universities across the nation.  “The end goal of the Suspend Haifa Campaign and this resolution that we’re talking about today is not just to suspend our ties with the University of Haifa or to close the program…the end goal of this is to set precedent for an institutional boycott around the country,” a proponent said. According to one of the resolution's supporters, Palestinians chose to call on Pitzer specifically because of its small size and its democratic governance structure. That does not mean, however, that faculty and students have the final say at Pitzer. In March 2019, the faculty, student, and staff-composed Pitzer College Council voted 67-28 to suspend the Haifa program, but then-president Melvin Oliver unilaterally vetoed the decision, citing its political nature and claiming it was prejudicial in “singling out” Israel. Despite its previous failure, Claremont SJP re-launched the campaign to suspend Pitzer-Haifa in March of 2023, nearly a year after Oliver’s retirement as president, in hopes that his successor would be more amenable to their agenda. Since then, the club has held a “snackie” event, a poster-making event, a rally, and a donation strike as part of the campaign. Like the rest of SJP’s advocacy, the campaign has gained much energy and urgency from the conflict in Gaza that began in October. The club demonstrated on Sunday that it has not forgotten its past setbacks. Acknowledging that, if it passes, the resolution will likely be vetoed again, one proponent vowed that it would “keep coming back” and that the college would “keep having pressure on it.” The resolution will be put to a final vote this Sunday at 7:00 PM.