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Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Lysander Spooner in 1887 (credit: Wikimedia Commons) Nineteenth century thinker Lysander Spooner has been described as both a pioneer of right-wing libertarianism  and left-wing socialism . Regardless of which ideological bucket he falls into, Spooner was, to put it mildly, an unorthodox political thinker. Spooner was a man possessed by overweening confidence. In his time, Massachusetts law required college graduates to train with an attorney for three years before practicing. Spooner, who lacked both a college degree and reverence for authority, opened his own legal practice three years after training under prominent Massachusetts lawyers, politicians, and abolitionists. Openly defiant of the courts, Spooner railed against regulations that protected the rich at the poor’s expense for the rest of his life. He embarked on a legislative crusade to remove the requirement that attorneys have a college degree, publishing a petition in the Worcester Republican in 1835 and sending it to each member of the Massachusetts General Court. With allies in Massachusetts politics and in the legal system, Spooner’s crusade was successful—legislators voted down the restriction in the 1836 legislative session. This early foray into public activism established Spooner’s presence as a radical voice for the common man and paved the road for his later activities.  Spooner developed his views amid great political tension and turmoil in the United States. Though difficult to delimit, his political philosophy is best described as a blend between individualism and anarchism. His positions around natural rights and government’s purpose stood out at their inception and remain compelling today.  Spooner’s political ideology begins with his conception of natural rights as falling outside the realm of human creation or earthly government action. Moreover, Spooner argues that the validity of earthy governments depends on the existence of natural law. The individual owes loyalty to natural law and to natural law only. Spooner goes even further, arguing that no government has ever been just under the natural law tradition. Spooner also applied his natural law view to specific policies. He lambasted economic policies like usury bans and overregulation that hampered entrepreneurship and individual liberty. Spooner’s anti-authoritarian conception of natural justice also had constitutional implications. Spooner writes that “the Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation.” He also categorically rejects the idea that the Constitution is a contract that binds generations of Americans to their government in perpetuity, a stance that led him to endorse Confederate secession despite his abolitionism. Spooner argued that the act of voting was involuntary and merely self-defense against predation. Spooner uses quite harsh language to illustrate his point, arguing that “a man’s voting under the Constitution of the United States, is not to be taken as evidence that he ever freely assented to the Constitution, even for the time being.” Lysander viewed voting not as a means to exercise individual will and civic duties, but as a natural human response to encroachment and abuse under an illegitimate government. Spooner's legacy endures, influencing modern libertarianism and contemporary thinking about the Constitution. While the excerpts above offer a glimpse into Spooner's philosophy, they don't encompass the full scope of his activities. Many libertarians today will tell  the story of how Spooner began a private postal service that outcompeted the Post Office until Congress lowered its rates. His contributions to the abolitionist movement demonstrate a moral clarity well ahead of his time. Spooner’s presence in America’s ideological fabric is a powerful reminder of the variety in American political thought. His radical anti-authoritarianism, while superficially absurd, highlights the contrast between his skepticism and the relative trust many contemporary Americans place in government institutions.  But Spooner’s ideas are also somewhat disconcerting. Though government abuse is real, Spooner’s ideology discounts the net societal benefit that free and stable governments create. One would be foolish to overlook the numerous moral failures and anti-liberty abuses present in Spoooner’s 19th century America, but they would be equally foolish to not recognize how far the United States has come since. Experiments are inherently flawed– they require interested, invested, and careful parties to adjust and modulate their design as needed in pursuit of an ideal outcome. The American Experiment is no exception to this rule. Instead of following Spooner’s path, we must work together to improve our government under the Constitution’s authority   to build an America of justice for all. This piece is part of the Salvatori Center's Profiles in American Political Thought. You can find a complete list of those pieces here .

Some things matter more than winning. U.S. polls on Election Day (Credit: IDEA) In the aftermath of the 2024 Presidential Election—in which the Republican party achieved the coveted trifecta—a somber Democratic party engaged in post-mortem after post-mortem, searching for what went wrong. Beyond winning in the Electoral College by a decisive margin, President-elect Trump earned over 77 million votes, compared to Vice President Harris’s roughly 75 million votes, marking only the second time in the past 32 years that a Republican presidential candidate has won the popular vote. While Democrats have circulated various explanations for the crushing defeat, it is clear that the party’s messaging that Trump was a threat to democracy fell on deaf ears. One prevalent view—advanced by Senator Bernie Sanders and recently defended in The Forum  by Evan Sevaly—is that Democrats lost because they failed to embrace a left-wing populist agenda. Yet even if it would win them elections (a disputed proposition), Sevaly’s suggestion that Democrats ought to adopt a left populism agenda is misguided—as it leads the party and the country down a dangerous road to democratic backsliding, political polarization, and economic decay. As a student of international relations and comparative politics, case studies from around the world have taught me that populists—left or right—despise institutions. In 2020, political scientists from Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies published a report  from their Project on Global Populisms, finding that populist leaders from the left and right tended to undermine formal institutions, such as courts, the legislature, and regulatory agencies.  These institutions, which often provide a check against the pure majoritarianism that populism espouses, are maligned by populists as breeding grounds for corrupt elites. Left-wing populist politicians in the United States, for example, have accused  the Supreme Court of being extremist, corrupt, and corporate-owned, while calling for plans to either pack the Court  or rotate justices  off of it.  For evidence of how dangerous these threats can be, we need look no further than our neighbor—Mexico—and its recent experiment with left-wing populism. In 2018, the country elected Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), a progressive populist who had run for the office twice before (and denied the legitimacy of the results when he lost in 2006). In office, AMLO consistently attacked journalists  and the press, defunded public agencies  such as the National Electoral Institute, and weaponized the judicial branch  to threaten critics with prosecution on specious charges. Over the course of his tenure, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index demoted Mexico  from a “flawed democracy” to a “hybrid regime.” Indeed, when AMLO left office earlier this year, Ernesto Zedillo, the former President of Mexico widely credited with ushering in Mexico’s democratic era, wrote  that AMLO “left Mexico on the verge of authoritarianism.” While Mexico is a current example of the ills of left-wing populism, the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1930s Germany also serves as a cautionary tale. In “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College, offers a compelling explanation  of how the Nazis hijacked popular associations during their rise to power. She provides the example of Stahlhelm, a WWI veterans organization, composed of members across the political spectrum. During the interwar period, its membership reached half a million and played a key role in Hindenburg’s election. But due to disillusionment with traditional party politics and frustration with the national government, members began to abandon the center-right and mainstream parties they once supported (sound familiar?), instead opting for a communitarian populist ethic.  To be sure, the Nazis were a right-wing party. Nevertheless, a closer look at Weimar Germany reveals that the Nazis’ rise occurred simultaneously with the weakening of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), the moderate leftist party at the time. The SPD was the dominant party in the 1920s, and in the 1930 federal elections, they won the most seats again. Nevertheless, their performance was weaker than in previous elections, attributable to a sharp increase in seats won by the KPD (Communist Party), representing the more populist, radical left-wing. After the election, the SPD tried to build a coalition with the KPD, but the latter’s leader rejected it, stating : “Hitler must come to power first, [so that] the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly.” The rest is history: the rise of populism (both left and right), decline of moderate parties, and increase in polarization created the perfect storm for the Nazi’s rise to power.  Even when institutions aren’t threatened, populism has damaging effects on the economy and society. Populists need only prioritize policies that are good on paper, rather than thinking about what will best facilitate growth in the long run. Consider the issue of free trade. Bernie Sanders and other left-wing populists in the U.S. often tout protectionism  as a way to protect working class jobs. In doing so, they sound closer to Trump than seasoned economists and academics (who they usually write off as part of the neoliberal elite). Nevertheless, study after study confirms that free trade improves consumer welfare  through lower prices and more variety, increases firm efficiency , and creates jobs  in export-oriented industries. If populism propels the Democrats into power, it will come at the cost of well-reasoned policies. The result will be economic decay and ultimately a betrayal of voters that elected them to fix their problems.  When faced with a Republican party beholden to populist urges under Trump, it is all too easy for Democrats to flirt with the forbidden fruit of populism. But even if that approach proves politically successful, such an experiment would likely be a fatal blow to the political center in America and the institutions that underpin our liberal democracy. Instead, the Democrats should prioritize ways to better market their economic success compared to Republicans, win back racial minorities that voted for Trump in 2024, and continue to focus on what actually matters: delivering better outcomes—not soundbites—for the American people.

Crescit cum commercio civitas. A truck stop in Breezewood, PA (credit: Edward Burtynsky) On November 25th, the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum hosted its annual Thanksgiving debate. Four top students from the Claremont Colleges Debate Society tackled the resolution “consumers should opt out of Black Friday.”  Extraordinarily, members of both teams identified themselves on stage as Marxists. In speeches made both in favor of and in opposition to consumer participation in Black Friday, debaters reaffirmed that capitalism was a fundamentally immoral system. One debater quipped “I live for Marxist revolution.” The debate was entertaining, but the serious ideas expressed therein were, as the professor sitting next me put it, frightening. Debaters tasked with defending Black Friday could have straightforwardly defended markets. Instead, they opted to argue with the presupposition that capitalism was a moral evil.  55% of Americans between the ages of 18-29 view  capitalism negatively, compared to only 51% for socialism. And as we’ve seen over the past week, this negative view of capitalism can sometimes take on a deadly form. Millions of young people have rallied online in support of Luigi Mangione following his assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, which was seemingly influenced by past anti-capitalist terrorists such as Ted Kascynski. A New York Times analysis  of the public reaction to the killing argues that Mangione has become a sort of “modern day folk hero.” Our generation is at the frontline of this reaction. We all saw friends celebrate murder with memes and quips. But these reactions exhibit callous disregard for human life and mask the ways in which capitalism is a system of liberation rather than oppression. Given rising income inequality  and rampant inflation, it’s understandable that some are weary of American capitalism. But this weariness ignores the many benefits capitalism has provided. The global shift towards international capitalism and away from Medieval mercantilism lifted  a supermajority of the world’s population out of extreme poverty. For instance, in 1953, South Korea was, by some measures, the poorest  nation in the world. President Park Chung-Hee’s embrace of market liberalization and global trade has turned them into one of the richest. South Korea remains a troubled nation, but their progress is remarkable. Data  clearly indicate that freer markets correlate with economic success at every level, including the poor. As CMC’s motto declares, “civilization prospers with commerce.” Contrast this to the worldview of Marxism. Marxist revolution has never once succeeded. The 20th century saw dozens  of attempts at communist governance, but these experiments were universally  rife with political repression. All but a handful faced socio-economic collapse. Where capitalism has built wealth, albeit often concentrated, Marxism has succeeded in little more than equalizing poverty.  Further, models exist for maintaining capitalism’s great potential for competition and wealth building with economic justice. For instance, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his Christian Democratic Party pioneered  the “social market economy,” merging relative business freedom with the mechanisms of a strong social safety net. The “Nordic model,” often incorrectly labeled as socialistic, similarly pairs markets with a social safety net. These efforts have recognized capitalism’s drawbacks and responded with altered methods of wealth distribution. Nevertheless, they have accepted the core premise that capitalism promotes economic freedom. On campuses such as Claremont, children of the most privileged tout the strongest opposition to the systems they have benefitted from the most. Defending capitalism isn’t about defending billionaires. Markets are not just Elon Musk and UnitedHealthcare. The free market is a living system that we encounter and benefit from daily. Capitalism is the mom and pop shops littered throughout the Claremont Village. Capitalism is the seven cross-campus dining halls raising the quality of their food to compete for our foot traffic. Capitalism is the system that allows you to choose where to go to school, what to do for work, and how you want to spend your money. And without it, we’d all be worse off.

The CMC community must re-commit itself to constructive dialogue. (Credit: Anibal Ortiz) Like many of you, I chose CMC because of its   commitment  to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue. CMC continually achieves a high free-speech   ranking  and promotes effective conversations through organizations like the Athenaeum, the Open Academy and the Dreier Roundtable. At CMC, I have felt empowered to embrace controversial opinions. That changed last week. This election was a shock. I believe that Donald Trump lacks the character to be president and that his victory will severely harm America’s civic culture and international reputation. Not supporting him was an easy decision. That said, I am incredibly disheartened with the way many of my peers have responded to this outcome.  Last Wednesday, many CMCers reposted spiteful Instagram messages, saying, “If you voted for Trump, I want nothing to do with you,” “Trump supporters are disgusting,” or “If you voted for Trump, unfollow me.” Others added their own invectives: “Who do you think you are,” “You are the scum of this country.” I also reposted something last Wednesday, “No matter who is president, Jesus is King.” 25 of my peers had unfollowed me by the next day. One Instagram follower responded, “Is this a joke?” I imagine some of my peers, mistakenly believing that all Christians support Trump, misinterpreted this post as a glorification of the President Elect. In fact, the post was meant to do the opposite, reminding us to love our neighbors, even when we disagree with them. In my public policy class’s election debrief that evening, our professor asked why we thought Trump won. As the class gave their answers - economic malaise, Harris’s lack of time, Biden’s unpopularity - I noticed a group of classmates making incredulous, repulsed facial expressions whenever someone answered. When it was their turn to talk, they insisted that Trump won because his supporters were determined to amplify racism and misogyny. “Perhaps racism and sexism played a role for some voters,” our professor responded. “It’s not a ‘perhaps,’” they decisively rebutted, “America hates women so much, they’d rather have a rapist as the president than a woman of color.” A tense, uncomfortable silence fell over the class.  Later in the discussion, another classmate specifically accused me of condoning racism and misogyny because I went to an election watch party for Republican interns. Though the person later sincerely apologized, this episode reflects a broader problem with political discourse in the CMC community. These classmates halted our productive discussion, made the class feel uncomfortable, and made me feel alienated. They seemed to think that whoever was daring enough to challenge their opinions only disagreed because they were racist and misogynistic, too. After class, I asked those same classmates to talk. From our conversation, they clearly equated support for President Trump with bigotry and were upset that I didn’t wholeheartedly agree. To say that Trump retook the White House because America is full of bigots is false. Trump won a majority of the popular vote in the most racially diverse electorate ever, he improved his margin with women by 14 percentage points, he won a majority of native-American voters, and he almost completely broke Democrats’ longstanding grip on Latino voters. Almost every poll showed the economy was the most important issue to voters. If working and middle class voters cannot afford groceries, they certainly cannot afford to be single issue voters for social justice.  When my peers struggle to acknowledge women and people of color who prioritized a different issue in this election, they dismiss the concerns of millions of minority voters. Some others also posited baseless theories on social media that women voted for President Trump because “white women hate black women,” or that minorities voted red because they were chasing the “whiteness they crave.”  I’m not sharing these experiences to complain. Instead, I’m calling out my peers for exacerbating a parasitic problem in American civic society: the impulse to villainize the opposition.  This approach is wrong. By making broad and unfair assumptions about the motives of Trump voters, they make these voters feel alienated. We have to disagree better. As students at an institution whose mission is to prepare us for thoughtful and productive lives, we have an obligation to be better than the hateful and divisive rhetoric consuming our civic discourse. We must own our role as mediators, push others to acknowledge opposing perspectives, and be extremists for compromise. Because a future without compromise is a dark one.

The Henry County local ’ s campaign focuses on improving infrastructure and education. Mishael White, candidate for Georgia’s 81st district, campaigns door to door in Henry County (credit: @mishaelwhiteforgeorgia) CLAREMONT, Calif. — Mishael White, a veteran truck driver from Henry County, Georgia,   now running for the state legislature, says he plans to tackle a mounting problem for drivers:  finding a place to park. Truck drivers in Georgia and across the United States increasingly lack adequate parking and rest   areas, a result of growing consumer demand for e-commerce. White’s political campaign, run   from his home, provides a window into a perplexing issue for Georgia voters.   Henry County , 33 miles south of Atlanta , saw its population rise   27% between 2010 and 2024.   That growth, coupled with the soaring e-commerce market, has exacerbated traffic congestion.   According to a 2024 report   by Rough Draft Atlanta, a   local media organization,   Georgia’s retail sales, including online shopping, have grown 470% over the last two decades,   leading to more trucks on the road. The 43-year-old White, a Democrat who garnered  3,212 votes in the primary, faces Republican  N oelle Kahaian, 50, a consultant from Locust Grove. “Henry County is ready for a representative  who truly embodies our conservative values,” Kahaian said in a press release after   the primary.  With 23 years of trucking experience, White seeks to represent  working-class individuals. “I know what families in District 81 care about because I'm one of them,” White said in a phone   interview. “My experience as a truck driver has solidified my understanding of getting up every   day and doing the job right.”   The issue, White said, is “that our infrastructure isn't robust enough to handle the sheer   volume of commuters on the roadway at any given time.”   The lack of infrastructure has contributed to a parking mess. White said truckers driving on   Interstate Highway 75, a major thoroughfare in Henry County, spend as much as 40 miles trying   to find adequate parking.   White believes that solving the parking problem could alleviate traffic congestion.   “If we can give truckers a place to park, get their supplies for the night…and take their off-duty  breaks, we’d see less trucks on the roadway during daytime driving,” White said.  Georgia’s budget surplus could be a source of funding. The state surplus was $16 billio n in the  fiscal year end ing 2023, according to a report  released by Georgia Budget & Policy Institute.  Parking shortages affect urban centers nationwide. City planners have implemented  “curb   management strategies” to tackle the issue . Washington, D.C., has increased designated pick up/drop-off zones for truckers, while New York City authorized the first use of e-cargo bikes in  April. These efforts mirror White’s campaign initiatives.  White is running in a new political landscape. District 81 was created in 2023 by legislatures   aiming to increase majority-Black voting districts. Although the area has historically leaned  Republican, it is now considered a toss-up , with the population 50% white and 42% Black.  In addition to infrastructure, White announced intentions to improve public education. Kahaian, White’s Republican opponent, is running on a different slate of issues. As an   ambassador for Veterans for Trump, Kahaian aims to increase awareness for veterans in the   county, according to her campaign website . Kahaian is also president of Protect Student Health Georgia,   an organization that fights to protect “children from the potential harms of gender identity  ideology,” according to the website. The Kahaian campaign did not return requests for comment.

President Biden and Big Oil had a truce. Now President-elect Trump has a deal. Donald Trump wears a hard hat in support of miners in Charleston, WV, in 2016. (Credit: Mark Lyons/Getty Images) The oil and gas industry has donated $75 million  to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Republican National Committee, and affiliated political committees to support his fossil-fuel-driven vision for the American economy. Thanks in large part to ultra-wealthy oil executives, Mr. Trump’s “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” energy platform will become a reality in 2025, begging the question of not only his ethics, but the future of our climate. News of these donations comes in the wake of Mr. Trump’s request for $1 billion  from the fossil fuel industry at a private dinner with oil executives at Mar-a-Lago. Some attendees of the event anonymously reported that the former President verbally asked for donations in exchange for reduced taxes and legal fees on drilling and mining once he becomes president. While the exchange was no doubt shady, it was likely not illegal under the Supreme Court’s current interpretation  of campaign finance laws.  Mr. Trump may have come up short of his billion-dollar goal, but he successfully garnered the support of major oil companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil and recruited the help of numerous other fossil fuel beneficiaries, including mine operators, shipbuilders, engineering firms, hedge funds and smaller oil producers. In addition to the money directly donated to Mr. Trump’s super PACs, fuel companies and trade groups spent almost $80 million  on advertising in swing states.  From an environmental standpoint, a second Trump presidency backed by Big Oil is terrifying. The President-elect has promised drilling access on public lands and in federal waters. He campaigned on pledges to reduce taxes on the fossil fuel industry and eliminate EPA regulations that regulate air pollution. Not to mention, Mr. Trump has historically been skeptical of climate science. He called climate change a “big hoax”  on Fox News and has misrepresented  the science behind extreme weather events like snowstorms and melting ice caps. In the most comprehensive study  on American climate deniers to date, Mr. Trump was shown to be the top influencer on Twitter’s (now X’s) echo chamber of users that don’t believe in climate change. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump - along with his Republican colleagues Florida Governor Ron DeSantis  and Senator Rick Scott  - has used his platform to fuel the belief that any effort to move away from nonrenewable energy is aimed at emptying the middle class’s pockets and benefitting the Democratic Party’s “woke” agenda . Mr. Trump has already begun to make good on his end of the deal. He announced plans  to redraw the borders of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah to open hundreds of thousands of acres of land to development. He intends to issue new permits on natural gas export terminals and to revoke a longstanding waiver that allows states like California to set stricter pollution standards than the federal government.  While carbon emissions skyrocket and the economy worsens its dependence on dwindling resources, Big Oil will reap billions of dollars in profit. An analysis by the International Monetary Fund found that American fossil fuel companies receive $700 billion of subsidies each year when accounting for federal tax breaks and undercharging of environmental costs. It’s no wonder oil, gas, and coal beneficiaries were willing to make large donations to secure four more years of Mr. Trump in the oval office.  Increased vehicle and power plant exhaust doesn’t just quicken a warming climate. It puts Americans at higher risks of lung cancer and pulmonary diseases by polluting the air we breathe. Burning fossil fuels also releases particulate matter and nitrogen and sulfur dioxides which leads to smog and acid rain. The former depletes the ozone layer, reduces visibility, and spurs lung infections in humans and animals. The latter turns soil infertile, kills aquatic life, and releases heavy metals from the ground into the water we drink. To rub salt in the wound, Mr. Trump has chosen  former New York Representative Lee Zeldin as the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Historically, Zeldin has dismissed clean energy and supported Mr. Trump’s environmental rollbacks. He backed the former President’s 2017 exit from the Paris Climate Agreement and voted against clean water legislation at least twelve times. When he was called out on X by New York Governor Kathy Hochul for voting ‘no’ on the Inflation Reduction Act - a bill that creates thousands of jobs in renewable energy - he tweeted , “I just voted NO because the bill sucks.” The future Trump administration is in a dangerously powerful position to force rollbacks of environmental regulations and protections so that private fossil fuel companies profit. The President-elect has big promises to fulfill, and none of them are to the environment or the American people.

CMC’s administrative overreach has reduced students from “responsible leaders” to coddled dependents. 5C students at the now-canceled McKenna Palooza concert in 2019 (credit: Glen Matheny) “Responsible Leadership.” The phrase appears in Claremont’s promotional materials, nearly all of President Chodosh’s speeches, and in a litany of emails from administration. CMC aims to develop responsible leaders through a liberal arts education, but it’s our view that more of this learning must happen outside of the classroom. Growing regulation of student interactions and behavior undercuts CMC’s leadership mission and sends a clear message: CMC no longer trusts its students.  The administration’s perspective is understandable. It’s true that many students arrive on campus having been coddled by institutions which shielded them from risk and discomfort. And the school certainly has an interest in shielding itself from liability and its students from harm.  But the school’s policies produce harm rather than reduce it. The more responsibility that the administration assumes, the less responsible students must be for themselves. Behavioral and social norms increasingly flow from the administrators to students rather than from upperclassmen to newcomers. Andrew Winssinger ‘22 said that prior to the pandemic, “campus norms were [inculcated] by students rather than faculty or DOS.” We are no longer responsible leaders, but coddled dependents. This is the consequence of what the New York Times   calls  “soft paternalism,” and it permeates into every aspect of student life. The expansion of CMC’s administration has allowed for the implementation of overbearing measures. Since the resignation of Dean Spellman in 2015, the number of administrators has grown  11.58% while the student body has grown 2.7% in the same time period. Most of this administrative growth happened in the Dean of Students office, which increased from 12 to 18 members (and now sits at 21). Administrative overgrowth is not unique to CMC but uniquely harms CMC’s ability to fulfill its mission of producing responsible leaders.  For example, in the first month of the fall 2024 semester, alcohol-related transports went up dramatically from the rates seen in previous years. Under pressure from the new fire marshal to decrease the amount of incidents on campus, the school moved to end the long-standing alcohol policy and no longer serve alcohol to students under 21 or without a valid government ID. The original policy aimed to discourage binge drinking before events, so the change suggests that concerns over liability now outweigh those related to student drinking behaviors. The decision to alter the policy after years of acceptance highlights a shift in the school's prioritization of legal risk. After the pandemic, the administration took several steps to restrict parties and student events. An alumna from the class of ‘23 felt that “ the Dean of Students preyed on our lack of institutional memory [after COVID] to make the social changes they wanted to see.” For example, any events recently have been CMC-only, or CMC-plus-guest. In the past, events hosted by CMC and ASCMC were open to students across the 5Cs, fostering community within the consortium. An alumnus from the class of ‘23 noted that “students were given a pretty big amount of freedom to throw social events during my time, but it became a lot more regulated after COVID. Wristbanding was only a thing for big events during my first year but definitely became a bigger thing later.” In shifting toward CMC-only events, the administration unduly narrows the social experiences of their students, creating an environment that limits students’ ability to develop relationships beyond CMC’s campus.  With 5C events, too, students have noticed the increased strictness. In conversations with alumni, almost all noted the humorously dubbed “January Scripps” incident on Halloween in 2022. After getting wristbands, students stood in a line for up to 45 minutes before the group got tired and stormed the party, knocking the surrounding fences down. One alumna suggested that “ students wanted to have a social life with inclusive, accessible parties, and instead the colleges made it incredibly unbearable and frustrating to go to school-sponsored functions.”  So too, there has been a greater tendency to shut down parties which have more than 100 or so attendees, even when those parties are orderly. The administration assumes that by keeping events smaller and contained, the administration can control potential risks and liabilities. The net effect of these policies is that CMC takes away students’ agency. Students no longer take responsibility for their or their peers’ behavior since the college will take measures to guide us toward proper action or restrict the ability to act irresponsibly.  Bureaucratic oversight of student-life extends beyond social events. DEI training, while well-intentioned, leads to structured interactions between students. Students are given frameworks and guidelines for discussing sensitive topics, and they lose the opportunity to engage in open, unscripted dialogue with peers from diverse backgrounds. Instead of facilitating heartfelt understanding, then, the highly mediated approach stifles communication.  Other well-meaning initiatives like the Open Academy and the Kravis Lab for Civic Engagement further exemplify CMC’s desire to oversee students. These programs subtly imply that students cannot or should not engage in free speech except in the bosom of an administrative initiative. Efforts to guide interactions between students removes the impetus for students to develop the ability to navigate difficult situations independently.  Though potentially trivial, even the campus’ topographical development mirrors the administrative shift toward soft paternalism. After numerous renovations on campus, students now have less social space than before. Concrete and careful landscaping replaced the green spaces on North Quad. Gravel and glass overtook the grass in Mid Quad. Both once served as important areas in the center of our living spaces – not just for parties but for impromptu social gatherings day-to-day.  CMC doesn’t have to abandon its supervisory role completely –that’s an undesirable and unrealistic ask. But right now, CMC shields its adult students, and then acts surprised when they struggle with real-world challenges by themselves. Molly Luce ‘23 emphasized how “ holding onto the stricter policies left the CMC community… a more clique-oriented, less spontaneous, and overall less friendly place.”  If the school really wants to “prepare students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership in business, government, and the professions,” then independence is a necessity.

The College’s mental health efforts are commendable, but their messaging is wrong-headed. (Credit: Camp Fire) Monsour Counseling and Psychological Services ( MCAPS )—the 5C’s mental health provider—held, at the start of last month, an event, the title of which reads like an ill-conceived move in the worst-ever game of word association: “National Depression Screening Day: Succulent Arrangement & Pumpkin Painting Activity.” It’s a perplexingly bad banner. It fails because it embarks upon an impossible task: to speak coherently of mental disorders and decorative squash in the same utterance. Blunders of this sort are typical of the College’s well-meaning, though confused, approach to “mental health.”  There’s little doubt that students’ psychological well-being matters to the College. It’s a multi-headed operation : ASCMC Mental Health and Wellness, the Peer Health Ambassadors ( PHA ), MCAPS, the Dean of Students. Much of what’s done is plainly good. I’m referring, here, to the provision of professional  mental-health support through third-parties—through  TimelyCare, ProtoCall, and MCAPs. I’ve availed myself of many of these resources. And I’ve been helped by them. The purpose of this article, then, isn’t to take to task the College’s entire  mental-health program. It’s their messaging  that’s in error. In their sincere attempt to take a serious thing seriously, the College has made a serious thing trivial.  To see how, take a look at the College’s mental health-related flyers. The messaging is, in a word: glib. The positivity is sickly (“You are Strong; Capable & Worthy. Believe in yourself—you’ve got this!”). And there’s a pun, alliteration, or cutesy theme for nearly every advertised event. October 3rd: “Donut Stress.” October 28th: “HalloWellness.” November 7th, from the PHA: “Leaf it all behind.” There’s a place for their wordplay, highly saturated colors, and unflagging upbeatness. But if the College is aiming to address weighty topics this way, it’s getting it wrong. The fluff just isn’t appropriate.  After all, if “mental health is health” (as one “Positive Pin” on the flyer for an MCAPS Wellness Workshop proclaims), then mental illness really is illness . “It’s ok to not be ok,” the posters tell us. But if it’s not “ok” to have pneumonia, or heart disease, or lymphoma, then it’s not “ok” to have OCD, or an anxiety disorder, or depression. Of course, the goal of these slogans is to do away with stigma—and that’s a fair goal. But here’s a fact about mental illness: it’s bad. It’s ugly.  When the College pretends as though that’s not the case, it talks right past  the suffering person. In periods of true anguish, the suffering person wants—desperately—just to tolerate themself. What’s desired isn’t a “positive outlook” or a “sunny disposition.” It’s freedom from the torment of illness, of dis -order. The College’s unrelenting cheeriness, I think, just pokes and prods the person who’s unwell. It’s a bit like telling someone who’s broken their leg to get up and jog. They’d like, first, to regain their ability to stand . We don’t do that, of course. Why not? Because it’s insulting, and unhelpful. To speak sensitively  to students with mental illness would be to say: “It really does hurt” and “Here’s what you can do about it.” Instead, the College suggests, with its hollow optimism, adorable graphics, and vapid catchphrases, that mental illness is about as bad as a bad day.  No wonder its proposed “treatments,” then, are treatments for bad days. Make pins, make bookmarks, decorate journals with stickers (and then go back to your dorm to decorate the insides of those journals with your darkest thoughts). It’s infantilizing. Of course, making art and being with others—these are good things to do. They’re constitutive of a “good time,” and no doubt features of a good life. But what do we imply about mental health, and mental illness, when we offer up these kinds of activities as if they’re even a little bit  curative? The fact is that making art and being with others is good for your physical health, too. But we’d never arrange a campaign against broken arms or osteoporosis around these things, which are just nice to do, but aren’t treatments for disease.  It’s clear enough from the language that’s used—the College misunderstands the perspective of the mentally ill person. And, in doing this, I think, it misunderstands its own project. The College has conflated health with happiness . It’s running a robust fun  initiative. And it’s right, of course, to concern itself with students’ enjoyment. But it takes itself to be responding to a crisis, too. It’s pouring resources into what’s labeled “mental health” programming, presumably, because it’s aware of the ballooning rates of mental illness among young people. The College should be commended for mounting an effort against this. But it has made the matter appear frivolous. It has done damage to our concepts of mental health and mental illness. And it has left those subjects vulnerable to mockery.

To save our democracy, look to Plymouth Rock. Thanksgiving at Plymouth. (Credit: Jennie Augusta Brownscombe) With the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, controversies over the role of Puritans in American history have begun their annual resurfacing.  If we discuss the Puritans at all today, it is most often with scorn or in mockery. We frequently dismiss Puritans as anachronistic religious fundamentalists. One column  mocks Puritans for giving their children names like Obedience, Praise-God, and Remember. An article from Pitzer College denounces  the “almost limitless capacity of Puritanism for evil.” Journalist H.L. Mencken memorably described Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Other anti-Pilgrim diatribes  brand Puritans as “deceitful, abusive…extremists” or inform  us that “the Pilgrims smelled.” Still others legitimately point  out the eventual outbreak of brutal violence between the Native and Puritan communities.  Yes, the Puritans were problematic. In the decades after the “first Thanksgiving,” their expansion led to wars with Native groups such as the Pequot rife with the slaughter of civilians. As with future chapters of the American story, Puritans are stained by their role in colonization. Nonetheless, their movement on the whole was one of relative liberty and equality. For all their faults, many Pilgrims resisted the racism of their time and welcomed Native converts into their ranks. Pilgrims were far from sexist by standards of the day, recognizing women’s contributions to religious life and saw redeemed souls as genderless. Though perhaps flawed in execution, theirs was a society deeply rooted in ideals rather than popular demagoguery or the pursuit of pleasure. In fact, one might argue the pious communitarianism of Puritan New England formed the firmament for democratic America. Perhaps the maligned “hortatory names” of the Puritans offer us this key themselves. However imperfect they were, the Puritans were people of principle. As peculiar in retrospect as these names may be, we should admire a society that names its children for its ideals rather than as the culmination of a quest for the most euphonic amalgamation of syllables. Detractors of the Puritans often point to the infamous Salem witch trials. Yet, this miscarriage of justice was an aberration from rather than the fulfillment of Puritan ideals. While Puritanism arose from a concern that principles would succumb to personal grievances, it was exactly these sorts of grievances that drove the witch trials. Eventually, it would be Puritan clergy who ended the trials. Interestingly, Samuel Sewall, a judge who initially presided over the trials before joining many Puritan clergy in denouncing them, also authored America's first anti-slavery work: The Selling of Joseph . Puritan culture sowed the seeds for both American democracy and the anti-slavery movement.  In his 1835 Democracy in America , the French polymath Alexis de Tocqueville argued that American democracy is uniquely indebted to its Puritan antecedents. Moreover, he describes their religion as intermingled with “the most absolute democratic and republican theories.” The Puritans journeyed not “to improve their situation or to increase their wealth,” but “tore themselves from the comforts of their homeland… to assure the triumph of an idea.” Puritan civilization, erected upon ideals, formed a society remarkably equal, one where “democracy is society’s way of being.” Tocqueville’s description seems novel now, where the Puritans remain cast in the popular image as petty tyrants obsessed with moral pedantry. Nonetheless, the society they built was guided by an imperfect but ever continuing quest for the most moral course of action. There are many ways to describe today’s United States, but morally obsessed would not be one of them, even if we may have inherited institutions built by Puritans.  The Puritans set sail, quite literally, on uncertain waters at an uncertain time to build the most democratic society on Earth. Like the country of their descendants, they established themselves on principles well conceived but poorly executed. In the past months, authoritarian regimes have consolidated their power; once more, the United States and her allies are a rock of liberty in a world ever more familiar to tyranny. In these days of war and disquiet, the democratic model we need might be found in our history. Perhaps, if we want to defend our democracy, we must look back to Plymouth Rock.

CMC's International Relations faculty offer some insight into Trump's foreign policy. Photo from the discussion (Credit: Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies) Following the 2024 election, Claremont McKenna College’s Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies hosted a discussion exploring the impact that a second Trump presidency will have on U.S. foreign relations. Members of CMC’s International Relations (IR) faculty delivered brief remarks on various policies and approaches that President-elect Donald Trump will pursue on the international stage once he takes office.  Professor Lisa Koch, who specializes in nuclear weapons and security studies, began by describing Trump’s foreign policy approach as populist and isolationist. She argued that this approach is not new, but has been part of the politics of American foreign policy at various times in U.S. history.   Meanwhile, Minxin Pei, Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow, an expert on China, warned of rising Sino-American tension and the potential for a crisis over Taiwan under a Trump Administration that will pursue protectionist and hawkish policies. In a similar vein, Professor Jennifer Taw, Chair of the IR program, expressed concern that Trump—alongside Israel—may prosecute a war with Iran before Iran acquires nuclear weapons.  Professor Jessica Zarkin, who teaches courses on Mexican and Latin American politics, noted that Trump would likely use the threat of tariffs as a bargaining chip with Mexico to ensure cooperation on stricter border policies. Discussing global migration and other issues, Professor Jean-Pierre Murray, who focuses on global governance and international law, warned of a decline in multilateralism and the “liberal international world order” as a result of Trump’s rise. Finally, the Director of the Keck Center and an expert on Russia politics, Hilary Appel, Podlich Family Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow, outlined Trump’s stated approach to dealing with the war in Ukraine, which she characterized as more dovish toward Russia than the Biden administration.  During the Q&A portion of the discussion, students conveyed a general sense of unease regarding how a second Trump presidency will impact America’s standing in the world—from its credibility amongst allies to its posture toward international law and human rights. Many students and faculty expressed concern that U.S. alliances will increasingly depend on personal relations with Trump and what other countries can offer, rather than longer-term U.S. strategic considerations.  Moreover, many of the professors responded to student questions about whether Trump can or wants to achieve all of his stated goals. Koch observed that Trump’s actions do not always align with promises made on the campaign trail. Appel pointed out that Trump’s proposed peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine war would constitute “political suicide” for Ukrainian President Zelenskyy while Pei noted that Trump’s proposed protectionist policies vis-à-vis China may be limited by business leaders such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who has direct contact with Trump and substantial investments in China.  Indeed, in answering student questions, many of the professors noted that several of Trump’s policies will be influenced by the people he surrounds himself with in his cabinet and executive agencies. From the appointments made so far, however, they noted that Trump has prioritized appointing largely inexperienced loyalists for key positions, including Secretary of Defense and Director of National Intelligence. “Where does that leave us?” was a common sentiment from students, many of whom are planning to work in government agencies, the foreign service, or IR-related fields, and were disheartened by what Trump’s win means for U.S. foreign policy. Addressing that sentiment—in a moment of rare optimism for the night—Professor Taw encouraged students to still pursue such work in the short term and urged them to learn how the system works so they can effect meaningful change later in their careers.  This article was originally published on CMC's website with support of the Keck Center.

Instead of shifting right, Democrats should champion policies that appeal to working-class voters. Vice President Harris recently lost the 2024 election, and the blame game among Democrats has already begun. Moderates are already trying to pin  the blame on the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Among other claims, they argue  that Harris could have won had she tacked harder to the center and picked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.  Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) claims , “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” In his view, Harris failed to lay out a bold plan to address the economic woes of working-class Americans, resulting in lost votes. And he’s right.  Rising Inequality, Rising Populism To understand the Democratic Party’s problems with the working class, we must first examine the conditions that led to Trump’s rise. Since at least the 1970s, the U.S. has decreased the social safety net while lowering taxes on the wealthy and big corporations. Unions and welfare benefits, once crucial to American workers, have been hollowed out. Anti-union legislation has decreased the unionization rate from 28%  in 1970 to 10%  today, and Bill Clinton’s welfare reform bill led to a 78% decrease  in cash assistance to needy families.  Meanwhile, the top income tax rate has decreased  from 72% in 1970 to 37% today, with a corresponding decrease  in the corporate tax rate. The end result is predictable. The share of income going to the top 10% increased  from 34% in 1970 to 46% today. Because more and more income is going to the affluent, the 3 million richest Americans now have more wealth  than the poorest 291 million. As wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the working-class is struggling to get by. For starters, 61%  of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, and annually, 27%  of Americans report not getting medical treatment because they couldn’t afford it.  When people can’t afford basic necessities like medical bills, they become more distrustful of the economic and political elite. As a Pew Research poll demonstrated, voters think  the government is more responsive to the demands of lobbyists and special interest groups than ordinary people. And when voters are discontent, they look for someone to blame.  Trump gains support by identifying  “the enemy within,” whether it be immigrants, leftists, or other groups, and scapegoating them for the country’s economic and social woes. For example, Trump has claimed  that immigrants are largely  rapists and murderers and that they are  “poisoning the blood of our country.” Trump promises to restore America to its past glory (i.e., “make America great again”) by removing or alienating the cancerous sects of society, such as when he called  for the mass deportation of immigrants or when he called  for the national guard to be deployed against leftists. Trump’s rhetoric comes right out of the right populist playbook.  Ways to Fight Right Populism The Democratic Party has two main ways to respond to right populism. The first is the neoliberalism of figures like Bill Clinton and other moderate Democrats. The neoliberals, armed with big donor cash, Ivy League consultants, and overrepresentation in establishment news sources like MSNBC and CNN, refuse to adopt populist rhetoric. Instead, neoliberals promise incremental improvements for Americans, like tax credits  for new businesses or a reduction  in prescription drug prices.  Faced with the scapegoating of marginalized groups for the country’s economic woes, neoliberals chose to move right on issues like immigration and mass incarceration. For instance, neoliberals have adopted the Republican framing that immigration poses a public safety problem and recently attempted to pass an immigration bill that would have substantially weakened  the right to asylum.  Vice President Harris firmly falls into the neoliberal camp. When asked what she would do differently than the Biden Administration, she responded , “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” before reconsidering and saying she would have a Republican in her cabinet. That’s not to say that Harris’ policies wouldn’t help the working-class. Some, like expanding  the child tax credit, certainly would. But in an age of populism, her strategy was wholly unsuccessful.  The second way Democrats can respond to right populism is by embracing left populism. Instead of scapegoating marginalized groups for the country’s woes like right populists, left populists condemn the economic and political elite. Left populists blame  corporate price gouging and record corporate profits for increased inflation and blame the lack of a social safety net on elite politicians and their lobbyist buddies. Figures like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refuse to kowtow to populist right narratives on immigration and mass incarceration and instead attempt to shift anger to the elites who are actually responsible for economic strife.  Research on Populist Rhetoric The common response to left populism is that it only appeals to a narrow subset of Democratic progressives. However, in an era in which 70%  of Americans think the economy “unfairly favors the powerful,” left populism has wide-ranging appeal.  The Center for Working-Class Politics conducted a poll  of 1,000 Pennsylvania voters. The voters listened  to different sound bites and were told to rank them on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is strongly oppose and 7 is strongly support. The soundbites included attacking Trump for the threat he poses to democracy, pledging to support abortion rights, creating an opportunity economy by supporting small businesses and offering tax cuts for the middle class, and a “strong populist message includ[ing] a pledge to stand up to ‘billionaire crooks and the politicians in Washington who serve them.’” Here are the overall results : Strong populism was the most popular soundbite overall. Moreover, its popularity was highest among households making less than $50k and households making between $50k and $100k.  Takeaways  I don’t pretend that Harris’ failure to adopt populism was the only reason why she lost. Sexism and racism certainly harmed  her campaign, as did President Biden’s decision to run for reelection. But Harris’ most important missteps were her failure to differentiate herself from Biden’s neoliberalism, her embrace of incremental policies, and her inability to speak to working-class Americans. The rise of right populism is not unique to the U.S.; it is also happening in Italy , the UK , Germany , and France . The rise of right populism in the Global North suggests that Harris’ loss cannot be fully explained by factors unique to the 2024 election, such as Biden’s decision to seek reelection. Instead, an overarching force is at play, and that force is populist resentment of the status quo. Thankfully, Democrats can use left-populist rhetoric to win back working-class voters. Time will tell if the Democrats learn their lesson or succumb to the neoliberal punditry of millionaire elites on MSNBC.

Cultural decay is a problem. Authoritarianism isn’t the answer. Oswald Spengler in 1930 (Credit: Engelsberg Ideas) Perhaps no 20th-century thinker has had their reputation decline as precipitously as German academic Oswald Spengler. Spengler’s magnum opus, The Decline of the West ,   posited a view of history centered on culture and predicted that the civilizations of Europe, then at their apogee in ruling the world, would enter a period of decline. This decline, according to Spengler, would culminate in the demise of their democracies at the hands of demagogues. These demagogues would sacrifice “truth and justice to might and race.” The inevitable outcome of these demagogues, according to Spengler, would be the complete fall of grand civilizations and the reduction of their populace to one “dumb and enduring.”  Spengler’s view of history likens civilizations to organisms, which are subject to “youth, growth, maturity, and decay.” Rejecting the biological racism popular in his day, Spengler placed culture above all and used the Greco-Roman world and Aztecs as examples of civilizations that reached great peaks before inevitably collapsing under the weight of their own hubris. Indeed, Spengler broke with many of his contemporaries, often in ways that modern critics of his work overlook, such as criticizing elements of European imperialism. To be clear, Spengler has his shortcomings—his dismissal of liberalism is shortsighted and improper, his historical writings often veer into what can only be classified as the academic equivalent of astrology, and his judgment of cultures was often contextually illiterate. Spengler was, no doubt, a racist by modern measures, endorsing European dominance of world affairs, even if he categorically rejected his era’s notions of racism and eugenics, for which his works were banned by the Nazi government. Spengler today is often dismissed for the role that he and his fellow intellectuals of Germany’s interwar “Conservative Revolution” played, to their chagrin, in setting the nation’s intellectual stage for Nazism. Yet, ignoring Spengler unfairly relegates a momentous thinker to the sidelines.  One need not subscribe to Spengler’s faith in the demise of civilizational greatness to appreciate his firm rejection of utopian thinking from Hitler’s “thousand year Reich” to the post-revolutionary world envisioned by Marxists—or to recognize the prescience of his predictions today. Spengler was, of course, no liberal, blaming the decline of civilizations on “the parasitical city dweller, traditionless…religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman . ” Nonetheless, scattered through his dense works are analyses almost perfectly tailored for a world facing demagogic threats from left and right, and his work received praise from his left-leaning contemporaries such as the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.  Moreover, one can accept Spengler’s view of civilizational decline while rejecting his fatalism about democracy. The British historian Arnold Toynbee recognized Spengler’s fears in his twelve-volume A Study of History , writing that “civilizations die by suicide, not by murder.” Yet, Toynbee rejected Spengler’s revulsion towards liberal democracy and capitalism. Likewise, James Burnham, in his 1964 Suicide of the West , championed both democracy and a Spenglerian social critique, pointing to the loss of social mores and the growing “managerial state” as the culprits for institutional decay.  The United States Constitution may represent the most thorough synthesis of liberal democracy and pessimism about social decline. A century and a half before Spengler, the framers of the Constitution shared concerns that  demagogues would compromise democracy by manipulating public opinion . Indeed, many Founders anticipated or even embraced such proto-Spenglerian concerns directly. John Adams wrote that “democracy never lasts long…it soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” Yet, like other founders, Adams maintained that democracy was a necessary condition for “true liberty.” Fears of democracy’s survival were allayed by the belief that the republic would be kept in check by the body politic’s civic virtue, which Adams called “the only foundation of republics.”  To the founders, virtue was a necessary condition for democracy, and they saw moral decline as symptomatic of civilizational decline. Spengler’s diagnosis of the ills of a free society ring true, but we can learn from the Founders’ rejection of anti-democratic prescriptions as a cure far worse than the disease. The authors of the Constitution answered the arguments for autocracy by recognizing that the decline of any civilization is not set in stone. Civilizations survive–and thrive–as long as they safeguard the virtues that sustain liberty.