Boundaries

Borders, walls, fences, whatever the term used, whatever the latest expression, boundaries are always misty affairs. Whatever lens we apply to view them, boundaries populate each corner of the globe, an only natural progression considering we humans are social creatures. Separating us from other members of the animal kingdom is our unprecedented depth of collaboration. Cities, roads, computers, iPhones—all possible due to this behavior. Our social circles grew because of these mounting innovations - anthropocene fences encircling the world, products of our thought and action.

As we drew the lines that constitute the world today, it became inevitable that they would shift; cities grew, empires fell, and enlightened reason—not authoritative religion—became humanity’ss’ guiding force. Social boundaries now exist in a volatile state, constantly shifting with what is accepted, the current trend of the day. We accept this fact, even applaud it and call it progress, yet often forget what is lost when these boundaries shift. Today we exist amidst the dissolution of some of the most lasting boundaries, and the engine of postmodernism is responsible for this acidity.

Postmodernism is best described as a deep distrust of the grand narratives and ideologies that propelled the previous three centuries. During the Enlightenment, humanity grew obsessed with reason, universal truth,Kyraand Sadat dignity Ruben ‘23for studies all. in the Lingering College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at kvruben@wustl.edu.

politics that to be “bought” and “sold.” Not with hard cash, but the currency of identity.

throughout 19th century revolutions and 20th century World Wars, these ideals proved resilient to time, guiding humanity with an unwavering light. Until the climactic struggle between Red and Blue, this light appeared to be everlasting; a torch passed generation to generation, illuminating murky futures with reason. Post-war hierarchies proved this incandescence obsolete: there is nothing reasonable about nuclear holocaust. Cold War tensions proved too much for these lofty ideals, tearing them apart and replacing them with shocked silence and raucous applause for the West. Ideology fell with the Berlin Wall. When the dust settled, uncontested U.S. hegemony took hold and globalism quickly followed, a period of communication and economic growth—and near unanimous worldwide adoption of capitalism. Like the vortex a sinking ship creates, ideology’s fall brought with it the traditional boundaries of old, replacing dusty lines with ones of sleek chrome and glass. Debris caught in this spiral included the relationships and identities that framed our lives. No longer is someone the son of someone else, or a baker, or a shoemaker. Now, we are shoppers: an Apple user, a walking Yeezy advertisement, a business executive.

Even politics were caught in this sinkhole of ideology, especially in the United States. Reaction to Soviet practices marked the latter half of the 20th century, a political landscape of strong-willed presidents making the big decisions no one else wanted to. However, the Soviet Union’s dissolution ushered in a new wave. Presidents assumed the role of global leader, riding the tide of post-war U.S. enthusiasm. Slowly, over the course of decades, political boundaries shifted, and we shifted with them. The term “identity politics” is not new, and I would wager most have a sense of what it means, but truly unpacking the phrase reveals some uncomfortable ideas. In creating consumer boundaries, the postmodern machine inadvertently made our very

We form ourselves around platforms, building up walls that block out free flows of information.

From Twitter leftists with their unyielding calls to “burn it down,” to Fox News republicans and their quasi-white supremacist rhetoric, we all fall into this trap. Most reactions when reading “traditional values” leap to conservative taglines, a right-wing obsession with the celebration of ashes; however, this cannot be further from the truth. Tradition is not intrinsically at fault, but the lines drawn around it that we queue into are. To give another example, the current spree of socialist sneering at voting throws paint onto invisible walls. To them, voting is more than the logical choice to remove a buffoon; it represents a personal attack on their vague dogma, their identity. So it goes for the remaining political beliefs.

Now, to be clear, I do not write to promote some vague idea of “good people on both sides” that our president gushes over, but that communication must reopen, that the boundaries closing in society must fall. We cannot allow ourselves to maintain the metaphysical Berlin Wall separating our country any longer. Having political beliefs cannot imply blind faith; the past decades of that error have left us inactive and broken. COVID-19, climate change, elections—all represent a changing world, a scary world. Must we continue the debates of the past and stay stuck in our loops, or shall we take a step forward and realize that being a liberal does not mean all socialists are dangerous revolutionaries, and that being a conservative does not mean all city Democrats are ruining America? People must seize control from the postmodern apparatus and repair wounds left open since Germany reunified.

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was an urge to find the truth. The desire for truth was created by the relative freedom provided by our parents (only 7% of those identified as “authentic activist” claimed they had helicopter parents), as well as intense exposure to current events that defined our childhood. Not only were the realities of our world embedded into our childhood and unprotected by our parents, but accessible through devices in the palm of our hand.

In the middle of the 20th century when baby boomers were born, the world was in a strong and rapidly growing post-war economy. Their children, Generation X, were raised during the rise of grunge music, the AIDS epidemic, and an urge to be nothing like their parents.

Today, they are the generation with the most credit card debt. Millennials, who are fast approaching their forties, are known for open-mindedness and fresh approaches to the job market, but also curated Instagram stories and superficial values. Yet Gen Z is set to be one of the most unique and fascinating case studies of a generation. Half of the generation was born post-9/11, began kindergarten during a recession, experienced high school under the tumultuous Trump administration, and graduated in the midst of a pandemic. Where millennials were raised by helicopter parents, Gen Z parents had to accept that they couldn't guard their kids from the traumatic and politicized world around us.

Marcie Merriman, the cultural insights and customer strategy leader at EY, did a study on Gen Z which identified five, arguably contradicting, categories of Zoomers: “stressed strivers,” “big plans, low energy,” “authentic activists,” “carefree constituents,” and “secluded perfectionists.” She emphasized parents’ increasing willingness to relinquish freedom to their children, since they are aware they cannot control their access to information due to technology. These discoveries are undeniably linked to the analysis performed by McKinsey and Company which states that the most consistent theme across the generation

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Zoomers’ search for truth and their access to information also makes Gen Z one of the most pragmatic generations and the most informed.

These unique characteristics create patterns of fueling change and destroying boundaries.

Within hours of George Floyd's murder, social media was consumed by infographics and petitions, and with national news coverage focusing on young people gathering masses to effect change. Soon, every adult and politician knew phrases such as “ACAB” and “abolish the police.” Gen Z and young millennials bulldozed through bureaucratic and institutional walls in an extremely public way. This summer is only one illustration of how Gen Z changed the approach, discussion, and accessibility of social issues.

In a generation that has some of the most contradictory descriptions, there is an intense unity among Zoomers that is hard to account for. Perhaps this age-based containment was created by social media—Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok all provide teenagers with "inside jokes" that parents would never understand or find relatable and humorous.

My social media feeds after the first presidential debate were all politically centered yet formatted into videos and trends that would confuse anyone over 25. Or maybe the solidified boundaries between generations is based on resentment; it is common to hear teens and young adults blame parents for leaving us with a deteriorating environment and fractured democracy. It could be the restructuring of social norms; the same McKinsey source states "individual expression and avoid[ance] of label[s]" is a top value to Gen Z, a sentiment that deeply contrasts with the societal confines of millennials and baby boomers.

Boundaries

In the midst of Gen Z finding their unity, though, a pandemic that attacked various age groups differently swept the globe. Since Gen Z is not considered as vulnerable a demographic for COVID-19, their commitment to social distancing is mostly for the health of others. Suddenly, our society is one in which the health of the majority partially rests on the social calendar of Gen Z. In March, articles flooded the internet about the reckless behavior of teenagers and twenty-somethings who kept their spring break plans. But by the end of the summer, Gen Z's anxiety about sickness, concern for their parents’ safety,, and eagerness for the world to return to normal had proven effective. The CEO of Harris Poll stated that "we've dramatically underestimated this generation's anxiety and resolve." While there are obvious disparities among young adults (approximately 20% of Gen Z report not following guidelines), the majority have worked to protect those across generational lines.

Gen Z's unique combination of drive, awareness, and sympathy for others created a paradox that became clear this past year. While eager to break metaphorical and systemic boundaries of institutions perpetuated by other generations, Gen Z also understands the importance of individual physical boundaries in the time of Corona. Despite these being different and conflictual obstacles, the crucial conclusion is that teenagers and young adults understand how to interact with older generations in order to benefit society, and we owe it to the generation's unity.

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Boundaries

The words “if you still support Trump, please unfollow me” have run rampant through “woke” social media recently. The same aesthetic infographics are shared time and time again, and change.org petitions circulate within the same crowds. While it can be comforting to see your friends joining the cause and engaging in various forms of activism across Instagram and Facebook, it is downright dangerous to cater solely to like-minded individuals that bolster our own worldview.

Yes, it is empowering to see previously unaffected people take a stand for something. And yes, it can feel pretty great to tap through ten Instagram stories and have seven of them relate to socio-political issues from your followers that would have never dared speak their mind before George Floyd. However, reinforcing the ideas of one’s peers ultimately never gets through to anyone who thinks differently. Impactful statistics on police brutality that fill your social media feed may not be as accessible to some of your conservative family members. In the words of @mattxiv on Instagram: “Your racist relatives aren’t watching your Instagram stories. They aren’t on Twitter. They didn’t see you post the black square. They’re watching Fox News.”

A notable example of the boundaries of social media activism is the trivialization and desensitization of Breonna Taylor and her story. We rigorously shared the hashtag “#SayHerName.” We repeatedly posted the names and images of the officers responsible for her death. Ultimately, Instagrammers went to such lengths to make her story known that they desensitized the issue. Sharing a picture of daily life with the caption “anyways, Breonna Taylor'' did absolutely nothing to aid her cause or garner support from those who didn’t already care. When push comes

to shove, trivializing Breonna’s death for the sake of appealing to a broader social media base led to the over-saturation of various platforms and detracted from the systemic issues at play. Simply repeating the mantra, “arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,” did not accomplish anything except reinforce what our followers were already thinking. But who are the cops that killed Breonna Taylor? Does anyone outside of your followers and mutual friends know their names? Unfortunately, sharing her story on social media raises awareness that only extends so far. As a whole, we facilitated widespread desensitization to her name to the point that anyone who didn’t feel passionately would simply skip right past any post about her. Sharing Breonna’s name and story did nothing to give her family tangible justice. Despite all social media efforts, none of the officers involved were charged with her killing, just wanton endangerment for Brett Hankinson. And again, we took to social media to declare that this indictment is not justice. But, I implore you to ask yourself, who saw your post this time that didn’t already care or feel the same way from the last time you posted?

Following the recent presidential debate, there were many moments that simply broke Instagram and Twitter. Notably, Trump’s call to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” gained major traction. Our followers analyzed his words, fact-checked each statement, and shared their findings with the same crowd as usual. It’s easy to think that we’re all on the same page when we all post the same issues, but it is far more important that we consider the world outside of social media. There is likely a much larger population that felt great about the debate than we are willing to recognize. I’ve had friends say they have a “good feeling” about the election based on the activism they see, especially in moments like these, but it is crucial to consider the country as a whole. Your followers are likely not representative of the American citizenry at large when you only follow people you agree with.

The social media echo chamber creates a bulwark on both sides of the issue. Liberals will follow other liberals. Conservatives will

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follow other conservatives. But when will they follow each other? It is incredibly foolish to think that we can truly change anyone’s mind on pressing issues just by sharing opinions within the confines of our consentient follower base. Infographics are important, but their effects are minimal when we only share them with the same cohort each time. It is imperative that we start having uncomfortable conversations outside of Instagram.

The recent social media activist awakening is a start, but it does not enact great societal change. To truly dismantle oppressive systems in the United States, we can—and must—do better. Sharing your activism is important, but it is far from enough. To truly break the boundaries of the Instagram echo chamber, try to get off it. Go talk to someone you know in real life. Have a meaningful conversation about your differing worldviews. Attempt to understand where you each get your political ideologies from. Change is incremental, but we have to start somewhere; that place is certainly not your profile page.

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And the bus driver Who bonds with me Over how cold it is on the first day of fall, My small frame shivering She drives with a coat on And this is my favorite bus to take But it’s not the only one I’ve created an ecosystem Of buses, Metrolinks Calling Can I get the next stop please?

I burst the WashU bubble, My horizons expand Ode to the buses I’ll never stop taking That used to intimidate me That I only learned to use because I’ll never get a car To the public transportation the white kids say Is just too unsafe Is for poor people Ode to the other Black kids who Drown in drip, Who aren’t afraid to talk Or laugh too loud, Who move so freely Like Justin does Before I left home this summer Justin said to me Have fun at college And I’m not sure what fun is in a pandemic But maybe I’m having something similar

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Creating a home in my just right apartment, On public transportation That’s beginning to feel just right And all the while I’m thinking of my brother who is at my home home with my working-class mother, how the working-class Black kids waiting to get on the metro remind me of him.

Of home.

Their boisterous laughter and their confident existence. I think maybe this is an exercise in what it means not to assimilate.

In ignoring the white kids at Wash U who say ghetto when they really mean working class and Black. In not fitting into the narrow boundaries they try to construct for you.

Telling them yes I am working class yes I am Black no this does not make me less than.

No the people on public transportation are not less than.

Ode to the Waterman/DeBaliviere Metro is an ode to breaking my boundaries, ignoring the white kids, proving them wrong even.

Ode to the Metro means I’ll never stop gazing at St. Louis through a bus window, never stop interacting with people who look like me, who don’t keep themselves tightly packed in a WashU bubble.

Ode to the Metro means I’ll never stop, I’ll never stop.

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Boundaries

College is often described as the stage of our lives when we can explore our academic, personal, and professional interests. After years spent taking required courses I wasn’t interested in, wasting time on unnecessary homework assignments, and constantly feeling anxiety and stress from my GPA, I looked to college as a place of freedom. When I got to Washington University, I experienced that freedom—living independently, working multiple jobs, and having the agency to craft my own schedule. However, in the academic realm, I continued to feel constrained. For too long, higher education has been structured to generate competition, not collaboration. By constraining student choice through the GPA system, distributional requirements, and prerequisite courses, we create a college experience that fails to prepare us for the real world.

For a more meaningful college experience, we must radically reimagine what academic freedom and agency could look like.

Advancing human knowledge and quality of life should be the primary focus of higher education. By equipping young people with the skills they need to thrive, higher education institutions like ours prepare students for the betterment of society. The innovation, productivity, and progress we aspire for doesn’t come from atomized individualism: it is rooted in radical collaboration. From business to social movements, we’ve observed the power of collective action in generating meaningful change.

Unfortunately, classroom policies continue to hold us back. Grade deflation and closed-book individual examinations foster competition, not cooperation. Curving incentivizes students to view their own success as zero-sum and hope their classmates fail, instead of wanting everybody to succeed academically.

Exams that do not allow us to collaborate or access notes are not just stressful but also fail to reflect a modern world where professionals are encouraged to work together to solve problems and are permitted to use the Internet.

A GPA system that rewards its “winners” with the semesterly Dean’s List and penalizes its “losers” with lower graduate school admissions rates legitimizes arbitrary grading standards that endow some with an undeserved superiority complex and others with imposter syndrome. These courses turn classrooms into battlegrounds for the highest grades, instead of collaborative environments for creativity to prosper and for students to learn.

These stressors are compounded by distributional, major, and minor requirements that force students into courses they may not otherwise take. While some herald this as a beacon of interdisciplinary engagement, such courses ultimately constrain students from gaining full agency over their academic schedules. At colleges like Brown, Grinnell, and Smith, there are no distributional requirements, core curriculum, or required courses. Meanwhile, at NYU-Gallatin, the University of Washington, and Indiana University, students who reject major requirements are encouraged to make their own major. Students paying for an education are entitled to create their own academic paths. While many may prefer the distributional requirement model, universities also have an obligation to serve students who have no interest in taking a course in statistics, computer science, or literature.

The alternative to the current system, which pits us against one another and entrenches arbitrary hierarchy, is a system that prioritizes collaborative engagement: a system with less interest in ranking students against one another and more interest in producing and executing creative ideas. These are classrooms

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where students focus on learning, not grades; where students want to be in every class they take, and are never begrudgingly “fulfilling a requirement; and where students are taught to utilize the full set of skills at their disposal— from the Internet to their textbooks—instead of being forced to memorize the structure of mitochondria, or the year Marbury v. Madison was adjudicated.

Most importantly, these are the classrooms that will create change-makers, innovators, and creatives. Humanity’s greatest challenges—climate change, poverty, racism—are not problems with easy solutions one person can offer. They will require radical collaboration, and a mindset which cares about what we can give to the world to enrich the lives of all people–not just ourselves. These classrooms will not only teach our generation to make a living: it will teach us to lead a life.

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own sovereignty. Donald Trump, on the other hand, openly praised Putin himself, frequently expressing admiration for his leadership and defending his human rights record.

Far from being a "hoax", as some people allege, Russian interference in the 2016 election was pervasive. Robert Mueller’s Report indicates that Russia grossly violated our democratic sovereignty. It revealed how Russia conducted an expansive campaign to influence the 2016 election, including hacking into state voter databases, the DNC, the Clinton campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; meeting with the Trump campaign in secret; staging violent events, and spreading disinformation and divisive content on social media. Now that we’re rapidly approaching election day (with early voting already taking place), we must ask: Will we have a fair election this time around?

What can we expect Russia to do? Will we see interference only from Russia? Are we prepared to prevent it?

Why would Russia want to interfere in our election? Does Russia continue to like Trump?

We know why they wanted Trump to win in 2016: Hillary Clinton’s hawkishness made a forgiving stance towards Russia unlikely. As Secretary of State, she took a tough stance on Russian aggression. For years, Putin has blamed her for encouraging anti-government protests after she issued a statement suggesting there was widespread fraud in Russian parliamentary elections. Furthermore, as a public proponent of foreign policies that led to the toppling of dictators (Qadhafi, Hussein), Putin saw Clinton as an active threat to his

Now, Russia again has a stake in our election even though Clinton is off the menu.

For starters, Biden isn’t particularly Russiafriendly, and he views Russia starkly as a political opponent. Trump, by contrast, has been even more of a gift to Russia than anticipated. Directly after his election, he dismissed his own intelligence officials when told Russia interfered in the election to help get him elected. Given that admitting such a thing would invalidate his presidency, his stance was unsurprising. He refused to condemn Putin’s (alleged) ordered the poisoning of opposition leader Alexander Navalny. And overall, Trump has been significantly more lenient on Russia than previous administrations have (although members of his administration have sometimes acted against the President’s rhetoric in this regard).

Most importantly, Putin views Trump as not only a useful ally, but as a tool for furthering Russian interests on a global level. According to The American Prospect, Trump has markedly weakened the Western Alliance system, damaged diplomatic, economic and military alliances with European allies, undermined the “institutional foundations of the American system,” and “discredited Western-style democracy.” By sowing disorder and division in American politics, it supports Putin’s narrative to his own people that autocratic rule is superior to democracy in the United States.

Given the incentives, Russian interference is hardly surprising. The only question is how far it will reach. To predict what Russia will do this election, let’s first look at what methods they utilized in 2016 to influence the election and what their capabilities are. There are four major methods of election interference that we have seen from foreign actors.

The first method of interference is hacking basic voting infrastructure, which mainly includes electronic voting machines, but even paper and mail-in ballots are at risk. Results

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are stored electronically and may be connected to the internet at different points during the counting process; this is when results are most vulnerable to attack. Unfortunately, voting machines are notoriously vulnerable to hacks, both electronically and by rogue in-person actors. Second, altering poll books and voter registration was an enormous problem in 2016, and will likely be so again in 2020.

Electronic poll logs inform poll workers of who voted and who hasn’t. If these records are altered, the entire precinct must stop.

Voters cannot vote until logs get back up and running, which causes immense delays. To make matters worse, voting infrastructure is not standardized nation-wide. Each state, or even jurisdiction, can use entirely different processes for everything from brands of voting machines to software that distributes poll books and voter records. In 2016, this led to widespread breaches of voter records in several states. In fact, in North Carolina, foreign hackers successfully crashed voter registration systems using vulnerable software from VR Systems, a provider of elections technology in eight states. Many of these security concerns will probably last for a long time, as there is still no federal mandate to standardize voting infrastructure cross-country, and it is unlikely that there will be one soon. Voting is not a right enshrined in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Rather, the Constitution leaves voting rules for individual states to decide. As a result, states will continue to use different software for election security and poll-workers until the Constitution is amended.

The third method is hacking local, state, and nation campaigns. In 2016, Russia conducted a major hack of the Democratic National Convention, passing tens of thousands of emails between key campaign staff to Wikileaks. By accessing campaign information, hackers have the ability to encrypt network data, destroy records, alter campaign information, or even change data in such a way that the campaign is conducted in an unproductive way (e.g. targeting ads in unfruitful areas). This is a major concern primarily because campaigns, especially on a state or local level, have virtually no standardized process for security. All cybersecurity is

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set up by volunteers, communications take place on personal accounts, and because most campaigns are grassroots, there are usually no IT departments to help them. Moreover, there is little incentive to invest in IT security.

Campaigns run on donor money, and high overhead costs for security seems inefficient to campaign managers when spending on advertising produces more concrete returns.

Perhaps the greatest threat to election security both in 2016 and in 2020 is disinformation. In 2016, Russia conducted widespread disinformation campaigns, mostly on Facebook and Twitter, to create division and spread false information. The Internet Research Agency in Russia was a large driver of disinformation campaigns in 2016, and there is credible evidence that they are doing so again in this election. These campaigns consist of creating fake personas to deploy disinformation or advance conspiracy theories, spreading hoaxes, creating fake websites, or increasing visibility or perceived support for certain candidates.

Many of these efforts were planned and executed more than a year before the election.

While we don't know the scope of the interference in our current election, we can expect to see similar methods employed. There is little evidence so far of widespread hacks into voting infrastructure, but it is difficult to detect until after the fact, and we will likely see more instances arise as the election draws nearer. The opportunities open to Russia to interfere in the election are extensive, and we already have evidence of Russian disinformation campaigns, as well as phishing attacks on members of Democratic campaigns.

Since 2016, Russian disinformation campaigns have become a permanent fixture of social media, and they will likely remain there. Stunningly, in 2016, one-fifth of all tweets about the election were made by bots, which can be defined as “algorithmically driven entities that on the surface appear as legitimate users.” Russian bots have continued to sow discord since then. Over three million Twitter accounts have been found since the shutdown to be displaying “manipulative behavior” to promote hashtags like

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#ReopenAmericaNow, #EndTheShutdown, or #OPERATIONGRIDLOCK, all of which are rife with baseless conspiracy theories about how Democrats are trying to destroy the economy, take away people’s liberties, or trying to prevent Republicans from voting.

Outside of social media, the FBI has already found that Russians have, since three or four years ago, set up websites with names similar to existing local news sites. They began publishing normal and verifiable news to establish credibility among voters, and as election day has drawn closer, they have begun spreading disinformation under the guise of credible local reporting.

Russia may be the largest threat, but it isn’t the only country attempting to influence this election. Both Iran and China have demonstrated that they have an interest in influencing the election as well, and they both seemingly prefer a Biden presidency than another Trump term. Microsoft has detected thousands of cyber attacks from Chinese-based agency Zirconium. They have targeted several individuals related to the Biden campaign and prominent academics in the international affairs community through web beacons.

Similarly, the Iran-based group Phosphorus has attempted to access accounts of election officials and personnel in the Trump administration, albeit unsuccessfully.

For China, Biden would offer stability—a welcome change—given the hawkish and often erratic policies of the Trump administration toward China. Iran has struggled under Trump’s economic sanctions, and his killing of Qasem Soleimani deeply angered them.

Despite these interests, however, it is doubtful that Iran has the capabilities to conduct cyber attacks on the same scope as Russia, or that China has the political will to carry out such a scheme. Regardless, disinformation campaigns take years to plan, and neither Iran nor China will be able to influence the American public through disinformation as much as Russia has.

face these threats. We are better positioned than we were in 2016 with regard to security just from the fact that everyone is more open to addressing them. It is clear, based on numerous reports, that election officials have been resistant to acknowledge security vulnerabilities, and without the external threat from Russia in 2016, it is unlikely that most officials would have even entertained the fact that their systems were vulnerable to attack.

While cybersecurity is an enormous problem, it can always be strengthened, and technology to stop hacks into our voting infrastructure can always improve (for the most part). However, we will never be prepared enough to stop the spread of disinformation, whether from nation-states or just individuals spreading rumors, until the way we absorb information changes. Unfortunately, humans are prone to confirmation bias; that is, we have a difficult time discerning the truth from lies that support our beliefs. We can try to approach disinformation from a technical point of view, like changing Facebook or Twitter’s policies, but rumors and emotional responses are impossible to regulate.

Are we currently in the middle of a fair election? As of now, it is impossible to know.

We are more aware of the risk than ever, but awareness may do little to actually prevent it.

Will enough votes be altered through foreign cyber attacks to change the outcome of the election? Probably not. But will we have people who vote based on disinformation?

Definitely. Whether that disinformation is enough to change the outcome of the election, we cannot know for sure, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities.

Much of the information in this article was gathered through interviews with cybersecurity expert Eric Chien, investigative journalist Kim Zetter, and national security expert John Balfe.

Considering the amount of foreign interference we expect to face in the current election, we must determine how prepared we are to

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The first presidential debate did absolutely nothing to assuage my election-based anxiety.

I find myself constantly worrying about the political state of my nation; I check the news far more frequently than I should and I’ve noticed that many of my conversations end up drifting towards the subject of the election. Even when I try to relax by walking around my neighborhood, I, quite literally, see signs reminding me of the intense polarization that has come to dominate American politics. For me, yard signs have become a tangible reminder of the political boundaries within my neighborhood.

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Dr. Anand Sokhey, co-author of the book Politics on Display: Yard Signs and the Politicization of Social Spaces, believes that putting up a political yard sign is a “very unique act… It is tying you and your identity and what you support to a specific place and putting it out there in a way that can be pretty confrontational.”

I have to agree with Dr. Sokhey; while the presence of a flimsy yard sign may not seem like much, it can absolutely elicit strong responses. One house in my neighborhood has a display (consisting of two Trump signs, one Trump banner, three signs for my district’s Republican State Senate candidate, and two Blue Lives Matter signs) that, frankly, causes me to bristle every time that I drive by. I know that I’m not the only one experiencing these reactions: Dr. Sokhey’s research team found that one in four people reported feeling angry after coming across a yard sign while one in five reported feeling anxious. But do people put up yard signs to provoke emotional reactions from their neighbors? Are they actively trying to sow division in their neighborhood?

Have I become too pessimistic and judgmental of my neighbors who may just be trying to increase name recognition for their candidate of choice?

Although some may view yard signs as an effective campaign tool, recent studies have shown that they do not significantly affect election outcomes. A 2016 study by a Columbia professor and his research partners attempted to evaluate the efficacy of lawn signs in affecting the outcomes of four different elections at the federal, local, and state levels. The researchers found that the presence of yard signs gave a candidate about a 1.7 percentage-point boost. While this may seem significant, an analysis done by the Washington Post found that, out of 6000-plus general and primary elections for House and Senate seats, only 2.2% of races fell within 1.7 percentage points.

In an interview with the Atlantic, Kevin Frank, the former communications director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, expressed his perspective on the matter by declaring that

he was "not sure the day ever existed where [yard signs] made a difference for a candidate." While yard signs may play a larger role in local elections where name recognition is low, most researchers find that their overall impact tends to be pretty negligible.

So if yard signs aren’t very effective, then why do they continue to be so popular during election cycles? For some, the motivation comes from the desire to be part of a team. In that same interview with the Atlantic, Frank compared putting yard signs up for a candidate to rooting for a sports team. People enjoy being part of a movement, and they enjoy finding community among like-minded people. Dr. Sokhey’s research team also found that most respondents choose to “display signs in solidarity with like-minded people, rather than in defiance of those they oppose.”

Perhaps I have been slightly too suspicious of my neighbors’ intentions. Not everyone views political yard signs as boundary markers meant to divide neighborhoods; many people see them as tools to create solidarity and community.

However, I would like to emphasize that I am by no means urging you to look past the content of your neighbor’s yard signs. While it would be nice to finish this article on a positive note, I have to remember what Dr. Sokhey said about political yard sign displays offering public and specific representation of someone’s identity. I cannot ask you to look at a house with a Trump sign in the yard and view them only as a person looking for a sense of belonging, especially as I am unable to do that myself. People who line their lawns with political yard signs are also aligning themselves with the values of the candidates that they are supporting. As a result, these signs create boundaries regardless of the owner's original intentions. I am only encouraging you to think more deeply about the physical representations of division, as the motivations behind the creation of these boundaries may be more nuanced than you might expect.

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But I ask: did they ever actually educate their students about a heritage other than a European one? Did they celebrate holidays that fell outside of Christianity or the federal calendar? Was anyone ever taught to explore other cultures and backgrounds? Or do they indoctrinate generations with the comfort of tolerance?

I remember the first time I truly felt “othered.”

I entered Mrs. Murphy’s third grade class on the first day at a new school wearing the carefully ironed outfit my mother had picked for me. When I was asked to introduce myself, I spoke clearly, proudly rolling my r’s and pronouncing my name the way it had always been said to me. The smile on my face was quickly stolen as the whispers around the class began. One comment rang out above the rest as someone shouted, “Do you have a nickname Allie-hand-ro?” How is a kid who never had to adjust his name supposed to react?

Everyone prepares you for the pressures of a new school, but no one told me I’d have to change who I was.

As years passed, it was never “could you teach us how to pronounce that,” only the slow mutilation of my name over and over until it was gentrified enough to fit safely inside white conversation. As a kid I never thought of these instances as heavy issues, or even as racist microaggressions. I simply grew accustomed to hiding the pieces of myself that didn’t fit into the white narrative. It was easier to just remember where my name fell on the attendance sheet and say “here” than to bear the awkward pause and consequential butchering of my name by the sub. Looking back on the experience I had in school and that of my BIPOC peers, now that I truly know and accept who I am the question arises. Was our presence in a Predominately White Institution (PWI) ever accepted, or was I merely tolerated?

When reflecting upon the American schooling experience, most people can recall a time when their school was forced to formally condemn racism and promote cultural diversity. A short and sweet presentation that was written into the curriculum for peace of mind.

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In a nation where racial tensions are only on the rise, how are children expected to learn acceptance and combat racism if they are never given the chance? Sure, some parents reprimand children for racist remarks and vocal bigotry, but are they held accountable for microaggressions? Every child wants to fit in with what they see around them. Children are the best mimic, mirroring everything they see as they attempt to understand the world around them. This development however shouldn’t come at the cost of BIPOC students sacrificing what makes them special. Children should be allowed to be children, embracing and emulating the culture presented to them by their parents. Minority groups should not need white-sounding names to be included in conversation, or feel obligated to code switch between talking to their friends and their parents. But more importantly, children stop being taught to gentrify their peers.

Self-reflection is key in understanding the way in which BIPOC experience microaggressions throughout their lives in school. How did the conversations surrounding your friends change when they wore “normal clothes” versus something of cultural significance?

Ordinarily, I was just Alejandro, but if I donned a guayabera, the “oh, it’s because he’s Mexican” comments came out of the woodwork. The attachment of ethnicity had to be bad, had to make me feel like something about embracing who I am was taboo. The comments never came in the form of acceptance or compliments. See, I was tolerated day to day, but when I wore something that spoke my heritage, I was never accepted. I was tolerated only when I fit the mold that a white passing Latinx kid should fit into. When my name was easy to pronounce, when I dressed like my white peers, when I spoke with a Midwest accent, I was allowed to exist peacefully.

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BIPOC are constantly gaslit, being told they are being hypersensitive when they feel something racist happens. An act of self-advocacy gets tainted and twisted until it’s safer to stay quiet than to speak up. The line between tolerance and acceptance seems razor thin from the outside, but when you’re a BIPOC in a PWI, it is a mile-wide divide between you and your peers. It grows wider with the cracking of each mildly racist joke, the asking for a nickname, or asking me where I’m really from. It gets reinforced each time the whole class glances toward a BIPOC when something remotely concerning race comes up, strengthened by media stereotypes of criminal behavior and violence. It is a line that society pretends to shrink to make itself feel better, while it only continues to grow.

The world and society are in constant flux; it’s only fair to admit times have changed since I was in school. Tolerance for diverse groups has expanded over decades. Some groups even claw at acceptance. There is an image of peace between peoples and exchanges of ideas. Bigotry is now closeted, hidden behind screen names and closed chatrooms. Cultural appropriation is guised as acceptance and branded as inclusion. Racism became covert and poised, resting in glass ceilings and systemic oppression. But there is still hope on the horizon.

Social media is currently having one of its biggest political awakenings. Cutesy yet informative graphics cover friends’ Instagram stories day after day. People are taking a stance on racial discrimination for the first times in their lives. Everyone should be learning more about being anti-racist, the microaggressions that plague peers, and even how to get involved with local activism. But what actually gets put into practice? No one will actually self-evaluate and label themselves as racist or prejudiced, but that doesn’t stop them from making snide comments, even here at Wash U. A few weeks ago was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. At an institution where students of Jewish descent make up over 20% of the population, you would expect a level of acceptance by our community that

should surpass what expectation. Yet when students celebrated by blowing the shofar near the South 40 clocktower, they were met with estranged looks and quiet murmurs. How many students asked about the holiday and its significance? Compare that number to the passing crowds of whispers and comments.

Pretty upsetting, no? However, none of these actions or other microaggressions face repercussions. What does our top 20 school, which prides itself on diversity and inclusion, do about it?

Sure, Wash U has student organizations and events, the DENEB Stars program and Questbridge scholars. But does this truly lead to student acceptance, or does it further other our communities? What has to be done to properly bridge the gap between tokenism and advocacy and support for FGLI and BIPOC students? Is Wash U actively giving a voice to its students and their experience; how does known by name and by story translate to reality? Is the culture of minority students accepted, and moreover, celebrated? Or does that burden fall solely on student groups who work tirelessly to foster inclusive spaces for BIPOC? Hispanic Heritage month is here, but how many students are aware of those who are of Hispanic/Latinx descent? Have you heard of a single event celebrating it? Sukkot, Navaratri, and Birth of the Báb are around the corner, along with countless other holidays and celebrations surrounding many cultures and religions, but not a word is spoken about them. So, ask yourself, how aware are you of your surroundings? How much do you know about your friends and their backgrounds?

What are you doing to truly accept others?

You’d never get caught bad mouthing another person’s background, but would you go out of your way to learn about it?

Society has become comfortable with tolerance as a scapegoat to avoid acceptance.

It’s this same principle that makes people uncomfortable with unpacking politically and racially charged conversations. When the issues turn to the need to self-reflect, everyone is likely to become defensive, choosing

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pride before growth. This is a boundary that has been in place for generations as social change stirs all around. In the age of technology ignorance is a personal choice. So, ask a friend about their culture, open the conversation to past experiences that have surrounded race, work to destigmatize talks about racial issues and the heritage of peers. The only way anyone can truly accept those around them, is if they actively work to observe others as more than the polished image they present to the world. Every individual is the summation of a lifetime of experience, so make the effort to learn about and know each person from the Wash U community by name and by story.

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On September 23, President Donald Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power following the Presidential Election in November.

The peaceful transition of power is a foundational norm of American democracy. Every losing presidential candidate in national history has conceded. Although this refusal is just the latest frontier of a long line of anti-democratic actions from President Trump, it reflects a terrifying new low in the state of American politics.

But how unprecedented is this, really? After all, Trump is not the first president to lay siege to the basic mechanisms of our democracy.

In a deep American history of elected officials acting outside moral, ethical, and even legal boundaries, quite a few presidents have acted or spoken against democratic tenets and institutions. Of these presidents, one seems especially pertinent to our political moment: Richard Nixon, through his actions during the Watergate scandal and the subsequent demise of his presidency.

In the American historical canon, Richard Nixon stands as the modern exemplar of presidential misconduct and abuse of power. The basic narrative of Watergate is well-known: Nixon attempted to cover up the break-in at the DNC headquarters by members of his reelection campaign, and then tried to use the powers of his office to thwart any investigation of the cover-up. He recorded conversations documenting this abuse of power, the tapes of which were discovered and eventually released after several high-profile court rulings. Nixon resigned facing the prospect of almost-certain impeachment and removal from office, in the wake of collapsing support among Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In a basic reading of this narrative, Nixon tried to fight democracy, to put himself above justice and the law, and he inevitably failed.

This is how Watergate was explained to me throughout most of my schooling, and I know it was no different for many of my peers. In this shallow reconstruction, there is a strong

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sense in which Watergate is a success story, even as we acknowledge the awfulness of Nixon’s abuse of power. We take Watergate to show that our system of checks and balances worked when pushed to its limits, that America’s citizens and public officials reacted to Nixon’s abuses exactly as should be expected in a healthy, functioning democracy.

Indeed, the specifics of Nixon’s abuses initially seem to support this notion of a strong system at work. Nixon sought to dismantle the investigation against him, firing two attorney generals before the third agreed to remove the special prosecutor investigating Watergate.

This is known as the Saturday Night Massacre, which backfired horrendously, turning public opinion sharply against the president. Nixon tried to block the release of his tapes, citing “executive privilege,” but he was only further embarrassed politically when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him in United States v. Nixon. His administration also fervently attacked the Washington Post, which was conducting the bulk of the journalistic investigation into Watergate. In a concerted assault on the Post, Nixon sought to tamper with the broadcasting licenses of television stations owned by the Post. Meanwhile, his aides pushed the IRS to investigate the tax returns of the Post’s owner, and Clark MacGregor (the head of his re-election effort) aimed to undermine its credibility by accusing the Post of working in “strategic conjunction” with Democratic candidate George McGovern.

Despite these efforts, the Post’s investigation proceeded undeterred.

This narrative is compelling because it allows us to salvage a belief in the status quo—that our political system worked and will continue to work. Yet, this framing is at most a half-truth; it misleads by implying that it was always guaranteed that the Watergate scandal would sink Nixon’s presidency. Rather, Nixon was caught, but this was the result of events specific to the Watergate scandal—not the impenetrable strength of our institutions and democratic principles. Our narrative of Watergate as an institutional triumph obscures the minute decisions that doomed his presidency.

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Nixon’s political demise hinged on several specific choices. Most obviously, Nixon chose to tape his conversations as he discussed covering-up the break-ins. Without these tapes, Nixon may have been able to stonewall the Watergate investigation. Leading Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste noted that "The system worked. But the system would not have worked had not the president taped himself." In another pivotal moment, John Dean, the White House counsel at the time, chose to come clean, testifying before Congress that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-ins and that he believed there was a taping system in the White House. It was through follow-up on this testimony that Senate investigators discovered the taping system was real. These tapes were quickly subpoenaed by the special prosecutor, ensnaring Nixon in a legal battle he could not win. These were two choices of individuals, not institutions, and yet without them, it becomes much more difficult to see how Nixon’s presidency might have collapsed. It was the tapes that led to the Saturday Night Massacre, and it was the tapes that led voters and Republican politicians to begin to turn on Nixon.

Before the existence of the tapes was confirmed, 60% of voters disapproved of impeachment. In fact, even three months after the transcripts of the tapes had been released, the majority of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted against adopting all five articles of impeachment.

Even in the 1970s, partisanship was a major hurdle to overcome. So while Hugh Scott (the Republican Senate Minority Leader) characterized the content of the transcripts as “deplorable, disgusting, shabby, and immoral,” the 1,200 edited pages of dialogue alone were still not enough to sink Nixon’s presidency. To discredit Nixon’s plausible deniability, the audio of the tapes was needed.

But on July 30th, 1974, after running out of legal options to avoid the subpoena, Nixon’s administration began to release this audio.

After the release of one especially damning tape on August 5th, those ten Republican representatives who had voted against advancing any articles of impeachment now came out in favor of it. In this ‘smoking gun’ tape, Nixon

discussed how to stop the FBI’s investigation just six days after the break-ins, documenting beyond all doubt that he had known and participated in the cover-up from the very beginning. By this point—after the transcripts had been basking in the public eye for months and the audio for several days—only 24% of Americans approved of Nixon’s job performance, and 57% of Americans believed that he should be impeached. Nixon resigned three days later.

Similarly, President Trump has committed many actions that circumvent or undermine democratic institutions. The sharpest parallel to Watergate in his presidency is the Ukraine scandal, in which Trump leveraged $400 million in military aid to pressure the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son. This was the scandal that led him to be impeached, the one that many believed would finally initiate a Republican exodus from Trump. Pundits debated the ways in which the scandal was and was not “Watergate 2.0.”

Of course, the Ukraine-Trump scandal was not the same as Watergate, but their similarities are immediately striking—abuse of power, a wide range of implicated government officials, and the hiring of a special prosecutor, among others. But beyond these surface commonalities, Nixon and Trump also undermined many of the same democratic standards. Professor Michael Klarkman of Harvard Law School identifies ten basic democratic norms that President Trump has ignored or assaulted across the course of his presidency. Half of them can be clearly mapped onto egregious violations by both Trump and Nixon in their respective scandals. These five principles, as described by Klarkman, are: Take the principle of “independent actors within government,” for example. In their respective scandals, Trump and Nixon both wielded government actors as an extension

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Nixon’s foresight and grace in resigning against Trump’s lack of both of these qualities.

Comedian John Oliver made a running gag out of referring to Trump’s Ukrainian Scandal as “Stupid Watergate,” a moniker that simultaneously connects Nixon to Trump and distances the two of them, implying that Trump and his administration would not have been smart enough to pull off Watergate.

of their personal power, most notably with the attorney general. Based on a false smear campaign, Trump fired Marie Yovanovitch, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, who was well-known for her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. He then used Attorney General William Barr and the Ambassador to the EU as surrogates in these efforts to pressure Ukraine. Likewise, Nixon fired his attorney generals until he found one willing to remove the special prosecutor investigating him. He pulled other government entities and officials into the cover-up, ordering his chief of staff to have the CIA block the FBI’s investigation into Watergate.

Despite these similarities, it might seem fair to ask what the relevance of Watergate is to understanding the Trump administration and the current state of our institutions, given that Watergate was nearly 50 years ago. The implication of pointing this out is that our political, cultural, and technological climates are entirely different from those of Nixon’s presidency. There was no internet that could be used to rapidly engulf facts with fictions, political polarization had not yet begun its breakneck acceleration, and demographics were much less connected to partisan identity. Indeed, these differences in the national environments of today and Watergate seemed to have made reporters quite skeptical of comparisons between Nixon and Trump.

Suzanne Garment, for example, writes that “The difference between 2019’s impeachment and Watergate is shame,” emphasizing

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It was Nixon, however, who was forced to resign as he watched his political standing crumble around him, not Trump. Trump survived the “stupid” Ukrainian scandal, and he survived it with only a single Republican defection in Congress. And lest we forget, Nixon resigned ‘gracefully’ only in August 1974, two months past the second anniversary of the Watergate break-ins. It was only by this point that it was clear his position had become politically untenable. In those two preceding years, he fought tooth and nail with his executive powers to avoid the consequences of his actions. This did not work, for myriad reasons.

But what does it say when several of the most essential of these reasons had nothing to do with our institutions?

In large part, Nixon was brought down by his tapes and the man who revealed them, John Dean. We have seen many smoking guns with the Trump administration, but none so obvious as recorded memos chronicling corruption. In a country where Fox News is now the mostwatched network in all of television, in a sea of lies, misinformation, and civic exhaustion, it seems every gun is smoking and yet none can fire. And there has been no “John Dean” in the Trump administration, no man or woman willing and able to break with the president and speak irrefutably to his abuses.

Several tried with regards to Ukraine, such as Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, both of whom willingly testified in Trump’s impeachment hearings. In all their honesty, they were not able to break through the noise of partisanship.

Both were subsequently fired by President Trump.

The political landscape of our nation has

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changed tremendously since Watergate. But it has changed in a way that makes our precepts and institutions weaker, not stronger. The relatively depolarized political environment of the 1970s allowed the Watergate scandal to incubate. It allowed for the people to trust and care about the investigation from the Washington Post, for the initial congressional inquiries to be supported, for the courts to rule against Nixon, for the Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives to feel capable of supporting the removal of the sitting president of their party.

This is not the political environment of today.

We are much, much more divided—and I mean this in all respects. We often think of polarization narrowly, in terms of voters and candidates. This is perhaps the core of polarization, but it stretches far beyond, into our inclination towards generosity, into our physical and mental health, and crucially, into our conception of the media. In 1974, magazine and newspaper editorials seemed to unite almost unanimously in urging Nixon to resign.

The Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that had supported Nixon, released a scathing editorial.

It read: “He is humorless to the point of being inhumane. He is devious. He is vacillating.

He is profane.” The same portrait could easily describe Donald Trump, but what Republican with power would ever write it?

The point is not despair, but this: if it took the alignment of multiple unusual decisions from powerful individuals to take down Nixon in Watergate, then our institutions were never strong enough. Our democratic norms were never strong enough. Our American system was never strong enough—not to defend our nation in the face of those determined to corrupt it. We cannot be entirely surprised that Trump has been able to abuse the office of the presidency as he has, because once upon a time, in the face of sharper obstacles, Nixon did it too.

elected to play the video of the proceedings without sound, opting instead to overlay the voices of pro-Trump pundits such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson as they ridiculed the trial. Before Adam Schiff could give closing remarks, Hannity cut away from the trial, declaring that “none of this will matter.”

Regarding their actions against democracy and the consequences they face[d], the core difference between Trump and Nixon is not one of intentions. It is not one of prudence, or organizational skills, or intelligence, or even efficacy. In this respect, the core difference between Nixon and Trump is that to catch Nixon, we got lucky. When we have reached the point where luck is required to salvage our nation from tyrannical leadership, rethinking our institutions is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity.

On the night of August 7th, 1974, Nixon was informed that there were no more than 15 Republican senators willing to vote for acquittal. On February 5th, 2020, Trump found that there was no more than a single Republican senator willing to vote against it.

And so, it continues. In August 1974, one nation rose to its moment and compelled Richard Nixon into resignation. Come the week of November 3rd, it will be seen what remains of that nation.

On the first day of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, at least 2.7 million people were watching on Fox News at any given moment.

Fox, unlike all other major news stations,

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seen Chief Justice Roberts become one of the most critical swing votes in the history of the Court, particularly on one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in the last decade: Obamacare.

President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have been unwavering in their resolve to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the Presidential election on November 3. Trump made his intentions clear with his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. While there are undoubtedly political questions about her nomination, including a profoundly similar situation four years ago that McConnell handled very differently, this circumstance undermines the broader meaning. It has been 50 years since a party has had a reliable supermajority on the Supreme Court. This internal balance has allowed the Court to evolve slowly, without significant structural changes taking place too quickly. Often, it has been a single swing vote that changes the outcome of a case, and this dynamic has handed a relatively equal number of wins to both sides. However, with a 6-3 court, the importance of this swing vote is diminished severely. If a Republican majority in the Senate confirms Judge Barrett, it will fundamentally transform the law in this country for the next half-century.

Prior to Ginsburg’s death, the Court's ideological makeup was already leaning towards the side of conservatives: Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan made up the liberal bloc, while Justices Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh filled out the conservative bloc. The past few years have

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The Court is scheduled to start oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act's constitutionality later this fall. If struck down, 20 million Americans will lose their health insurance immediately, and the 54 million Americans with a pre-existing condition are at risk of being legally denied coverage. Justice Roberts has voted in favor of Obamacare's constitutionality, much to the ire of President Trump.

However, in a 6-3 conservative majority, the remaining five conservatives would likely overcome Roberts’ vote. Justices Alito and Thomas have been forceful in their dissents of it, and while neither Justice Gorsuch nor Justice Kavanaugh have significantly challenged Obamacare in their time on the Court, it is doubtful President Trump would have appointed them if he did not think they would be opposed to it. As the country awaits the replacement of an iconic liberal justice by a significantly more conservative appointee, doubts are raised over Obamacare's legal prospects. A 6-3 court could be the nail in the coffin for President Obama's crowning achievement, and, in the middle of a pandemic, take away healthcare from millions.

Recent Supreme Court cases on social issues, like same-sex marriage and the strengthening of LGBTQ rights in the workplace, have not gone well for conservatives. They have often lost these cases by just one vote. A new conservative justice would be key in the attempt to reverse these decisions and prove to be the straw that breaks the most contentious of all the Supreme Court precedents: Roe v. Wade.

If Judge Barrett is confirmed, it would be the first time in two generations that conservatives would have the votes to overturn the landmark 1973 court case that codified a woman's right to choose. In the decades following the ruling, conservatives have been on a mission to overturn this precedent, and it is perhaps the most important issue to both sides in choosing a Supreme Court Justice. Despite that Republican Presidents have appointed ten

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justices to the bench.compared to only four for Democratic Presidents, since Roe v. Wade, it remains in place. In fact, Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter were all chosen by Republicans, yet frequently voted in favor of abortion rights. After Justice Kennedy's retirement in 2018, there was concern among liberals about whether any of the remaining conservatives would potentially be the new swing vote on this divisive issue.

Again, enter Chief Justice Roberts.

For much of his judicial career, John Roberts opposed viewing abortion as an inherent right, asserting that Roe v. Wade was 'wrongfully decided' and 'shouldn't be overruled' during a Supreme Court brief for President George H.W. Bush. Earlier this year, it came as quite a surprise when Justice Roberts, along with the four members of the liberal bloc, voted against a Louisiana law that would have made almost all abortion illegal in the state.

While many did not see this as Justice Roberts modifying his views as much as applying precedent in a specific case, there was at least some hope among liberals that he may become a moderate on the issue, and potentially be a reliable crossover vote in later cases.

However, a shift in Roberts' position would unlikely represent hope for the fate of abortion rights if Judge Barrett is confirmed. Justices Thomas and Alito have made it clear that they believe abortion should be left up to the states.

Kavanaugh has only given an opinion on abortion once in his entire career, and Gorsuch never has. Nonetheless, President Trump, in a 2016 debate, said he predicted Roe would be overturned and that he would put "pro-life justices on the court." Judge Barrett certainly meets this qualifier, meaning that the right to an abortion is in serious jeopardy for the first time in almost 50 years. The bottom line is this: if Republicans successfully appoint Barrett, we may be on the precipice of a new conservative revolution.

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the environment. This market-oriented lens shapes economic thought even today, despite being outdated. The economists in Monte Leren failed to recognize that GDP growth doesn’t guarantee equal opportunities for impoverished families and flourishing households or that our planet cannot sustain unregulated polluting industries, even if the market looks prosperous. They saw a market capable of exponential linear growth and a theory that influenced politicians like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

“There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder,” Reagan said. The narrative of limitless growth has been embedded into government, policy, and economic thought for decades. Western countries have, indeed, seen massive GDP growth, and many people see economic growth under President Trump as a sign that the US economy is “thriving.” At the same time, though, income inequality is spiking, millions of people are facing evictions and losing healthcare, and the industries that are fueling economic growth are the same industries that shamelessly deplete Earth of its resources.

Oxford economist Kara Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics, noticed that clearly, this notion that societies should strive for boundless growth to thrive is deeply flawed.

She traced the origin of the linear model of economic growth back to a meeting in Monte Leren, Switzerland, in 1947. There, Milton Friedman and his colleagues developed the neoliberal theory of economics as the science of meeting society’s needs. They decided that the best way to do this was through laissez-faire economics. Essentially, they concluded that they would let the efficient market run itself. People demand things, and the market will supply.

That is the story economics students have learned for decades. Raworth observes that the men who developed this narrative had the privilege of being wealthy, white males, which distorted their perception of society’s needs. To them, economics was solely about markets, rather than about the household or

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Is this true? Can economies just grow exponentially? This is where Raworth wants to change the narrative. “From your children’s feet to the Amazon forest, nothing in nature grows forever,” she says. “We intuitively understand that when something tries to grow forever within a healthy, living, thriving system, it’s a threat to the health of a whole.”

Raworth proposes a different vision of economic growth. She calls it a doughnut economy or a circular model. Inside of the doughnut are people who are financially unstable, and their basic needs aren’t met by the economy. Outside of the doughnut, the ozone layer is being depleted, and industries are encouraged to continue taking resources, rather than reuse them. CO2 emissions reach unprecedented levels. A thriving economy remains within the bounds of the doughnut, where corporations and businesses are connected through a web in which materials are shared and reused. Regenerative projects will require more labor, increasing employment.

GDP won’t be the sole metric that measures successful societies. The doughnut model uses housing prices, income inequality, and sustainability as indicators of a healthy economy. By redirecting focus away from growth, a circular economy provides all residents with necessary living standards, meaning they aren’t forgotten as the economy grows. Simultaneously, industries honor the planet’s needs and focus on reusing resources, rather than taking them.

Amsterdam is the first city to officially embrace the doughnut model. In April, they launched the Amsterdam City Doughnut with the goal of redesigning the way the city uses

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raw materials while bolstering jobs and living standards for people from all economic backgrounds. According to Marieke van Doorninck, Amsterdam’s Deputy Mayor for Spatial Development and Responsibility, Amsterdam faces housing and climate crises.

Amsterdam uses housing prices to calculate GDP, yet people can’t afford to live there.

There is a disconnect between economic growth and city health. It’s a prosperous city but not for every person. The fact that it is a prosperous city is what drives the lack of accessible housing, but being prosperous does not say much about the state of the living conditions of the average person.

To address the housing crisis, Van Doornick’s vision involves building affordable housing using regenerative measures. 40% of new houses in Amsterdam must be affordable, 40% must be middle income, and 20% can be priced through the market. Construction companies are held to high sustainability standards and are incentivized to repurpose structures like old, unused school buildings into multifamily housings instead of demolishing them.

This circular approach redistributes and reuses resources, allowing people stable living conditions without polluting the environment.

Transitioning to clean energy requires consuming less and shortening supply chains, or rather consuming repurposed materials and making supply chains circular. For example, Amsterdam requires data companies to provide geothermal hot water waste as a heat source for city residents. Recycling resources will require more labor and increase employment. So, Amsterdam isn’t striving to increase their GDP but is instead striving to grow into a thriving city that takes care of the world, pollutes less, and remains resilient.

corporations, arguing that their prosperity would “trickle down” to lower classes. Like the Monte Leren economists, they assumed that if the market were to grow, everyone would benefit.

Clearly, that is not the case, given the state of our environment and our inability to provide basic needs like healthcare and housing to millions of citizens.

Raworth, however, does not claim that the problem of growth-oriented thinking is partisan. Politicians on both sides of the aisle call for “green growth” and “inclusive growth.”

Societies have become structurally dependent on unbounded growth as a means of achieving “green” and “inclusive” goals.

If we used accurate metrics to measure a thriving society rather than economic prosperity, perhaps companies would be more incentivized to innovate creative ways to reuse energy and resources and remain within the boundaries of the doughnut. Perhaps they would work together both with each other and citizens to foster a redistributive, regenerative economy, rather than just a large one. “The world’s most ingenuous people turn boundaries into their source of creativity,” Mozart said.

In the United States, the income gap more than doubled between 1968 to 2018.

Meanwhile, GDP has increased each year.

The Reagan administration is partially responsible for high income inequality through its implementation of “trickle-down economics,” an approach to policy that fully entrusted the market with sustaining society. His administration slashed taxes on wealthy people and

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In two consecutive debates, a member of the Biden-Harris ticket has refused to forswear packing the court. Their waffling seems to be about as moderate a position on the issue left to be found in the Democratic party. Senators Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii have both actively called for Democrats to pack the court if they take back the Senate and the Presidency. Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have all expressed a willingness, if not a commitment, to seriously consider court packing. Aaron Belkin, founder of pro-court packing organization Take Back the Court, claims, in an interview with The Atlantic, that 11 former Democratic presidential candidates have done the same, while 17 major progressive organizations have explicitly advocated for the move. Before Democrats impulsively adopt court packing as a party orthodoxy, they would do well to seriously consider the destructive long-term consequences of such a move.

My opposition to court packing does not come from a place of deep principle. I do not plan to argue that adding Justices to the court would, in and of itself, constitute an assault on democracy. I appreciate, and even partially agree with, the pro-democratic argument for adding Justices as a remedial step to counteract the unprecedented and brazen moves

by Mitch McConnell’s GOP to fill the court with conservatives. Still, I’m convinced that court packing would be a tremendous strategic error, escalating a manageable crisis into an existential one. The core of the case against court packing hinges on the near inevitability that the GOP would eventually retaliate by counter-packing the court in response, precipi-

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tating a back-and-forth series of court packing moves that would be far worse than a stable 6-3 conservative court majority.

Imagine that newly empowered Democrats choose to add two new justices to the Supreme Court, one to counteract the seat taken from Merrick Garland and one to counteract the seat previously held by Ginsburg. As reasonable as this may seem to many Democratic voters (and perhaps even rightly so), Republicans will no doubt strike a less conciliatory tone. They will condemn the move as a corrupt power play, accusing Democrats of stealing the Supreme Court, just as Democrats now accuse Republicans. A large part of the public will certainly agree with the Republicans – only 34% of voters supported court packing in a recent YouGov poll.

The next time Republicans take power, they are all but certain to add more Justices themselves. Does anyone seriously doubt that Mitch McConnell, one of the most amoral and effective political operators in Senate history, would retaliate by packing the court in suit?

For anyone who does question the GOP’s retaliatory instincts, look no further than the filibuster. When Democrats eliminated the filibuster for most judicial nominees in 2013, Republicans retaliated as soon as they regained power, eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court Justices to push through Gorsuch’s confirmation.

Instead of denying that the GOP would counter-pack the court if they regained power, some court packing advocates argue that they’ll never get a chance. After all, packing the court requires a federal trifecta (single party control of the Presidency and both chambers of Congress). These trifectas are more common than one might think; the last President who did not enjoy a trifecta was George H.W. Bush. If the future looks anything like the past, the GOP will have their chance to counter-pack the court within a decade.

Belkin, anticipating this argument, makes the case that Democrats can essentially lock the GOP out of power by passing anti-gerrymandering reforms and granting statehood to DC and Puerto Rico, since the GOP represents

a clear minority of the overall electorate.

The problem with this point of view is that Republicans enjoy structural advantages that Democrats cannot simply wipe away without a series of Constitutional amendments. Even if Democrats grant Puerto Rico and DC statehood, the Senate would still favor Republicans by four-and-a-half points, according to FiveThirtyEight. Nor can gerrymandering reform eliminate the GOP’s structural advantage in the House: Jowei Chen and Jonathan Rodden’s research on the political geography of legislative districts suggests that Democrats’ concentration in cities would grant Republicans an advantage even if districts were drawn using politically impartial criteria. The Democratic platform does not even attempt to counteract the Electoral College’s three-point Republican lean. Nothing Democrats could do, even with new legislation and a friendly Supreme Court, can permanently prevent the GOP from winning elections. While fantasizing about a Democratic dynasty that permanently ends the GOP might be comforting, basing an incredibly consequential policy decision on that naïve dream would be incredibly irresponsible.

Perhaps a case for court packing that acknowledges the inevitability of GOP counter-packing could still be made on the grounds that a 6-3 conservative majority would be worse than back-and-forth court packing. Belkin argues that “it would probably take a generation—25 or 30 years—for the Democrats to get the majority on the Supreme Court back.

If the Republicans steal the court, then the Democrats un-steal it. And if the Republicans steal it again, then the Democrats un-steal it again. It’s much better to have that zigzag than to just have unilateral surrender.” This case both understates the risks of zigzagging and overstates the risks of a 6-3 majority in the current system.

A “zigzag” of back-and-forth court packing would end three-branch rule in the United States. Under a “zigzag” system, the control of the court would correlate perfectly with control of the political branches. Both Republicans and Democrats would be increasingly likely to nominate and confirm partisan ideologues as the court’s veneer of nonpartisan-

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ship collapsed. These nominees would be handpicked for their support of their parties’ legislative agenda, giving both Republican and Democratic majorities nearly free reign to pass whatever legislation they wished. Constitutional limitations on legislation would become practically impotent, as Justices would only make it to the court if they had expressed a willingness to uphold the legislative agenda.

Even if the court did occasionally attempt to strike down legislation, its legitimacy as a neutral arbiter may become so deeply eroded that the political branches may no longer feel obliged to abide by Supreme Court decisions.

A fully politicized court lacking legitimacy would likely become so ineffective that judicial review in the United States might functionally cease to exist.

This vision of the court’s future should be utterly terrifying. An independent court with strong powers of judicial review serves an essential role in preserving our democracy. The court serves as the primary bulwark against Congress and the President overstepping their mandates and infringing on people’s rights. Republican majorities might be truly free to abandon abortion rights, voting rights, and civil rights with a brazenness scarcely imaginable in the political status quo. Nor should Democrats be hubristic enough to see themselves as immune from the need for Constitutional checks, as confident they may be in the wisdom of their policy prescriptions.

Even beyond performing an irreplaceable role in protecting rights, an independent and legitimate court may well be needed in the near future to resolve a Constitutional crisis.

As polarization escalates and the Republican party adopts increasingly authoritarian tendencies, the court may be the only body capable of preventing a wholesale seizure of power.

A court counter-packed with an unpredictably large and nakedly political GOP majority might have no inclination to reign in such an attack on democracy, nor the political clout to do so even if it so desired.

By contrast, a 6-3 conservative majority on the court would be significantly less existentially dangerous. I don’t want to downplay the very real, catastrophic potential consequences

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of a 6-3 conservative majority. Religious exemptions to discrimination laws will be dramatically expanded, gun rights will be strengthened, and executive power will be even less restrained. Yet, for the most part, these dangers are categorically different from the danger of a zigzagged court. While a conservative court will no doubt pose many tangible threats, these threats will not be existential to the very future of democracy.

There are even reasons to be cautiously optimistic about a 6-3 conservative court. Take Roe v. Wade for example. In this year’s landmark abortion case, June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo, Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent that argued Roe should be overturned.

Not a single Justice joined. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Alito dissented from the pro-abortion majority, but they did so on limited grounds that would still preserve the fundamental right to abortion established in Roe. A 6-3 conservative court might uphold limited restrictions on abortion rights, and the impact of such restrictions should not be minimized, but the basic right to an abortion established in Roe is likely safe.

Nor would a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court be a significant impediment to the broader Democratic legislative agenda. Roberts consistently displays a strong desire to preserve the legitimacy of the court as a nonpartisan institution, and he would, most likely, push other conservatives to exercise caution. Gorsuch appears to be a genuinely committed textualist, willing to subordinate his political philosophy to his judicial philosophy as he did in Bostock v. Clayton Country, this summer’s landmark decision prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or identity. Even Barrett has written a lengthy academic legal paper advocating judicial restraint in striking down acts of Congress.

These Justices seem unlikely to go out of their way to strike down waves of Constitutionally noncontroversial Democratic legislation.

Fortunately, little of Biden’s platform sits in a Constitutional gray zone. For those policies that do, the court may strike down a few, but the future of the majority of the Democratic agenda likely does not depend on the makeup of the Supreme Court.

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Proponents of court packing are right that a 6-3 conservative court will, in many ways, represent a dramatic step backward for the country. Progressives will very rarely succeed in using the court as a vehicle for creating change. Some victories of the past may be reversed. Democracy itself, however, will survive. Republicans have appointed 14 of 18 Justices since 1968. A conservative Supreme Court majority is the default, and the country has managed to survive since then. Court packing, however, represents a categorically different danger: an unprecedented, existential threat to the United States’ constitutional structure. While court packing may be an appealing short-term solution to the court’s conservative turn, Democrats would do well to adopt a long-term perspective. Can the party, or the country, really survive 50 or 100 years of back-and-forth court packing before democracy itself collapses?

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board except that one must live in a town in Missouri and not be a librarian—pretty low stakes. This completely excludes the professional voice of librarians and amplifies the less informed. Missouri’s employed librarians are required to have a master’s degree and go through training; why would we ignore the opinions of the most educated people on this subject?

From Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, to George Orwell’s iconic 1984, high school and college students have had to identify many characteristics of totalitarian and oppressive societies. Although it may be obvious in these pre-developed and nicely packaged dystopian novels, people are turning a blind eye to the real censorship happening in their own communities.

In the past few years, but especially in the last, Missouri has taken intense steps towards this reality through their “book ban bills.”

Not only do these actions impede on people’s First Amendment rights, but they also target a specific (and already oppressed) group of people. The most recent and controversial bill was introduced in January, 2020 by Ben Baker as the “Parental Oversight of Public Libraries Act.” This act had the ability to fine and even jail librarians who did not comply with the bill’s regulations. These regulations prohibited libraries from allowing children to borrow books that the committee deemed “inappropriate.” Not to mention, the libraries could lose all funding. Now, Missouri doesn’t have the right to simply bring in their representatives and rip books off shelves, but they get as close as they can to doing so. In the proposed bill, Baker suggested making a committee of elected community members who evaluate library materials and deem their merit and appropriateness. While there are many problems with this proposal, the most serious is that it completely excludes librarians from being a part of this board. There are no educational or training requirements to be on this

It is completely understandable to match students with age-appropriate content, and I believe that many librarians would agree with this. It’s not like librarians are going around putting random books on the shelves; they take their jobs very seriously. While the “book ban bill” may sound like it’s trying to enforce this, it’s really targeting a different goal: minority groups. The bill’s stated goal is to evaluate books that contain “age-inappropriate sexual material,” but LGBTQIA+ positive content has received more attention from lawmakers than any containing the sexually explicit. Not only does this repress the voices of minorities, but it validates students’ worries of not being accepted, being less than, and being wrong. Books containing important lessons on sexual assault and race inequality are also on the chopping block. At the most confusing and impressionable time of their lives, the only stories students are required to read are those with a white savior plot.

While this is beyond problematic on the state level, local high schools are taking intense measures in censorship as well. A high school in the Springfield School District completely banned the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson because parents and the administration claimed that it contained “pornographic material.” This led to heated conversations between members of the school district, considering that the book addresses the experience of a sexual assault victim. While there were people fighting against the school’s decision to ban the book, there was too little support to overturn the ban. This book shares a lesson about victim shame and why speaking up can be such a difficult thing. Yes, this is a sensitive topic, but in no way should it be avoided; it may be more problematic to not address this issue considering sexual assault

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is a problem most high schoolers will encounter in some way (whether they be victims, perpetrators, bystanders, or allies to victims).

Librarians have the knowledge needed to determine this boundary. This is just one example of the several books that have been banned from high school libraries. Other titles include, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hate U Give, Gay and Lesbian History for Kids, and Mythlopedia: Oh My Gods!

While censorship and anti-intellectual philosophies are nothing shy of common in today’s society, we must not overlook the ways this could affect the education of children. The fact that this is simply an idea in legislators' minds is absolutely frightening. Apparently, their lack of diverse education has taken an impact on the greater good. In all seriousness, this is pure dystopian censorship. There must be a point, or rather, a boundary, that is too far for any person. What level of anti-utopia will it come to before people realize they are living the life of Guy Montag?

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Facebook is not what it once was. Back in its heyday it was the social network. It had an it-factor that made everyone want to join. If you watched The Social Network, you saw how it spread like wildfire among college students, moving from campus to campus.

Facebook was the big leap that interconnected our world. The internet may have connected academics and governments, but it took a social network, the social network, to connect individuals. Nowadays, college students barely give Facebook a second thought. Instagram and Snapchat are more popular, and, in the wave of new social media, Facebook has fallen behind. However, Facebook is still in the mainstream. Facebook has shifted from targeting college students to trying to be there for everyone. Only professionals will join LinkedIn, and only people with something to show off will join Instagram, but everyone can find a spot on Facebook. This was not an accident. This was a carefully planned move by their leadership to make Facebook a place for everyone. This choice has put Facebook in a very precarious role in our democracy. With the reach that posts on Facebook have, Facebook’s rules on political advertisements can quite seriously affect election results, and choices by their leadership have perpetuated the political divide in our country. Unfortunately, the speed of Facebook’s growth overwhelmed our legal system, and they currently operate with near impunity in their world-altering decisions.

After the 2016 election, a heated series of hearings were held in the House Financial Services Committee with Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook. One heated back and forth occurred between Zuckerberg and Representative Ocasio-Cortez. Ocasio-Cortez asked Zuckerberg whether she would be allowed to place Facebook advertisements

that stated a Republican politician supported the green new deal. Zuckerberg struggled with the question, saying that “lying is bad… [but] I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians, that they may or may not vote for, are saying.” Up until recently, Facebook operated solely based on this idea, and almost completely refused to regulate any political advertisements. Their policy basically stated that any politician who wanted an ad on Facebook would be able to put one up. As one of the biggest platforms for advertisements, alongside its extensive user demographics database, Facebook advertisements can have some of the most widespread, and most precisely targeted advertisements.

Take, for example, the recent revelations that the Trump campaign used Facebook to target individual Black voters in efforts to deter them from voting. Facebook not only facilitated this heavily targeted, manipulative advertising but also actively profited off of it. Facebook plays an incredibly important, and still growing, role in our democracy. The rules that they have set for their advertisements and the ways in which they continue to profit off of dirty campaigning should worry anyone who hopes that our democracy will heal.

Another area where Facebook spreads information is in user-shared posts. Users share millions of posts, and Facebook uses precisely tuned algorithms to only show you posts that will constrain you to your social bubble. The social bubbles that exist on Facebook have a great potential to spread misinformation, and Facebook has designed their algorithms to keep you isolated from any opposing viewpoints. If you ever have the chance to look at the top posts on Facebook, you might be surprised by the contents. Kevin Roose, a New York Times tech columnist, publishes a top-ten posts list every day, and while you might expect what you see on other social networks, some celebrities, some cool videos of dogs, you instead see a wave of right-wing media. List after list is covered in Breitbart, Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro and Fox News.

Facebook’s algorithms consistently isolate viewpoints, causing articles like these to bounce around in hyper-conservative bubbles while shielding either side of the aisle from

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intellectual discussion.

Now, you might wonder why the same effect wouldn’t be seen with left-wing media, balancing out the top-ten list. The answer is in the structure of the American media system.

Conservative media is hyper-centralized, composed of a few key companies and individuals that all quote and source from each other.

This is in contrast to the liberal media system, where there is a greater variety of authors, main-stream companies, and careful analysis.

This kind of viewpoint isolation only exacerbates our political divide. Facebook shows you what it thinks will keep you on the site.

For politics, that means showing you the same creators and the same viewpoints over and over again. Confirmation bias is a dangerous phenomenon, and this cycle of content just streams into your brain. In Facebook’s system, users on both sides of the aisle will only ever see news confirming their biases. Given Facebook’s already lax rules on misinformation, many users are more likely to be presented with false news before they ever come into contact with content that they disagree with. Facebook’s former director of monetization Time Kendall describes these decisions as having “served to tear people apart with alarming speed and intensity. At the very least, we have eroded our collective understanding—at worst, I fear we are pushing ourselves to the brink of a civil war.” Anyone who looks online, watches the news, or walks through a residential area can tell you that politics are increasingly entering our lives. People are clinging to their political identities in this time of crisis, and Facebook is only fueling separation between the two parties. By further isolating users in their own little confirmation bubbles, Facebook is further fracturing our society by party. When both sides can’t even agree on the facts, there is little room for discussion or progress.

It’s scary to think about how much power Facebook has, especially given how little regulation it faces. Over 7 in 10 US adults use Facebook, and yet there are almost no laws that restrict how Facebook can behave.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency

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Act provides Facebook virtual free rein on decisions of what to show users, be it truth or lies. Section 230 states “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” This means that no matter what is published on Facebook, as long as it is done by a third party, Facebook will face no repercussions for it. This means that Facebook can host anything from slander to hate speech and has full legal protections. This provides Facebook with no legal incentive to regulate its posts. While the recent actions of the legislature seem to indicate some willingness to bring Facebook to heel, that may well be years away while our democracy suffers every day because of it.

Normally, the kind of regulation we should see on Facebook would come from our government. It’s the government that sets the rules about advertisements and lying (spoiler: there aren’t a lot). However, the government did not grow with the times. One of the scarier parts of Section 230 is that it was written in 1996, 8 years before Facebook was even founded. That means that Facebook, a site where more than 40% of Americans got their news in 2016, is governed by a 24-year-old law that predates most of the modern internet and provides extremely broad freedom to publish anything they want. To this day, there are still people on Capitol Hill who show a fundamental misunderstanding of the basics of technology.

President Trump’s new call to repeal Section 230 has been taken up by many in his party.

However, that call shows a dangerous misunderstanding of the internet. Repealing Section 230 means that Facebook would have to have their lawyers go through literally every post on the platform, effectively killing it. New regulation is required for Facebook, but most current politicians show a fundamental misunderstanding of the internet. Without new regulation, Facebook can basically operate as they see fit in their restriction (or lack thereof) of lies, extremist groups, and terrorism.

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Facebook is harming our democracy; it is sowing derision and misinformation.

Facebook may well have swung the 2016 election to Trump, and its decisions about false advertisements and conspiracy theory groups may well decide the 2020 election. Our laws clearly do little to protect us from Facebook’s decisions, and those decisions have caused division in our country. Yet we should not be surprised that Facebook is like this. Facebook sought to make itself as widespread as possible. By growing its demographics, Facebook became a mirror of our real society, the ‘big tent’ social network if you will. The issues we see on Facebook are those which we see in real life. Facebook’s failure is in regulating a misinformation problem that already existed in society. We as a society have perpetuated the very issues that Facebook now monetizes.

They can only increase the partisan divide that is already there; they only post false ads if there is money to pay for them. We have to ask ourselves why it was so advantageous to keep us in our own political bubbles. How can we make it less profitable for Facebook to run false ads? The problems that exist in our society are not Facebook’s fault. Any solution to them will include new and important regulation of Facebook. Yet we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that Facebook was the source of our fake news problem, or that disbanding Facebook might somehow save our democracy. Our society is shaking, and, as we reimagine how our democracy will function, we have to reimagine the role that Facebook will play.

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primary and general elections of statewide offices, and federal congressional offices. Other states are looking to these two states, along with a couple others, to organize this system before attempting to utilize it themselves.

As the use of ranked-choice voting in the US is relatively new, there is limited precedent to look at in order to analyze the good it has the capacity to do. However, it is possible to recognize some attributes and flaws to the system with the current information.

As the national election approaches, debates around voting are becoming increasingly prioritized. The value of our current methods of voting is being reconsidered as criticisms of the system arise. Alternative methods of voting are being brought to the forefront of political conversations. One such idea is ranked-choice voting.

Ranked-choice is a system of voting where voters rank all of the candidates in order of preference (or they select their top three candidates and rank them). Once the ballots are counted, the candidate who receives more than half of first choice votes wins the election. If none of the candidates receives the majority of votes, rank-choice voting is utilized. In this system, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is discarded and the voters who selected this candidate as their top choice have their second choice vote counted. This process continues until one candidate has the majority of votes.

Multiple states have already considered enacting rank-choice voting. In Maine, citizens have voted on the issue and the Maine Supreme Court has approved it. This year, Maine will be the first state to use rank-choice voting in the federal election, barring any involvement from a higher court. Additionally, in the 2020 ballot in Massachusetts, rank-choice voting is question two. If Massachusetts votes yes on this issue, rank-choice voting will be enacted in 2022 so long as the courts do not intervene. If approved, this new system of voting will be used in Massachusetts for the

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Rank-choice voting has the ability to be beneficial to the country’s voting system in multiple ways. The purpose of the system is to have a candidate win by a majority. Candidates will no longer be able to simply collect the plurality to assume office. By forcing candidates to win the majority, extremism is discouraged. In the past four to eight years, both of the major parties have claimed the other is growing more extreme. However, with ranked-choice voting, the candidates will have to gather the moderate vote more than before. The race for the second choice votes will incentivize candidates to reevaluate their stances and limit their ability to pander to one group of people exclusively. Additionally, the system will allow third-party candidates more of an opportunity to run. With the current voting system, voting for a third party candidate in most elections is equivalent to not voting at all. The United States’ two-party system has forced the majority of people to vote for a candidate from either the Democrat or the Republican party. Because third-party candidates have an extremely limited chance of winning, a vote for them does not affect the outcome of the election. However, with rank-choice voting, if the third-party candidate has the least amount of support, the voters who ranked them number one will simply have their vote carry over to their second choice candidate. As a result, more people will be able to support the candidate of their choosing without splitting the vote within the two major parties.

While the benefits to rank-choice voting are numerous, there are still some flaws in the system. Firstly, the system is a new one in the US. The limited precedent makes it more difficult to predict issues that will arise and forces

the US to simply wait for them to appear before correcting them. Additionally, the ballots will be more complicated and thus will take more time and money to count and declare a winner. Cities with older voting machines will face a period of struggle and adjustment if they implement this new form of voting.

The delays in releasing results may also cause confusion among voters and perpetuate speculation concerning voter fraud (although rank-choice voting itself does not make voter fraud any more likely).

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So what does this mean for the future of rank-choice in America? To answer this question, we can look to Australia. Australia uses a system similar to rank-choice voting.

When electing members of their House of Representatives, Australian voters rank4 every candidate on the ballot. If they do not rank every candidate, their vote is not counted.

For the Senate, voters can choose to either vote “above the line,” which entails marking a one in the box of the party that they support. By doing so they give their party the ability to decide the rest of the ranking for them. They can also choose to vote “below the line,” which is when voters rank every candidate. The Australian system has allowed for competition between the liberal parties and separate competition between the conservative parties without putting traditionally liberal and traditional conservative seats at risk. Two conservative parties are able to compete with less concern for whether a liberal party will take the conservative seat they are fighting over. This system allows for more diversity of opinion within the conservative and liberal schools of thought.

If the United States chose to enact this system, we could similarly see a rise of a multi-party system, allowing for liberal and conservative views to expand beyond the views advocated by the Democrat and Republican parties.

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There’s one thing that can be said for sure about Joe Biden: he doesn’t want to shake much up.

Biden, of course, is running in an election against President Donald Trump, and so his campaign has certainly targeted Trump’s policies and leadership in the last four years.

But beyond his base appeal of not being Donald Trump, he offers little else. He wants to restore America to its pre-Trump status quo.

Utilizing nostalgia, Biden has consistently bet on the fact that his supporters mostly just want politicians “who will do their jobs” and don’t want huge changes. After Biden’s announcement speech over a year ago, Ezra Klein wrote

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that while most other Democratic candidates were trying to prove they could fight for transformative change, Biden made the case that “the American people are looking for a candidate who will promise them peace, not just victory.”

As a caveat, Biden has a huge list of policies. Especially compared to the Republican Party’s 2020 platform—which merely reaffirmed its 2016 platform—it’s impressive.

Yet the real question is to what degree Biden would actually pursue the lofty goals outlined in the Democratic party’s vision, and to what degree they’d be possible under a Biden Administration.

During the hectic first presidential debate, Biden insisted that he opposed radical ideas every time he was accused of supporting them: “No, I don’t support the Green New Deal.”

This is in line with the rest of Democratic leadership, who don’t support more aggressive climate plans and even mock them. Paying attention to past behavior rather than stated policies alone is important because, believe it or not, politicians aren’t always honest. Biden has a long history of pretending his record is much more noteworthy and liberal than it actually is. In a 2018 interview, he alleged he has “no empathy” for millennials that believe times are tough because things were a lot tougher in the 1960s. Biden then seemed to take credit for his generation’s social progress in that era: "Here's the deal, guys," continued Biden. "We decided we were going to change the world, and we did."

When Biden says “we changed the world”, is he referring to his role in the expansion of prison sentencing that significantly contributed to mass incarceration? Or when he fought for the rights of segregationists to keep separate school districts? It’s unclear what role Biden is suggesting he played in his generation’s struggle for civil rights and other causes in the 20th century, but what’s apparent is that many of his most crucial actions were profoundly negative.

This is not to say that Biden is going to push for segregation or any of the other horrible

things he did decades ago. The world is a different place, and Joe Biden has and will continue to adapt to the changing state of politics. Biden’s style of leadership is exactly that: going with the flow, never challenging power or pushing its limits. It explains his love for bipartisanship—even though it no longer exists in the same way it used to—and it explains why he’s supported many disastrous policies, including the authorization of the use of military force (AUMF) in 2001, the rise of mass surveillance, and more. Biden has demonstrated that he has no problem signing on to whatever is politically expedient at a given moment.

Some cynics find hope in the plan Biden rolled out this summer to invest over $3.5 trillion in jobs and clean energy over the next few years to revitalize the economy. But others highlight the obstacles of Washington gridlock and the supremacy of austerity politics: “When we get in, the pantry is going to be bare,” said Ted Kaufman, who is leading Mr. Biden’s transition team. “When you see what Trump’s done to the deficit…forget about Covid-19, all the deficits that he built with the incredible tax cuts. So we’re going to be limited.”

In short, the political horizons of a prospective Biden Administration are narrow. Given the Democratic party’s dedication to neoliberalism, Biden will almost certainly fall short of his platform even if gifted a blue House and Senate. I readily acknowledge that some of his platform would be very good—it’s just that these parts of his plan will probably never happen. Simply look at Obama’s presidency: with a filibuster-proof Senate majority and a single-payer system on the table, the ACA ends up far short of universal healthcare.

Given the words of his own advisors and the fact that Obama ended up extending the Bushera tax cuts, it should only be expected Biden will not substantially raise the corporate tax rate.

What Biden has been serious about in his overall campaign messaging is his emphasis on themes like national character, honesty, and empathy. This might even be an effective strategy for winning in the current political

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climate. At the same time, the character approach without any updated policy strategy is a likely disastrous long-term political strategy. While seductive, there is little reason to believe Joe Biden will be capable of restoring the sense of normalcy, prosperity, or bipartisanship of the nation’s recent past. We’re in entirely new territory.

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As each day goes by, political power shifts further from the American left and the oppressed groups they represent. 2020 has been a string of defeats, with underwhelming responses to police brutality, millions losing their jobs and homes, and President Trump now seeking to cement a conservative stranglehold on the Supreme Court by appointing a third justice. Frustratingly, progressive ideas are popular with most Americans, yet the country is slipping into further market deregulation and fascism. Why is it always the Republicans winning and the Democrats losing?

The answer is fairly simple. Democrats would often rather cling to ‘decency’ and ‘decorum’ in their symbolic resistance than act as a real opposition party. For example, amidst an impeachment trial (that was doomed to fail), the Democratic House overwhelmingly (37748) passed Trump’s defense bill, including money for Trump’s wall, the Space Force, and the Saudi war in Yemen. The result of this complacency is a two-party state where one party ruthlessly carries out its dangerous agenda, and the other reluctantly obliges while performatively protesting. The Republicans set the boundaries of public policy because they are not afraid of bad optics. They can maintain control of the Senate and presidency while doing unpopular things for a minority of the electorate because they exploit features of the system to their benefit.

Republicans are phenomenal at punching above their weight. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent death of Ruth BaderGinsburg and the question of her replacement.

Even though Republicans decried the idea of nominating a justice in an election year in 2016 when Obama nominated Merrick Garland, four years later, when they now

control the presidency with a Supreme Court vacancy, they will nominate and confirm a justice less than two months before the election. Liberals will cry and scream about the hypocrisy of the situation (such as Lindsay Graham even going as far to say "If there's a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, 'Let's let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.'"). But who can blame Republicans? Strategically, it is simply good politics to appoint a third justice. At the end of it all, Republicans will come out ahead because they are not afraid to use every weapon at their disposal to achieve their political goals. What’s more is that their supporters love it or, at worst, ignore the ruthlessness.

Why wouldn’t they? If I was a conservative voter that cared about abortion and the second amendment, I wouldn’t care how the GOP gets a conservative court, only that they succeed in doing so.

Democratic leadership claims that they must avoid proposing radical (but necessary) legislation because doing so would alienate ‘independents’ and ‘swing-voters,’ with the most recent example being Harris vehemently defending fracking in the vice-presidential debate, despite polls showing that a majority of people in Pennsylvania oppose fracking. A contrary theory of electoral politics that I subscribe to is one laid out by forecaster Rachel Bitecofer. Bitecofer argues that elections are not shaped by a few people deciding to switch sides but instead by people deciding to vote in the first place. Conventional electoral forecasting forgets the over 40% of the eligible voters didn’t show up in 2016. The most convincing qualitative argument for Bitecofer is that Donald Trump won in 2016. If the traditional theory goes that elections are decided by the candidate that panders the most to moderates in the middle, then how did Trump, by all measures an extremist, win the election? It seems obvious to me that there is something to be said for being able to mobilize disaffected voters if you want to win elections.

However, Democrats don’t believe in this and instead continue to form their unimpressive platform around the swing-voter. In my view,

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Democrats could propose bigger reforms, help more people, and simultaneously win more elections.

Unfortunately, power begets power.

Undemocratic rules and systems give the minority a majority of the power, giving a big advantage to Republicans. They know it too, which is why they promote voter suppression (such as felons not being able to vote and shutting down polling sites), the Electoral College, and gerrymandering more than Democrats do. And once they have power because of these rules, like they do now, you can be sure as hell they won’t change them.

Republicans are phenomenal at manipulating the rules of our political institutions and electoral system to their advantage. Ending the filibuster and reducing the number of senators required to confirm a justice epitomize this.

Democrats are either subscribing to an outdated electoral philosophy or, worse, know that they could mobilize voters and win elections but do not care to do so because the current situation is advantageous for them personally. Interestingly, of the richest 36 members of Congress, only one is not an incumbent, and it is roughly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

It’s something to think about: just because Democrats lose political battles does not necessarily mean Democratic politicians are really losing much themselves. Perhaps we should not view it as the Republicans winning and the Democrats losing but instead as the forces of capital winning and the oppressed losing even more.

For years the boundaries of public policy have been entirely framed by the Republican Party to the country’s detriment. And unfortunately, the Democratic Party has done little other than symbolically protest and never act as confidently and decisively as Republicans have.

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Incidents such as this make me reflect, thinking about the ways that caste has impacted the experiences my family and other lower-caste people have had, not only in India but in the United States as well.

On September 29, a 19-year-old lower caste girl died from injuries after being gang-raped and mutilated by a group of upper-caste men in a village in Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh, India. The local police then cremated her body without her family’s consent. This incident has sparked outrage across India, prompting many politicians and celebrities to decry violence against women. However, many lower caste activists are also pointing to this incident as one of the latest gruesome crimes in a long history of violence against caste-oppressed women. When I first heard of this incident, I was heartbroken. While I have been aware of the caste system from a young age, I was unaware of my family’s caste until recently. I had always been curious about my family’s history, but whenever I asked my parents about caste, they would always say they didn’t know our caste background. Oblivious to the fact that this was a blatant lie, as every Hindu in India has their caste listed in government documents from birth, I believed them.

This summer, however, my mother revealed to me that we are members of the Pallar caste, an agrarian caste found in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which is one of the “scheduled castes”, a category that groups all of the most oppressed castes in India. Now that I know that I am from a lower-caste family, news such as the Hathras case feels much more personal. If events in my parents’ lives had gone differently, I could have easily experienced something similar. Some of my ancestors have probably experienced caste-based atrocities.

Like race, caste is a difficult word to define, especially for those unfamiliar with the concept. This is due to it being an entirely social construct. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to describe the system as best I can. The concept of caste is derived originally from Hindu scripture. According to ancient laws, Hindus are split into four castes: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. Each of these groups is said to have come from different parts of the god Brahma’s body (his head, arms, thighs, and lower legs, respectively) and are assigned to different roles in society.

Below all of these categories are the so-called “untouchables”, people who are deemed to be impure and who are therefore relegated to the most “menial” tasks, such as sweeping the streets, cleaning the sewers, and handling dead bodies. Although the institution of caste comes originally from Hinduism, it has permeated to other religious communities all across South Asia, including among Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and Jains. Within each broad caste category, there are many sub-castes, which vary across ethnicities, cultures, religions, and geographical regions.

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Caste-based discrimination and hatred run rampant in South Asia to this day. My father has told me stories about people who ran away from his medical college because they couldn’t endure persistent caste-based bullying and harassment. My mother told me about how my grandmother was barred from entering tea shops. She and other lower caste people had to stand outside to receive their tea, which was served in coconut shells rather than the glass cups they used for higher-caste customers.

All of these stories made me curious – how does caste manifest itself in the United States?

Surely people don’t leave caste entirely behind when they immigrate, not when it is so ingrained into their culture. When I asked my mom if people were casteist in the US too, she laughed and responded emphatically, “Oh, yeah”. She told me how one priest, a Brahmin, once came to our house to visit. Before coming, he said his family never ate anything prepared by others, even store-bought food, and that they only ate homemade items, so my mom shouldn’t bother preparing anything.

However, when he came to our house, he requested and enthusiastically consumed three bags of store-bought chips. My mother told me, “I thought, maybe he just doesn’t want to eat food that was touched by my hands.”

She also told me of a Brahmin woman in our community who would identify all the Brahmin students at our local university and invite them to exclusive events and parties.

She knows many dominant caste South Asian immigrants who exclusively interact with other upper-caste people, and who tend to avoid interacting with our family. No one would be openly discriminatory, but it is often clear who is upper-caste and who is not. My mother also talked about how some upper-caste people are fairly open about their caste, due to their caste pride, while lower-caste people like her and my father would never reveal their caste identity. However, she says people easily recognize that we are not an upper-caste family based on several caste-identifying factors, such as our dialect of Tamil, or the fact that our family eats meat (many Brahmins practice vegetarianism – this

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is in fact where the Western stereotype of the “vegetarian Hindu” comes from). Unlike my mother, my father has chosen to distance himself from the South Asian community. In fact, he told me that one of the reasons he chose to work and live in the Midwest was because he did not want to live in a place such as Boston, Houston, or Chicago, which all have large South Asian communities. He says that this is in part because he did not want to deal with the inevitable caste discrimination that would come with interacting with so many South Asians on a regular basis.

My family’s experience is not unique.

According to a survey by Equality Labs, two out of three Dalits in the United States reported facing discrimination in the workplace due to caste, while half of the Dalit respondents reported being afraid their caste being revealed publicly. Caste is currently not a protected category under American civil rights law. It is generally considered an “Indian” issue. However, all the way back in 1916, Dalit leader Dr. B. R. Ambedkar predicted in his paper Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis, and Development that “if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste [will] become a world problem.”

His words ring true. Caste migrates with South Asians wherever they go. Caste discrimination must be recognized and covered by civil rights laws in the United States.

There is cause for hope – in June, the state of California brought a caste discrimination case against the IT company Cisco Systems.

A Dalit Indian employee of Cisco is alleging that he endured caste-based discrimination and harassment from his higher-caste employers and coworkers. The results of this case could have implications for lower-caste people across America.

Caste and caste discrimination are real, and very much present in the United States.

Though many upper-caste second or third-generation members of the South Asian diaspora might imagine themselves to be completely detached from the caste system, this is a privileged point of view. Interrogate the social dynamics of your local South Asian

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community. Do your parents avoid talking to certain people? Do they look down upon those who eat meat? What about your own South Asian friend group? Are all of them upper-caste? Suppose that, when you are of “marriageable age,” your parents want to set you up with other South Asians. If this happens, pay attention to the criteria your family is using—arranged marriage has historically been one of the most effective vehicles for caste endogamy. Also, in a time when many of us are thinking about anti-blackness in the South Asian community, we should also be thinking about the relationship between anti-blackness and anti-Dalitness. For those who are not members of the South Asian community, educate yourself on the basics of caste discrimination, especially if you are going into a field with a high number of South Asians such as IT. Casteism is not just an “Indian” problem. It is an American issue as well. We need to stop pretending that caste and castebased discrimination don’t exist here too.

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WU Political Review

“www.WhitePrideRadio.com.” The ad space is being leased by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The leader of the Harrison branch of the KKK, Thomas Robb, says they have no plans to take it down.

Instead of doing Zoom classes from my dorm this semester, I decided to spend time working on a small, organic farm near Yellville, Arkansas. Yellville is about five hours from my hometown of St. Louis and just past the southern Missouri border.

On the evening of my first full day at the farm, it was one of my host’s birthdays. They held an outdoor, socially-distanced gathering with their friends. As I was about to introduce myself, I caught a glimpse of one of their friend’s masks. “Go T----,” which my brain automatically filled in with “Go Trump!” I felt my heart rate rise in anticipation of having to exchange pleasantries with a man who would be so bold as to get a custom Donald Trump Covid-19 mask. To confirm my suspicion, I slowly crept towards the group he was talking with to catch another glimpse of the mask.

Once I was close enough, I saw that the mask actually read “Good Trouble,” a tribute to the late Civil Rights leader John Lewis, who passed away earlier this summer.

My assumption was largely informed by a recent viral video filmed in Harrison, Arkansas, which is only about a thirty-minute drive from where I am staying. The video, titled “Holding a Black Lives Matter Sign in America’s Most Racist Town,” was made by white LA filmmaker Rob Bliss.

Shortly after the Fourth of July, Bliss stood outside of a Walmart Supercenter in Harrison holding a Black Lives Matter sign. The video shows the reactions of locals, most of whom spew hateful language, some even threatening violence if he doesn’t leave. Linked in the description of Bliss’s video are the coordinates for a billboard in Harrison that shows a young white girl holding a puppy next to the words “It’s not racist to love your people” and

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In USA Today, Bliss explains his intent behind the video: “I think people assume that ‘real racism’ doesn’t really exist anymore. That it’s more like, it’s institutional or it’s implicit or it’s subconscious, when really, one of the reasons why I like this video is you can see this is very real. This is very present and it’s very visceral. It’s like Level 1 racism and we’re still at this level in many places around the country.”

I agree with Bliss here—his video succeeds in highlighting how explicit racism, including slurs and hateful language, is alive and well.

As a method for inspiring change, however, Bliss’ video is ultimately incomplete.

Exposing racist behavior and raising awareness is necessary, but for accountability to be effective, it must be initiated by and engage members of the community. Bliss’ video does neither. He chose Harrison because of its reputation for “struggling with race and white pride billboards” he told CNN, not because he wanted to engage with the community.

When I brought up this video to my host, she shared with me how she thought it painted an unfair and dishonest picture of Harrison. She has lived nearby for over ten years and has numerous friends who call the town home.

She gave me insight into many of the things community members of Harrison have done to combat racism in their community.

In 2003, Harrison established a Community Task Force on Race Relations, which helped the City Council adopt two resolutions denouncing racism, one in 2006 and another in 2012. Harrison has also hosted the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Nonviolence Youth summits, two-day sessions that teach Black and white students how to incorporate nonviolence in their social justice activism. In 2016, the Arkansas MLK Jr. Commission awarded Harrison its highest recognition for its extensive anti-racism work.

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Three years later, Black Harrison resident and task force member Kevin Cheri won the commission’s Trailblazer Award. Mike Masterson highlights these accomplishments, along with many others, in his Arkansas Democrat Gazette article titled, “Harrison and the Haters.”

“Truth clearly played no part in this man’s payday,” explains Masterson. “Facts would spoil his narrative, since he makes a living off the negative reactions in videos for YouTube that pay him for how many are watching them.

Plus, Bliss establishes GoFundMe pages for each of his video hit jobs.”

With that additional context, Harrison hardly seems like a place that can honestly be labeled “America’s Most Racist Town.” Task forces and commissions don’t absolve the handful of hateful individuals featured in Bliss’ video, but these patterns do indicate that there are community members actively dedicated to addressing racism. Despite Bliss’ supposed intention of spreading awareness about racism, his designation of a singular, 13,000-person town as the “most racist” in America detracts from the larger issue at hand: racism exists everywhere you go in the United States.

Bliss’s video does not truly force its viewers to confront this uncomfortable reality, but reaffirms the comfortable stereotypes of a backwards, racist rural America in contrast with progressive, “good,” liberal cities.

Concentrating on racial slurs rather than systemic and institutionalized injustices is also rather tone deaf, as this video was filmed and released just about two months after George Floyd’s murder by police officer Derek Chauvin. Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, a city that is largely considered one of the most progressive and Democratic in the country, not a small, rural town. Why focus on “level one” racism at a time when the United States is finally having a long overdue, public reckoning with the institutionalized police violence that has tormented Black communities in America for centuries?

self-centering activism that many white liberals have a tendency to perpetrate. Nowhere does Bliss reference consulting with Black members of the Harrison community or including any Black people in the planning and implementation of this project. It is not activism for a white individual to “spread awareness” about racism or insert themselves in the Black Lives Matter movement without having consulted or included any Black people.

White liberals like Bliss hide behind their supposed wokeness in order to set themselves apart from “real racists” like those featured in the video. Progressive, often white, people who perceive themselves as more ‘woke’ than their rural counterparts are equal, if not greater, impediments to combating racism since they do not see themselves as part of the problem and often exempt themselves from examining their own racist tendencies.

Instead of working to prove that “Level One” racism still exists and pinning the bulk of the responsibility on small, rural communities, we should work to expose how racism exists everywhere, not just the places you most expect it. We need to take the intention of community engagement beyond a two-minute video in a Walmart parking lot, and that starts with seeing the problem with stereotypical and narrow definitions of racism. So, I urge you: Be more critical of generalizations and stereotypes, even if they may seem to be exposing something as insidious as racism. Question the motives of white, liberal activists acting on their own accord, and always make sure to listen to and amplify the voices of Black communities, especially in your activism.

Bliss’s video is little more than a façade of white allyship, the sort of disingenuous,

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loss pushed the nation to rapidly militarize in Kashmir to not only mirror their Chinese neighbors, but also hold their own ground.

The Sino-Indian war was the last time these nations ever came into open conflict, with only a handful of border clashes for the rest of the century.

The year 1950 signified a new decade in geopolitics. With the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the struggle between democracy and communism took full effect. The new world order reigned supreme, with both the U.S. and Soviet Russia at its helms. Yet, elsewhere, in Asia, two future superpowers were taking shape.

Three years earlier, the Dominion of India secured independence from the United Kingdom and adopted a republican government under its new, self-determined constitution. Two thousand miles away, the bloody Chinese Civil War resulted in the formation of a new state: the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Ever since then, both nations have had repeated border conflicts. Today, the SinoIndian border, straddling the Himalayan mountain range in South Asia, is considered to be the world’s longest disputed border.

Kashmir, the specific region of South Asia where much of the border struggles have occurred, is divided into three zones, administered by Pakistan, India, and China. In October of 1962, after India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama and months of diplomatic rejections of Chinese settlements in Kashmir, the PRC invaded the disputed area. In just one month, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China captured, killed, and wounded around 8,000 Indians before opting for a military ceasefire on the “Line of Actual Control” (LAC), a negotiated demarcation line that separates the Indian territory of Ladakh with the newly acquired Chinese territory of Tibet.

Even with military and intelligence assistance by both Western and Soviet allies, India’s

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2020—exactly seventy years later—marks the beginning of another decade that might have instrumental consequences. The coronavirus pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China, toppled the global economy and only further strained Western and Chinese relations.

China’s incessant debt-trapping of third-world nations, the inhibition of the democratic values of Hong Kong, and a constant desire to assert control in Southeast Asia, has left many with an unfavorable view of the PRC. Yet even with all these concerns, the multiple skirmishes over the Sino-Indian border have dominated global headlines.

With both nations seeking to develop more infrastructure in Kashmir, the construction of a new road to a high-altitude airbase by the Indian government was allegedly perceived by the PRC as an aggressive maneuver to assert air supremacy. In mid-June, an engagement that resulted in the death of twenty Indians and an unknown number of Chinese casualties was argued by both sides as provoked by the other. In August, India accused China of continuing to provoke border tensions which was only followed by a Chinese accusation of Indian troops firing on their Kashmir zone in September. Although United States intelligence estimates only twenty Indian casualties to the PLA’s thirty-five, these developments are a sharp contrast to the half-century of relations between India and China and signify something much more concerning for the future.

China and India make up around 40% of the world’s population, and as two nations projected to soon become the world’s largest economies, any conflict between them is guaranteed to create a massive disruption for Asia.

History often repeats itself, and the 2020 military standoff between these two nuclear powers mirrors the tensions of the 20th century

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Cold War. In an era that is touted to be a time of globalism, an increase in military tensions between these two countries is discordant with the theme of maintaining peace.

With relationships already strained between the U.S. and the PRC, it is not hard to imagine that any escalated Sino-Indian conflicts will lead to intervention by the world’s largest military power – the U.S. – and its long list of allies. In fact, in July of this year, the US and India held a joint naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, just five hundred miles from the Sino-Indian border. In just a few months, the foundation for a new Cold War is set, one that seems to pit democracy against communism but is really a conflict between economic and military powerhouses.

In a world where direct, combative relationships between nuclear powers are restricted and globalism is prioritized for economic gain, no sensible leadership will seek to engage in battle. Since 2016, however, the rise of international populism has led to a concern that this notion of sensibility might be pushed aside for nationalistic and ethnic gains; Kashmir will certainly be a testing point of this as communications between the more populist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India and authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are projected to dictate all of the tension in the region.

There is hope, and that hope comes in the form of precedent. The 2020 skirmishes between these two nations are nothing new and vastly less concerning than the 1962 Sino-Indian war. In addition, since the 1980s, several diplomatic talks between both parties have resulted in a commitment towards maintaining order. Whether or not future dialogue leads to mutual prosperity, another Cold War, or a full-blown escalation is left, like many other decisions, in the hands of politicians and the constituents that elect them.

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