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(11/01/18 9:58am)
When it comes to partisan control of the presidency, House and Senate, we are experiencing a level of volatility not seen since the post-Civil War era more than a century ago. Of the eight possible configurations of majority party control, the country has cycled through six of them since the 2000 elections. If political science forecast models are to be believed, the upcoming 2018 midterm elections are likely to give us a seventh variation of this pattern, with Democrats winning a slim majority in the House while Republicans barely hold onto the Senate.
What explains this pattern of instability and why is next week’s election unlikely to change it? To answer, it helps to understand what typically drives the midterm vote. Since 1938, the president’s party has lost seats in every House midterm election save two: 1998, when Bill Clinton was in the midst of the Lewinsky impeachment, and 2002, the first midterm after the 9/11 terrorist attack. The average loss across all midterms during the last eight decades is 29 seats in the House and about 24 if we restrict the analysis to the president’s first midterm. Barring an event of magnitude equivalent to impeachment or a terrorist attack, there is no reason to expect this prevailing pattern to change; if history holds, Democrats should gain enough seats to recapture the House, albeit by a slim majority. A similar loss pattern affects the Senate — on average since 1938, the president’s party loses four seats during the midterm. However, there are more frequent exceptions when it comes to the Senate and, as I explain below, there is good reason to expect this year to pose an exception to the prevailing Senate seat loss pattern.
What explains the midterm loss phenomenon? Political scientists have developed three related explanations. The first is the “surge and decline” theory, which posits that, compared to a presidential election year, the midterm turnout is smaller and less likely to contain the independent voters who supported the president and his party two years earlier. A related explanation suggests that midterms often serve as a referendum on the president’s first two years. From this perspective, as the newly-elected president’s “honeymoon” with the voters inevitably erodes, his approval drops and midterm voters react by voting against his party. The third explanation is that the midterm provides Americans with an opportunity to “balance” control of our major governing institutions, by giving the presidential “out” party greater representation in Congress. Of these explanations, I believe that in this era of deeply-polarized and ideologically well-sorted parties, the balancing explanation carries the most weight. Simply put, the largely moderate, centrist public expresses little faith in either political class, including their elected representatives in Congress, to say nothing of the president, and reacts by making sure neither party has enough institutional control to enact its more extreme political agenda. That preference for divided control should work in Democrats’ favor this fall.
So much for why Trump’s Republicans are likely to lose seats in the House — how do we know how many? As with presidential elections, political scientists have developed forecast models that while simple in construction, have proved remarkably effective at predicting aggregate House and Senate seat changes. Typically, these models focus on “fundamentals” — how long the president’s party has held on to the White House, how many seats the president’s party has exposed, and some measure, such as the change in disposable income, of how voters are doing economically. Note that most of these variables are fixed in place long before the events that cable news pundits proclaim as “game changers” — Kavanaugh! Caravans! Pipe bombs! — have even occurred. Although the models differ somewhat regarding the variables utilized, all are predicting Democratic gains ranging from a low of 27 House seats to a high of 44, with a median gain of 30 — a number that sounds about right to me and which would give Democrats a modest House majority.
What of the Senate? Political scientists have constructed similar forecast models, premised on the same theories and using similar variables, but here the margin of uncertainty is much greater, since outcomes in Senate races are more likely to be influenced by state-specific factors, such as candidate quality. There is an additional complicating factor in this cycle, however: Democrats are defending 26 Senate seats, and 10 of those states voted for Trump in 2016. This is the most Senate seats ever defended by the “out” party, and it raises the question of whether the high number of Democrat Senate seats at risk will mitigate the Party’s gains. Political scientists think it will — the models suggest a modest 1-2 Republican Senate seat pickup — enough to retain their slim majority.
If these predictions are correct we are in store for still another configuration of divided control of our governing institutions, which almost guarantees two more years of partisan bickering, legislative gridlock and deep dissatisfaction among voters. And if Democrats win the presidency in 2020, while retaining control of the House, and Republicans hold onto the Senate, the country will have cycled through every possible permutation of government control in only two decades. Contrary to the constant claim that Americans are hopelessly divided, it seems instead that they share a deep conviction that both major parties are out of step with their ideological and policy preferences, and that Americans trust neither party to govern for very long.
(10/25/18 10:00am)
Student demonstrators dressed in all black with duct tape covering their mouths and raising signs which read, “We believe survivors, Midd should too” and “Green Dot is not enough,” met the participants of the first-ever Panther Day parade as they rounded the corner of the CFA front lawn.
The demonstrators stood shoulder to shoulder in protest of how the college handles cases of sexual assault and treats survivors.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Green Dot is not enough.[/pullquote]
“We organized this protest to focus on the way that Middlebury College has historically, through its reporting processes, not supported survivors of sexual assault in ways that we believe it should,” Taite Shomo ’20.5 said.
When asked what the college can do to improve how it treats survivors, Shomo stressed the value of implementing a judicial process that is not retraumatizing to victims and the use of restorative justice practices. Shomo’s critiques echoed concerns from students this past January, when a student posted a list on Facebook accusing 35 students of sexual misconduct.
After seeing the protest, Baishakhi Taylor, interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of students, recognized the protesters’ concerns.
“I think what they’re demonstrating, what the students are protesting is really important in this current national climate,” Taylor said. “It is really important that we give everyone a voice and listen carefully, and, to me, it’s very important to also engage in what the students want. If there are things that we can do better, we should look into trying to do better. So, I give them a lot of credit for working with us, for organizing, for demonstrating, and for letting us understand what’s important to them.”
[pullquote speaker="Baishakhi Taylor" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]If everyone belongs here, students who are protesting here belong here just as much.[/pullquote]
According to Taylor, the protesters had as much right to be there as the participants in the parade.
“If everyone belongs here, students who are protesting here belong here just as much,” she said.
Christian Kummer ’22, another protester, also commented on their desire to call attention to the issue in broader terms.
“Sexual assault and rape is stigmatized, and often silenced, and this is a very public platform,” Kummer said. “I want people to be able to see that just because everything’s fun and we’re celebrating Midd that there are still issues that need to be combatted, especially around this topic and how it’s treated on campus.”
Kummer said although he was directly protesting the inefficacy of the college’s primary sexual education tool Green Dot, the protesters and the paraders weren’t entirely at odds with one another. In fact, participants in the parade also expressed support for the protesters.
[pullquote speaker="Christian Kummer '22" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]...there are still issues that need to be combatted, especially around this topic and how it’s treated on campus.[/pullquote]
“Yes, I love Middlebury, I love being a student here, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to have an education like this, but I think with the resources we have, we should be able to better help our students, better protect our students and support our students,” said Annie Blalock ’20.5, the head of Feminist Action at Middlebury (FAM).
“We were here representing FAM, but we were here representing FAM to show our support for that protest,” Blalock added.
Spencer Royston ’21, a participant in the Atwater Commons group who marched in the parade, was grateful for the demonstration.
“It was very meaningful because we were all parading, being loud and everything, and it was important to remember that there are things that aren’t so great on our campus and also in the nation,” he said. “And so that was just a striking reminder that it’s not all trumpets and drums, that we need to be silent every once in awhile and think about it. I also think that it was well done, like it wasn’t obtrusive in any way.”
(10/25/18 10:00am)
The Panther Day parade, last year’s winner of the New Traditions contest, began at Kirk Alumni Center on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and ended with a celebration at the Harvest Festival behind the Mahaney Center for the Arts (CFA).
Led by the Pep Band, participating student groups included the International Students Organization, The Mountain Club, Evolution Dance Crew, Feminist Action at Middlebury, Queer and Trans People of Color, Green Dot and the Student Government Association (SGA).
To encourage attendance, parade organizers offered $20 Amazon gift cards to the first students who arrived at the parade. The crowd was sparse for the Panther Day parade, but the Harvest Fest was brimming with students and alumni alike.
The parade and Harvest Fest festivities were followed by a reception at Kirk Alumni Center to mark the opening of an exhibit titled “The Continuity of Change: Living, Learning, and Standing Together.” Six student interns and college archivist Danielle Rougeau curated the exhibit in an effort to highlight the history of student activism at the college using photos and documents from Special Collections. A concert by the band Harsh Armadillo in Wilson Hall concluded the day.
“Panther Day desires to start a new tradition,” said Baishakhi Taylor, interim vice president for student affairs and dean of students. “In that sense it builds on Middlebury’s history. What we want Panther Day to become really is to savor the spirit of Middlebury as it has evolved and grown.”
The idea for Panther Day, one of more than 30 submitted proposals, came from junior students Emily Barnard, Ben Snow, Kate Zecca and Sophia Peluso. In an email earlier this year announcing the New Traditions contest, President Laurie Patton wrote that there was a significant desire to implement a new tradition at the college.
[pullquote speaker="Baishakhi Taylor" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]In a time that, like Isabel Wilkerson says, the country is dangerously fragmented, how do you create a tradition that is really focused towards not just celebrating the spirit of this community but bringing the campus together?[/pullquote]
When asked how Panther Day may fulfill these hopes, Taylor emphasized the need for a new tradition that not only celebrates Middlebury’s spirit but also brings people together. Panther Day sought to be a unifying force for the student body.
“We wanted a tradition that everyone can be a part of,” Taylor said.
Dave Kloepfer, assistant director of student activities for programming and events, said the choice to make Panther Day the college’s newest tradition was rooted in its ability to allow for various forms of participation.
According to Taylor, the hope for Panther Day was to celebrate everything that makes Middlebury unique and special. She acknowledged that there have been few opportunities to celebrate the college lately.
“In a time that, like Isabel Wilkerson says, the country is dangerously fragmented, how do you create a tradition that is really focused towards not just celebrating the spirit of this community but bringing the campus together?” she said, referencing the college’s 2018 commencement speaker.
(10/25/18 9:59am)
In September, a senior Trump administration official wrote an anonymous op-ed for The New York Times that condemned the president’s unstable behavior. The essay assured the American public that “adults in the room” were checking Trump’s belligerency and protecting our institutions. Shockingly, the article discussed bureaucratic efforts to invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, which allows the Cabinet, under congressional oversight, to declare the president incapacitated and unable to carry on the duties of the office. The author claims that this approach was considered, but abandoned because of a fear of causing a constitutional crisis.
The controversial article excited a liberal fantasy: using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump before 2020. In their fervor, some Democrats and leftist media neglected to consider the specific mechanisms of the amendment.
Section 4 asserts that “the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments” must declare the president “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” in order to precipitate his/her removal. If the president contests this determination, Congress must agree to the removal by a two-thirds majority.
The unlikelihood that Vice President Mike Pence, senior officials in the administration, and a supermajority in Congress would turn on the president did not dissuade the media from churning out op-ed after op-ed about the possibility of Trump’s removal. The articles, by offering liberals false hope that Trump’s presidency could be brought to a quick end, attracted clicks and attention.
While imagining a White House without Trump may be satisfying, Democrats should recognize how their fantasies energize Trump’s base. Both the 25th Amendment craze and liberal calls for impeachment are bad politics. As House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tactfully remarked in an interview with Rolling Stone last August, the removal issue is “a gift to the Republicans … I don’t think it’s in the interest of America’s working families to focus on that, unless we have more [evidence] to go on, which we don’t at this time.”
With the 2018 midterm elections fast approaching, Pelosi is right to fear that talk of removal or impeachment will infuriate and motivate tribal Republicans. Trump’s corruption, coziness with Putin, and irrational tariffs have left his GOP base dejected and demoralized. That base, however, shows signs of revival when the political discussion in our country turns away from policy arguments and toward partisan fights.
We see this, for example, with the possible recent uptick in Republican voters’ enthusiasm after the Kavanaugh confirmation debacle. Democrats could enjoy a blue wave in the coming elections by focusing on broad-based economic policies that work to the advantage of the middle and working classes. To do so, however, they must avoid talking about impeachment or the 25th Amendment and kindling partisan resentment.
Democrats should learn from Republican politics. In 1998, the GOP campaigned during the midterm elections with the promise that their success would bring about President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. The scheme backfired by drawing great Democratic turnout at the polls. Ultimately, the Republicans lost three House seats and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a loud advocate for Clinton’s removal, stepped down.
Pelosi appears to be on the right track. Under her guidance, Democratic leaders have, with few exceptions, sidestepped the impeachment and removal issues. When the subject is broached, they smartly shift the conversation back to their “kitchen-table” platform, refusing to arm Republicans with partisan ammo.
We may want Trump out of office, but we cannot enable Republicans to make the midterm elections what Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, recently predicted they will be: an “up or down vote on the impeachment of Donald Trump.” Impeachment rhetoric and discussions of invoking the 25th Amendment are losers on the trail and impossible in reality (getting two-thirds of the Senate to vote for either will not happen).
We must not succumb to the temptation of employing them. If Democrats continue to promote policies that benefit the majority of Americans, we will win at the polls next month and in 2020.
(10/25/18 9:53am)
(10/25/18 9:53am)
BILL To address hygiene AND SEXUAL HEALTH PASSED
Community Council unanimously approved a Student Government Association (SGA) bill that would supply condoms, tampons and pads in each of the first-year dorms at their meeting on Oct. 8. The bill, drafted by the SGA Sexual and Relationship Respect Committee (SRR), follows previous efforts to make tampons and pads available in public restrooms on campus.
“Pads and tampons are expensive, and we feel that access to basic sanitary and health needs should not be limited by cost,” said Cece Alter ’19, director of the SRR committee.
The committee decided to include condoms in the bill because they are available in some first-year dorms but not in others. The SRR committee hopes this will promote safe sexual practices.
As part of a pilot program last winter term, the SRR provided condoms, tampons and pads in the bathrooms of Battell. After conducting a survey, the SRR learned that students appreciated the program and that the products were widely used. The initiative was deemed valuable enough to be expanded to all first-year dorms.
The committee has worked with Facilities Services to ensure that the products will be restocked throughout the year. At this point in time, both teams are working to determine which bathrooms are most necessary to stock with the products. Once that is decided, condoms, tampons and pads will be made available in those locations.
- Gibson Grimm
Blockchain technology club established
Blockchain technology is intersecting with liberal arts thinking strategies thanks to Pedro Miranda ’19.5 and the college’s new Blockchain Club. Miranda, the founder and president, was inspired to create the club after working at blockchain consulting firm ConsenSys this past summer and wanted to bring his experiences back to the college in an innovative way.
“Blockchain technology refers to a particular way in which data is stored, transferred and secured,” said Michael Borenstein ’19, a club member. “A blockchain is a decentralized database where everyone has a copy of the database itself and is responsible for keeping it up to date and verifying new entries to the database.
“I realized that I had an advantage being a liberal arts student. I had more problem-solving capabilities, more holistic methods,” Miranda said. “I wanted to bring my experience back to campus.”
Miranda’s goal is to prove that there is value in the interaction between liberal arts, blockchain and other technology. In this respect, the first two meetings of the club have been successful — roughly 40 percent of attendees came from a computer science background, another 40 percent from economics, and the remaining 20 percent from a variety of majors, including political science, philosophy and mathematics. One of the club’s goals is to reach people with technical and non-technical backgrounds.
At the meetings, students engage in blockchain news updates, lessons in the technology and facilitated discussions.
The club also engages with the Middlebury Investment Committee, who came to a meeting to speak about cryptocurrency. Connor O’Day ’17, who works at ConsenSys, will be speaking at the club on Nov. 7.
“I want to prove that it is worth talking about technology in a liberal arts environment,” Miranda said. “What makes us so unique is that we’re able to address a very technical concept in a holistic and broad manner.”
Other club executives include Vice President Chris Amata ’20 and board members Michael Borenstein ’19, Alex Baskin ’19, Youssef Halim ’20.5 and David Valentin ’19. The Middlebury Blockchain Club meets on Wednesdays on a bi-weekly basis, in Bicentennial Hall room 220.
- Riley Board
(10/25/18 9:53am)
Updates from SGA:
1. On Friday, Nov. 2 in Wilson Hall, David Provost will be presenting on the following topics:
1) Report on 2018 financials
2) Report on five-year Financial Sustainability Model
3) Workforce Planning — What is it?
At the end of the event, there will be time for open dialogue and questions. We invite all students to attend and bring their questions!
(10/25/18 9:51am)
(10/11/18 10:10am)
Sarah Fagan
(10/11/18 9:56am)
(10/11/18 9:55am)
BENJY RENTON/THE MIDDLEBURY CAMPUS
BENJY RENTON/THE MIDDLEBURY CAMPUS
(10/11/18 9:53am)
WIKIMEDIA CREATIVE COMMONS
As a black American, I’ve wondered many a time about the culture surrounding cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations in the 18th and 19th centuries in the South and throughout the black diaspora of the Western hemisphere; I’ve also wondered about what life was like for enslaved African peoples and their descendants who worked those plantations. This film, documentary-like in its composition, revealed more information to me about what my ancestors were subjected to and provided information that is rarely prioritized or given its due weight in curricula across the United States. Made in conjunction with the Library of Congress and with the participation of several A-list stars from black Hollywood including Whoopi Goldberg, Ossie Davis, Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle and Samuel L. Jackson, this film draws on slave narratives from the last generation of African Americans who lived within the confines of slavery before, during and some even after the American Civil War. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration spent two years collecting more than 2,000 interviews in which black people who were former slaves reported on their lives of bondage. The stories include a diverse array of topics: the auction block, courting, the Underground Railroad, daily quotas for cotton picking, rape, whippings, forbidden literacy, church and religious culture, social hierarchies within black communities and more. An all-black cast of actors dramatize the readings of the narratives, interpreting the personas of the original interviewees, assuming their vernaculars and bringing their testimonies to life.
One of the most enlightening aspects of the film for me was that it allowed me to critically sit with what newly freed blacks must have felt on June 19, 1865, the day it was announced that slavery had been abolished. Rejoicing surely ensued, yes. But there was also likely the question of “Now what?” What does a person with no education, property, reliable means of transportation, money, social capital, integration, enumerated rights or respect do with a bucket load of “freedom”? Something the government of yesterday failed to strategically plan for was that 300 years of slavery were not erased or forgotten on Juneteenth*. The repercussions and legacies of systematic oppression did not and could not dissipate within a 24-hour period following this decree. It is doubtful that these newly freed great great grandfathers and great great grandmothers of mine had finely prepared blueprints for their new lives and were ready to abandon the plantations and seize the days before them. What is freedom to someone with no actual agency? The promise of “40 Acres and a Mule” turned out to be an empty one and we still reel from centuries of disenfranchisement.
For more works that address the culture produced surrounding slavery, see Herbery Covey’s What the Slaves Ate, Joy DeGruy’s “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” or Ira Berlin’s “Remembering Slavery.”
*Juneteenth: an American holiday that commemorates the abolition of slavery
*40 Acres and a Mule: This phrase refers to a largely unfulfilled promise made to black Americans that would allow them access to land ownership and a means to cultivate it in the post-slavery era.
Literatures & Cultures Librarian Katrina Spencer is liaison to the Anderson Freeman Center, the Arabic Department, the Comparative Literature Program, the Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies (GSFS) Program, the Language Schools, the Linguistics Program, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
(10/11/18 9:53am)
MICHAEL BORENSTEIN/THE MIDDLEBURY CAMPUS
(10/04/18 10:00am)
“these are not men who are scared in the way that we are scared”
By CHARLOTTE FRANKEL
When I came up with the idea for this column, my hope was to create a space for rather banal silliness to exist outside of the relative garbage can fire that is today’s political climate. I still hold true to this intention and will continue to hold fast to this mission in the coming weeks. However, I have also been gifted with a platform, and I would be remiss if I didn’t use it this week to write on the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and the subsequent responses I’ve seen from the media to friends’ deeply personal reflections.
I am a woman. I know, big shocker! Alert the presses (which I am doing right now!) Anything I write here about watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee has probably already been said or written by the various women in your lives. The lack of originality in what I’m about to say shouldn’t make you feel anything other than angry and sad. To watch Dr. Ford testify about her experiences of assault and have her testimony essentially summarily dismissed in favor of political gain was more than disheartening. It was heartbreaking.
To be frank, I didn’t expect to have such an emotionally visceral reaction to the hearing. The end result was exactly what I had expected. I had prepared myself for the outcome. But to actually see Dr. Ford sit in front of those men and watch them disregard her account of her assault broke me. Furthermore, it forced me to once again consider the ways in which I, a woman, and others like me, have been taught to accept some behavior from men as normal, or just par for the course of existing in the world as a woman. This was further cemented by the numerous posts on Facebook by my female friends reacting to the decision by the Committee and Dr. Ford’s testimony, recounting their own stories of abuse.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]There was nothing funny about the complete lack of care expressed by some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to her testimony.[/pullquote]
I am a woman, and I have been followed for blocks by a man on a bicycle in New York City. I have been asked lewd questions by multiple male taxi drivers, forcing me to throw whatever cash I had at them and run out of the car at a stop, praying they wouldn’t follow me in anger. I have been followed down Main Street in Middlebury by a man who continually confronted me and a friend for some perceived slight. When I was 16, a drunk boy walked up to me at a party and took his time clawing his hand across my chest. No words were exchanged. He walked away as if nothing had happened.
Each of these stories I have told and retold; I don’t think I have ever once told them seriously. This is to say, I treated them all as a joke. These things happen every day to women just like me, so why should I consider my experiences anything special? It was funny. It was funny that some man with control of the locks on the car thought it was appropriate to ask me whether or not I had a boyfriend and what his penis looked like. It was funny that this strange boy thought it was OK to touch me in a possessive, frightening way without my consent. And it was so funny that every woman I told the story to could relate in some way. We’d all laugh and move on with our lives in the shadows of these ‘everyday assaults.’
I usually think that almost anything can be made funny. After all, as the classic formula states, tragedy + time = comedy. There was nothing funny about Dr. Ford’s testimony. There was nothing funny about the complete lack of care expressed by some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to her testimony. And I can’t help but feel that there was really nothing funny about Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony as well, which was mined for jokes by every late night talk show out there.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]I’m angry that I was in no way surprised by this.[/pullquote]
Humor is often used as a coping mechanism. But as I looked at the men who dominate late night give monologues about Judge Kavanaugh’s overuse of the word “beer,” his almost-crazed demeanor and his detailed calendars, I couldn’t help but think that these are not men who are scared in the way that we are scared. This is not to say that they are not empathetic or understanding of what Dr. Ford and many women have gone through. This is to say that they are limited in what they can joke about, and we are forced to hear the same recycled lines over and over again, because, where are we?
Shows like The Rundown with Robin Thede and The Break with Michelle Wolf, both showcases for female comedians of color, have been cancelled by their respective networks/streaming services. The only female late night talk show host currently on air is Samantha Bee, whose show has a shorter runtime than her compatriots. Seth Meyers often allows his female writers (of whom Wolf was one) tell jokes that he “can’t” tell, which is a step, but there is a complete lack of visibility when it comes to women in late night, where many of my friends actually gather their news from.
I guess I’m just angry. I’m angry that Dr. Ford’s testimony wasn’t enough to convince some senators to cross party lines and delay the nomination process, and I’m angry that I was in no way surprised by this. I’m angry that it feels like women are constantly shut down for telling their stories. This is not a commentary at all on the merits of these late night talk show hosts or their humor. Rather it is a statement of anger against women being systematically denied a platform to tell these kinds of jokes and cope with abuses of power through humor.
Well, that’s all for now. Tune in next week when I genuinely will get smushed between the stacks in the bowels of the Davis “FAMILY” Library (I still have yet to see a ‘family’ studying together).
“they waited until she was gone to open their mouths”
By LUCY GRINDON
In 1982, Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I believe it, and if you watched her testify last Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, it’s difficult for me to imagine you don’t believe it too.
Her voice sometimes shook, often she held back tears, but the truth of her words was as clear as water. So many women have opened up and written about their long-hidden traumas over the course of the #MeToo movement; watching Dr. Ford recount her assault in her own voice, in real time, she seemed to be the ultimate embodiment of this era.
I wonder if any Republican senators could have been moved had they actually spoken with her. Instead, they waited until she was gone to open their mouths. They claimed to have hired outside prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Dr. Ford because they wanted the hearing to be coherent and methodical. Of course, we know the real reason — they wanted to avoid looking aggressive and disrespectful towards women before the upcoming midterm elections. The most depressing and grave reality, however, is not their implied inability to treat a woman with respect, but their collective refusal to engage with anyone who might disrupt their view of Brett Kavanaugh as a victim.
Many men in our society, including some of the affluent, white, educated men who occupy government positions, can’t seem to imagine any greater suffering than to be denied something they see as rightfully theirs, whether it’s sex, a gun, or a seat on the Supreme Court. Our culture of entitlement can turn male-female friendships into the “friend zone,” young men into violent “incels,” and freedom of speech into a prerogative to spread racism, sexism, or incitements to violence without facing opposition or criticism.
The stories of those who have suffered at the hands of entitled men are the strongest challenge to the dangerous idea that men who don’t get what they want are victims. Dr. Ford told powerful men how one of their own had hurt her, and the only way they could reassert Kavanaugh’s victimhood was by undermining her legitimacy as a witness.
During the latter half of the hearings, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham did not question Dr. Ford’s honesty or the strength of her memory. Instead, he tried to delegitimize her by casting her as nothing more than a political tool. In a furious tirade accusing senate Democrats of power-hungry political maneuverings, he said to Kavanaugh, “She’s as much of a victim [of the Democrats] as you are.”
Dr. Ford has certainly suffered. She has sacrificed her anonymity, her privacy and even her family’s safety. But she was no one’s victim in that hearing room. Everything she has said and done over the past several weeks has been her choice. “I am a fiercely independent person. I am no one’s pawn,” she declared in her opening testimony.
Brett Kavanaugh already made Dr. Ford into a victim once, when she was 15. Graham’s effort to re-victimize her in the eyes of the country was a despicable attack on her personal agency and a denial of her heroism.
Despite intense fear, she stood up for the sake of truth, justice and duty, inspiring more people to come forward and hold sexual abusers accountable. Perhaps equally heroic was the way her testimony exposed the fraudulence of privileged men’s victimization masks — the ones they accessorize with dramatic pauses and tears and indignant shouting.
On Friday, Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, two survivors of sexual abuse, confronted Arizona Senator Jeff Flake with their pain in an elevator. “Don’t look away from me,” Gallagher demanded as she spoke. Injustice, abuse, and exploitation are too common, and one person’s emotional trauma is not more significant than anyone else’s, but U.S. senators and men who are nominated to the Supreme Court are not typically the world’s great sufferers. When people in positions of power and privilege are faced with that truth, they must not be allowed to turn away.
“Dr. Ford made those watching her want to be better people,
to emulate her bravery”
By MATT SMITH
Last Thursday, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford sat in front of some of the most powerful people in our country — the Senate Judiciary Committee — and she spoke her truth plainly.
She was honest when she could not remember something; she was “terrified” to be there and yet she felt it was her “civic duty” to testify. She spoke with such honesty and eloquence that it was hard to watch at times. Quite simply, Dr. Ford made those watching her want to be better people, to emulate her bravery.
This, contrasted with Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s visceral anger and belligerence in his opening statement and in his answers to the Democratic members of the committee, displays the ridiculous double-standards that were evident in Thursday’s hearing.
Speaking first, Dr. Ford was questioned by the Republican majority’s prosecutor (hired so they wouldn’t accidentally say something misogynistic) and by Democrats about the specifics of her story and the strongest memories of the night.
She did her best to answer every question directly and honestly, admitting when there were lapses in her memory. Conversely, Judge Kavanaugh spent his time denouncing the hearing as “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” and avoided answering nearly every question posed to him.
The Republican majority, after a tirade by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, spent their time attacking both the Democrats on the committee and the hearing itself as being unjust.
Indeed, what they thought was unjust was the “good man” being made to go through the “most unethical sham in politics.”
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Our Senate now lives by an "eye for an eye" doctrine.[/pullquote]
Imagine for a moment that Dr. Ford yelled at the committee members (which her emotions must have compelled her to do) and Judge Kavanaugh had stayed quiet, calm, and tried to be as helpful and honest as possible, in keeping with the behavior of a Supreme Court justice. There would be no question of his confirmation.
And so, I watched a hearing that started as a profound moment for the #MeToo movement disintegrate into a bitter partisan fight, led by an all-male group of senators. While criticizing the Democrats for not joining their investigations, they refused to call further witnesses, subpoena documents, or ask for further FBI investigation.
And yet while Republicans repeatedly avoided doing their job Thursday, it’s hard not to acknowledge that both parties have larger motives: Democrats want to delay until the midterms, Republicans want to push this nominee through as quickly as possible.
Our Senate now lives by an “eye for an eye” doctrine. Republicans filibuster President Barack Obama’s Federal Court nominees, so now-retired Senator Harry Reid reduces the vote requirement to confirm those nominees.
Then Republicans refuse to speak to former Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, so Democrats withhold Dr. Ford’s letter until the last moment to try and derail a nominee.
And now Republicans refuse Dr. Ford and the other accusers a proper investigation, and so the cycle continues. At what point do we say, “Enough. What’s right is right”? [pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]We have a responsibility to do more than hope.[/pullquote]
Even the successful and admirable attempts of Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, to have the FBI investigate have been constrained by an arbitrary one-week time limit and a narrow scope. Doesn’t Dr. Ford deserve more than that? Don’t we deserve more than that?
In just the past few days, three women whom I am close to have spoken for the first time about assaults in their pasts. They volunteered their stories when asked about their opinion on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
One said this: “the person who assaulted me would not remember my name or what happened – it meant nothing to him and forever changed me.”
Judge Kavanaugh has issued a categorical denial of all accusations directed at him of ever being blackout drunk, all the while admitting that there were times when he “drank too much.”
I ask then, is it not possible that Judge Kavanaugh did not remember this event because it meant nothing to him, because he was drunk at the time? Is it not possible that “it meant nothing to him and forever changed” her? In light of Dr. Ford’s extremely compelling testimony, that seems the most likely outcome.
We can hope that this week’s FBI investigation will shed more light on the allegations, we can hope that a man who has caused lifelong suffering will never sit in judgement of others.
Yet, we have a responsibility to do more than hope; we have a responsibility to vote for candidates who will believe and respect survivors. We deserve senators who won’t congratulate themselves on giving Dr. Ford a fair hearing and call her testimony “the most unethical sham in politics” not an hour later.
It is very, very easy to fall into a partisan vortex. It’s easy to fight with each other until we forget how much we have in common. Yet we all deserve a Supreme Court, conservative or liberal, that has members of sound moral integrity, who have led lives of virtue.
Can we not, at this moment in history, say to each other simply “What’s right is right, and we all deserve better than this?”
“why am I even here?”
By SOPHIE CLARK
On Friday I had a fully-fledged, borderline comical, breakdown. Swollen red face, giant tears, the whole deal.
All over a Supreme Court nominee.
Because it was not just a nomination process. It was a blatant, full bodied, laugh in the face to any woman who is trying to accomplish anything in her life. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is everything Trump’s America could possibly want in a woman. From the outside, she is white, upper-middle class, non-threateningly middle-aged. From the inside, she has worked her entire life to receive an education, to earn a PhD and to become a professor.
And she wasn’t believed.
She wasn’t taken seriously. What does that mean for the rest of us? I went through the rest of that day feeling like a zombie. Passing from class to class questioning at every moment, “Why am I even here?”
Twenty-seven years ago, Anita Hill was hauled up in front of the same panel and treated with the utmost disrespect for all of the world to see. Treated so disturbingly in fact that it inspired a new generation of female candidates to run for office — to change things. It’s been 27 years, however, and what has changed? Why should we even bother?
To me, this hearing screamed: what is the point of getting a Middlebury education when in the eyes of this country, no matter what I do, I will never be enough?
I’m lucky my attacker is not a particularly ambitious guy, but many attackers are. And in twenty years when those men are up for promotions that they are seen as “entitled” to, will their victims be taken seriously? Will anything change?
Other generations are quick to criticize millennials for being overly emotional, too attached to issues — but this is not just an emotional response to the pain of survivors (although I am perfectly entitled to that). This is an objective understanding that those in power shunt half of its population to the side with ease. So why should we bother? Why should we contribute? Why should we get educated, or speak up?
What pushed me out of this rut was the enormous strength I witnessed in other people. I saw the two women who confronted Arizona Senator Jeff Flake bare everything I was feeling and too scared to show to the world. I saw my own peers grapple with their pasts and chose to fight back against what I chose to bury. It gave me hope that there is still a force for change, that women are told “No” time and time again and that we are not giving in until we are given a chance to speak up and be listened to.
Emotional responses matter. Feeling utterly despondent and alone matters. Because I will never forget feeling that way and will forever look for ways to stop it from ever happening again.
(10/04/18 9:59am)
Ask my ex, I am notorious for picking bad movies so this instance was a fluke when I happened upon Como nascem os anjos, a high quality film, which I enjoyed.
The Brazilian, Portuguese-language film (which has English subtitles available), follows a queer plot that grows increasingly absurd over time. Succinctly, three residents of a favela* find themselves needing to escape home after one of them accidentally kills a very powerful and criminal figure who is a drug lord within the community.
They unexpectedly encounter an American citizen and, without any anticipation, end up sequestering him in his home by force. The American man tries to reason with the trio, promising to help them escape legal repercussions if they’ll just leave. Tensions, however, start to mount, when the three find that they are not alone in the home. Police begin patrolling the neighborhood and the homeowner’s secretary is looking for their American prisoner.
What I like about this film is the way it explores issues of socioeconomic class in a way that seems effortless or even by chance. The residents of the favela, generally marginalized and underprivileged, cannot expect the police to protect them from the violent vengeance that awaits them at home.
The deceased drug lord’s posse, after all, are the de facto leaders of the favelas and this forces the three to flee. Comparatively, the American expatriate they find is bathed in riches, riches that these Brazilians have only encountered on television and in magazines. They marvel, for example, at the fact that all the appliances in the American’s kitchen actually work and are not in a state of disrepair, which, for them, is unfathomable.
The chord that struck me the hardest, perhaps, was when German journalists visit the favelas in the opening scene and ask one of the lead characters, a young girl, about her dreams for the future. She has been exposed to so little that she cannot imagine a fulfilling life outside of rising in the ranks of the favela’s social hierarchy. Her vision and dreams are limited by the borders of her community.
The film thinly veils a moralistic tale, seeming to suggest that despite the comforts we enjoy and the inequalities we choose to ignore, the world of privilege and lack can and will inevitably encounter one another, sometimes in unexpected ways. They become entangled and wrestle to break free from each other either without much success or at great cost.
I highly recommend this work to anyone studying Portuguese and/or planning to study abroad in Brazil or Latin America.
For more films that touch on the themes of the intertwined nature of social castes, see Paul Haggis’ 2004 Crash (DVD Collection- Davis Family Library PN1997.2.C735 A1 2005D) or Olivier Nakache’s and Eric Toldeano’s 2011 The Intouchables (DVD Collection- Davis Family Library PN1997.2.I5765 A1 2012D).
For more on life in the favelas, see André Diniz’s graphic novel Morro da favela (Davis Family Library Portuguese Language Browsing TR140.H64 D56 2011).
*Note: A favela is sometimes translated to “slum,” “shanty town” or “ghetto.” It refers to groups of homes in Brazil that often house residents who are experiencing chronic and generational poverty, are haphazardly built, lack basic infrastructure like plumbing, are illegal and governed beyond the powers of the state and are plagued with drug warfare and violent crime.
(10/04/18 9:51am)
(10/04/18 9:51am)
MICHAEL BORENSTEIN
MICHAEL BORENSTEIN
Both club rugby teams played at home this past weekend. The men’s team lost to Bentley 19-5, while the women won against NVU 127-0.
(01/20/16 7:20pm)
My dear people of Middlebury,
I saw an 18-year-old white woman crying in front of 800 people in Mead Chapel; she’d been publicly berated for wearing a hat. Not out of spite. Not out of hate. She had been attending Middlebury for a matter of weeks and did not yet learn that wearing a sombrero was cultural appropriation. Putting aside for the moment concerns about white fragility, her real offense was not already being perfect.
I see day after day white people who are or would be curious about the movement, critically analyzing their privilege and trying to become woke, get shut down the moment they make a mistake. Some call it racism; I call it ignorance. Silencing our potential allies as they try to unlearn that ignorance only broadens the divide in our community already struggling with anxiety and loneliness. I don’t want to be one of those guys saying all lives matter, but I don’t want the social justice movement to lose the fundamental principle of what a safe space is: being able to be ourselves without fear of judgment. To create spaces safe for marginalized students and therefore all students, we have to open the doors of learning to everyone.
I was told from an early age that college is a place to become better citizens of the world, to learn by trial and error. But this is not my experience with social justice on campus. How can we learn and grow when we can’t fail? How can we demand “perfection” when we demand it immediately and prevent people from the learning process to get there?
One problem with this environment is that words like “privilege” and “cultural appropriation” become their own rigid truths. I rarely see students challenge one another’s beliefs—refining definitions, premises, and all—to develop more nuanced positions. We wind up with a limited conversation and few solutions. I see potential allies alienated, when some of my peers, passionate and knowledgeable about their beliefs, have trouble articulating them to people who don’t share their same vocabulary. But I can’t blame activists for speaking the language of justice, whose sound bites are designed to be shared, liked, and retweeted. We are rewarded online and in school for cleverness, zingers, jargon, and one-liners. But as Purdue’s Frederik Deboer, a linguistics professor, describes: “They say terms like ‘privilege’…and expect the conversation to somehow just stop, that if you say the magic words, you have won that round and the world is supposed to roll over to what you want.”
Socrates had a similar experience in his time and started to question religion, but was put to death for “impiety.” With our ostensibly dogmatic social justice movement it often seems like we are doing the same thing to other. To affect change we have to be willing to refine and be refined. Socrates advocated continuously investigating our beliefs for a more sophisticated understanding.
Solidarity, being an activist or an ally, is not silent agreement. Nor is it a parroting “agreement on all matters.” Despite Campus op-eds, town hall meetings, and diversity-themed email chains, there are many people on campus who do not yet understand cultural appropriation. Demanding change hasn’t made it happen. It won’t happen until we allow people to ask important, nuanced, possibly poorly-worded questions. Otherwise, we’ll become trapped by vague, unspoken definitions, censoring everything that might be cultural appropriation until we lose our sense of identity and expression.
Deboer calls it critique drifting when a particular critical political lens that correctly identifies a problem gets generalized and used less and less specifically over time. This in turn blunts the force of the critique and ultimately fuels a backlash against it. Critique drift is a way that good political arguments go bad.
Let’s keep in mind our goal: a safe, healthy, diverse and supportive community, at risk from political correctness that, instead of educating us out of harming each other, undergoes critique drift and broadens into censorship. Particularly harmful is a censorship not only of ideas but also of voices. While judging the value of a voice by its privilege alone doesn’t carry the historical weight of racism, it only inverts the dynamic. It is dangerous. It doesn’t end censorship or un-safety; it just changes who has to deal with it and further divides community.
I see many of my fellow students hoping to protect themselves from further suffering by sticking to people who share their ideological boxes. At the core of psychology, helping people avoid the things they fear is misguided.
Here are some things we all have in common: we are all suffering, and we all live on the same campus. I understand many of us are tired. White feelings are not more important than the feelings of a person of color and vice-versa. Perhaps instead of calling people out, we can call them in. Instead of taking people’s words for face value, we can try to look into what they are actually trying to say, while we are learning to say what we actually mean. This is not something we can do alone. Middlebury can help.
One problem: In a social justice class, we can read thousands of pages learning about privilege, but spend little to no time learning how to confront it in our interactions with others. The classroom is one of the few spaces at Middlebury where people interact with others outside their circles, and we often go through an entire semester without learning each other’s names.
My fellow students and I may have to study hard and write long papers, but we often hide within objective information without having to venture out of our comfort zones. The result is that pain becomes intellectualized. For example, I hear people saying that white people just have to accept that they are all racist, should start unlearning their racism, and the world will be a better place. In my experience, calling each other racist doesn’t make people want to unlearn; it makes them afraid to unlearn. This is not white fragility. This is not some hippie tree-hugger doctrine. This is just how people work. Perhaps we can investigate how our classmates and our own lived experiences play into what we are learning.
According to Thich Nhat Hanh, who was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing experience transforms ignorance into understanding and fear into love. Putting words to experience can be hard and draining, especially when the person doing the explaining feels like they are representing an entire group of people. These feelings are valid, and sharing experience is not the same as representing an entire group. If you do not understand why, try listening to people share their experience. Two Native Americans have different experiences being Native American, and two people who are Jewish have different experiences being Jewish. In my experience, when we understand the people who disagree with us, we recognize what will help them value our perspective. We can understand each other by listening, and the more present we are with people who we are trying to understand, the better listeners we can be.
My question is: how are we supposed to be present for each other when school is moving a million miles an hour? How are we supposed to understand and learn about other cultures and the lived experiences of people if we are assigned thousands of pages of reading each week?
Middlebury needs to slow down.
I am an EMT, and when we have a life-or-death emergency, we don't rush. What’s going to save a life is not those extra few minutes or seconds of tripping over ourselves, it's the critical interventions that must be done slowly (yet efficiently) to make sure what we're doing is being done properly and that we are not missing anything. For some reason, at Middlebury, it feels like those extra few seconds are life or death, and it almost never feels like we're doing it right. I see students walking to class faster than a medic walking to a motor vehicle crash. When we live as human doings instead of human beings, ignorance is the result.
I’m afraid we are moving way too quickly—too quickly to learn well, too quickly to listen to each other, too quickly to change. We move so quickly we cannot prioritize the hard work of healing together. In the same way reading a book about exercise wouldn’t make one stronger, healing is not something we can just study to accomplish. Understanding takes practice, practice needs a space, and I cannot create that alone.
We can be there for each other if we are able to prioritize ourselves. And often, we don’t. Our frenetic pace, our workload, and our go-it-alone success narrative do not allow us to be introspective, and so we struggle to turn that self-love outwards and begin the process of community change and healing.
While we are unlearning ignorance, we can relearn the art of relaxing. In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, “not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.”
There is going to come a time when we realize that in an effort to do good for the world we need the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the transgender woman, the person of color, and the heteronormative wealthy, white, straight, able-bodied, Anglo-Saxon Protestant cis-male. One perspective is inherently lacking. When looking at a sculpture, one person cannot appreciate its full beauty. Some parts cannot be seen from their angle. The blind person can walk up to the sculpture and feel it, and if they can’t walk we can build a ramp, because when we combine our perspectives we can gain an even greater understanding.
Let’s work together to build a better community.
Warm regards,
Eli Susman