Third Time's a Charm
It has been a long day today. People say history is made today.
The Democrats suffered a landslide electoral vote in the US election (votes are still counting). They are expected to lost control over both the senate and the house. Additionally they are all but certain to lost Whitehouse. Donald Trump defied all odds, succeeded in his third thrust to presidency. People did say third time’s a charm.
It is difficult for me to describe how I feel. I am not a US citizen. This is not my country. I am not a permenant resident, and the US immigration policy made it very clear that presumebly they want me to get out the moment I finish my degree. Therefore while I can understand my the concern that my American friends share for their country, I do not share the same experience.
On the other hand, sufficies to say that the outcome weighs on me, and makes it particularly hard for me to catch any sleep tonight, mostly for two reasons.
Life in the US as international student
Firstly. as an immigrant staying in a foreign land and subject to every bit of whimsical political grandstanding of the politicians, and frankly there are a lot of politicians who fights for media attention with such political theatrics [1], often at the expense of people like me. The uncertainty of the situation induces insomia.
The first term of Donald J Trump began in 2016, while I was a Junior undergraduate student at SJTU (Shanghai, China). I knew it was a huge upset for Democrats in the US. I came across words on the (Chinese) internet that “Liberals” in the US are crying over the Clinton electoral loss, a response that I just felt is completely out of proportion. I did not understand the dynamics of the US politics at that time, and the two parties are just “two parties” for me at that time. I knew Donald Trump as a person of crude mannerism. He is rich, unprofessional and speaks in a way that lack any insights. Beyond that I don’t have many takes. It is just and election in a country that I had never set foot in, and that country is literally on the other side of the globe.
In 2017, I was applying to US grad schools. I got admitted to CMU and applied for a student Visa. Everything happened without any problem. The beginning of the subsequent year saw the first shots of the now termed Sino-US trade war. The trade war spilled into issues in terms of technology transfer from US to China (or theft from US, as the Trump administration characterized it, I would not defend either position), and that leads to a tightening of immigration control. I’ve heard cases where people got denied entry at the border control for graduating from “a wrong school”, or their visa got cancelled. Luckily I don’t have plans to leave US, so these in the end are just stories. It didn’t get on my nerves.
My first experience with the chaotic Trump administration was at the end of 2018. In 2018 the Trump administration shutdown the government for 35 days, over an proposed congressional funding of the a few billion dollar [2] Mexico-US border wall. Trump refuses to endorse a funding bill that does not include such funding, and that lead to the government shutdown. It happened during winter break, while I happened to be on a trip. Very soon I learned the trivia that (1) the department of interior is apparently not essential service, therefore is shutdown (2) and that the DOI maintains all public toilets. This was the situation that lead me into taking in more information on US politics. Let’s just say I did not like what I saw with the Republicans [3].
In 2019 I got admitted into the PhD program. Before joining the program I decided to take a year off (by working a fulltime SWE job; Yes, academia is that much more stressful). Then Covid and 2020 happend. I was in Pittsburgh when the news broke about a new very contagious corona virus in the marine live market in Wuhan (华南海鲜市场). Then trade war, compounded with the COVID crisis, unfoled into a now full-blown Sino-US cold war. Accusations are flung from the right-wing of the congress in news and congressional hearings to Chinese, nationals and Americans alike. This was the moment that made me felt genuinely unwelcome and unsafe. Through this ordeal I have to fly to Austin, Texas. I had the perhaps one of the most pleasant flight of my life: I was told I can pick any seat as long as it’s not next to another passenger. I heard story in the news about Chinese (and Asian-looking people) being verbally (and admittedly in rare occations, physically) assulted by allegedly right-wing “activist”. Before the flight I bought two cans of pepper spray, and learned that you need a hunting license to conceal carry a Glock-45, which is a recommendation by a friend who just graduated PhD from Penn-State. Fortunately, everything worked out fine. In the end, everything was fine.
Let me skip over the disatrous January 2021 and fast forward to March 2021. Republicans in congress launched a congressional hearing on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. This hearing is the end product of the prolific lab leak theory [4]. The hearing Zoomed-in on the Sino-US collaborate research (which both sides funds to an extend) tha included a so-called gain-of-function research. I watched part of the hearing and followed news on the rest. As a result it called for much tighter ``examination’’ into US-China academic collaborations. It just so happens that my undergraduate education was the fruit of one such collaboration between UofM and SJTU. This is disturbing to me as I don’t know what kind of policy would come out of it, if the executive branch is held by a different party.
Coinciding with the events (but not causally related), I was coming back to academia. To make the immigration status switch, I have to leave the US then come back. I dreaded the neccessary move for a few long nights. In the end, I went to the US border with Canada in Niagra Falls. I stepped out of the one metal frame revolving door leading to the friendship bridge and, went to middle section of the bridge took a deep breath. The bridge overlooks the Niagra falls with a stunning vista. Scientific studies say the water has a soothing effect. I felt no more anxious my whole life than I handed my passport and I20 to the immigration officer. The officer looked at the documents, started typing, then stopped. He called his supervisor. I prepared for the worst. A few rather tough line of questioning later, I did get my I94. It has been 5 years since I last visited home. Not wanting to experience this again definitely contributed somewhat.
Now Donald Jeremy Trump is poised to be the new resident of the oval office, I think back on the Trump Administration policy. In retrospect I didnt suffer any material damage from his policies. In actuality his 2017 Tax Cut did save me a few thousand dollars over the years. The same criticism that I levied against Democrats could be levied against myself: am I overreacting (or even “brainwashed” by “leftist media”, as some may put it). Reently a friend of mine asked if I was “fooling myself”. Along these lines, would a third Trump administration really be disatrous for me personally, to warrant any concern and/or losing any amount of sleep over? After al, it seems that time after time what I worried about did not materialize.
I think, at the end of everything, it’s the rhetoric and the line of thinking coming from the Trump-world that really terrified me. It’s the fear of not knowing what comes next, and it seems anything could come next. Because those making policies doesn’t seem to be concerned about innocent people getting caught in the crossfire, and they don’t particularly like to listen to reason. Futhermore, if anything were to happen, your whole life is derailed and few paths to remedy exist. It’s a feeling of helplessness, constantly present, albeit at an extremely low intensity that you almost wont notice it unless you go look for it. Yet you know clerly it has always been there. It’s the psycological equivalent of the lower-back pain. Perhaps I should learn to be comfortable with the situation, but a cure would be nice.
In the last months of this election a document dubbed Project 2025 caught some public attention. It was described by its authors as a document detailing the first matter of business of the incoming Trump administration. In the chapter on higher education, there are line of recommendations that echoes the rhetoric of that 2021 congressional hearing. The writing seems benign: it merely asks the federal government to better enforce existing statute/guidelines related to foreign funding in higher education institutions. Of course, this all depends on what “better” means, and the document left lots of room for imagination. Perhaps I was, at the end of they day, rightfully worried for once.
The idealogical angle
Secondly, on the ideological spectrum I have to admit that I sympathize with Democrat’s position more than the Republican’s, especially when it comes to respecting and, sometimes tolerating, individual differences. In particular, I agree with the ideal that individuals rights and choices, as long as they don’t (materially) harm others, ought to be respected [5] [7] [9].
That being said, I do also believe that the Democrat’s messaging and strategy has proved to be fundamentally ineffective, and frankly out of touch . This election cycle the Democrats focused on attacking Trump on broadly “character”, as a person and as a president. While Jeremy is truly an awlful person and have some pretty distructive tendencies towards the institutions of the US, Democrats fails to understand that none of this matters in the face of economic hardship and (perceived, some may say) issues of securities. It is now seems to be apparent that people will take a gesture (or a concept of a plan, if you will) towards a ``better’’ economic situation over civil rights (of others, and even themselves) and soundness of institutions without a glimpse.
The miscalculation on Democrats’ side seems to be that (enough) people will prioritize character over more “earthly” concerns. Futhermore, Democrats seems to be reluctant to recognize that this is simply not how the electorate evaluate things. Failing to see things the way that the electorate sees it is, by definition, being out of touch [6]. Democrat’s response is to try aligning the electorate by advocacy and education. The media often play a part in this. This seems to come off as lecturing and condesending, and in the end did not work as well as it needs to.
All in all [1], I’m somewhat sympathetic to the cause in principle, but in the end Democrats need to understand that getting in touch with the electorate is how you get your moral attitudes into actual policies. Not winning elections helps no one. I think what will happen, and what needs to happen next, is that Democrats has to either de-emphasize (or walk back) on a number of social topics. It is not to say that they have to go to the other extreme, but rather they need to learn choosing fights to pick.
The shift in electorate towards liberalism seems to be much slower than Democrats has hoped. In times like these, two quotes rings a bell. The first one is from a certain German Philosopher, who postulates that in a society, base determines superstructure. The other is dubbed Planck’s Principle:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
[1] I will not name specific names so that it doesn’t come to bite me in the future.
[2] Exact number escapes me.
[3] I thought (and still think) that (1) a border wall is a meme and not an actual policy position (2) throwing a tantrum over a meme is not good governing (3) politicians enabling such behavior from a president is not good governing.
[4] When they say lab leak, it was implied that the virus is created in the lab (presumebly as a bio-weapon) and then leaked in to the wild. I am not a biologist so I will not speak of the validity of such theory. All scientific sources I read suggests that this is highly unlikely, mostly because it seems to be beyond what’s scientifically possible at that time.
[5] I think very few reasonable people, if any, dispute this in principle. In practice, this immediately translates various forms of identity politics (in the academic sense). I do not wish to go into details on this.
[6] The root cause of such failure worth exposition but I genuinely don’t have a good read on it.
[7] The academic me knows that I should provide references to these, and I will not because it’s just a blog post. Discard what I’m about to say if you take issue with it.
[8] (鲁迅) 哀其不幸，怒其不争
[9] I’m suppressing the fact the implementation of Democrats ideals are far from, well, ideal. But as we all have seen, bad policies are perfectly okay. Bad priorities are not.