Third Time's a Charm
It has been a long day today. People say history is made today.
The Democrats suffered a landslide electoral defeat in the US election (votes are still counting). They lost control over both chambers of the congress and the White House. Additionally, they are all but certain to lose the popular vote, the first time since Obama. 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 permanent resident, and the US immigration policy made it very clear that presumably 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, it suffices to say that the outcome weighs on me somewhat, and makes it particularly hard for me to catch any sleep tonight, mostly for two reasons.
Life in the US as international student
Firstly, being an immigrant staying in a foreign land, I am 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 insomnia.
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. At the time, I did not understand the dynamics of the US politics. Unaware of their platforms, Democrats and Republicans are just names of two political factions for me. 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 then 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 of technology transfer from US to China (or theft from US, as the Trump administration characterized it), and that lead to a tightening of immigration control. I’ve heard stories where people were denied entry at the customs in US airports, for graduating from an institution on the “entity list”, and had visas cancelled. Luckily I didn’t have plans to leave US, so those stories in the end are just stories. They 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 congressional funding of a few billion dollar [2] for the Mexico-US border wall. Trump refuses to endorse a budget 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 full time SWE job; Yes, academia is that much more stressful). Then Covid and 2020 happened. 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, unfolded 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 occasions, physically) assaulted 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.
In September 2020, Trump administration issued an executive seeking to ban WeChat and TikTok from the US app stores, largely under the pretext of national security. The executive order has been rescinded by the Biden administration, but its effects ripples tills this day. The bill forcing TikTok to sell in 2024 is arguably a continuation of the 2020 executive order, done in a way that is judicial-review proof. Up until this day, WeChat is still THE message app that I rely on to talk to my parents, and frankly it might very well be the only viable option. Other options are either unavailable, difficult to set up (especially not in person), or require an iPhone on both sides. We tried to switch to Skype, and damn did Microsoft made a mess with Skype. As with a lot of Trump whimsical executive order, this executive order was immediately challenged in court and the court quickly granted an injunction, on first-amendament grounds. Everything went back to status quo, but it did feel that I narrowly escaped a lot of pain. The political climate at the time made it feel like every aspect of livelihood could be the target of depending on the phase of the moon.
Let me skip over the disastrous 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 fund to an extent) that 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 necessary move for a few long nights. In the end, I went to the US border with Canada in Niagara 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 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 didn’t 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). Recently a friend of mine asked if I was “fooling myself”. Along these lines, would a third Trump administration really be disastrous 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 won’t notice it unless you go look for it. Yet you know clerly it has always been there. It’s the psychological 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 matters 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 the day, rightfully worried about once.
The ideological 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]. On top of that, I would also take issue that the Republican Party courts support, or to say the least refuse to distinguish themselves from, the far-right end of the political spectrum. History tells us this brand of organization does not bode well with foreigners and minorities.
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 awful person and have some pretty destructive 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 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 [11] on Democrats’ side seems to be that (enough) people will prioritize character over more “earthly” concerns. Furthermore, 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 condescending, and in the end did not work as well as it needs to.
All in all, 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 to pick fights to fight.
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 Democrats attempted to build a superstructure characterized by individuality, empathy and a public square for personal expressiveness. On one hand, it failed to define a framework within which various forms of tolerance paradoxes, especially between those who Democrats seek to protect [10] can be resolved. More prominently, said superstructure has no base, therefore the half-built superstructure is now collapsing. Caught within its rubble is a generation of ordinary people with their faiths in governance. From the ashes arises a populist movement unabashed of its cruelty.
This brings me to the second quote. It 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.
Now What?
What comes next? What does the next 4 years look like, for me, and for us international students?
On the campaign trail the Democrats want to paint a picture of collapsing democratic institutions for a future Trump administration. The Trump campaign obviously rejected the characterization as fearmongering: it is mostly “fine” in the first term. Democrats argue that America is lucky the first round, and this round it’s going to be different. The electorate basically called Democrat’s bluff, so now we are in the finding out phase.
If Democrats were right, then all bets are off. Things will be extremely volatile, and there’s no use in trying to predict events in that scenario here. We could talk about what laws the administration could use to round up Chinese in the US. We can reference interim camps for Japanese in WW2 to get a sense of what it was like. Yet, none of that matters if it ever comes close to that point. For the sake of discussion let’s say what we get is basically the first term but with more aggressive policies. First question: what is Trump’s policy?
The two center pillar of the discourse in this election cycle seems to be immigration and economy. On immigration, Trump seems to focus mostly on the southern border, and the touted solution is “mass deportation”. On the economy Trump wants tariffs on all imported goods. Both policies, especially the economic policy, seem to be terrible ideas, and is what the media attacks most frequently. However, it should be noted that “Trump says a lot of things”, and (to quote another friend of mine), the “line between comedy and policy in a Trump speech is often blurred”. It is not clear at all whether these are actual policy suggestions, or just hyperbole used to illustrate a point. If we look back on 2016, the border wall that Trump campaigned so much about basically never materialized [12]. The “policy” is basically a tangible mascot for the actual policy: much more Draconian border controls. One could reasonably conclude that it is going to be the same deal with aforementioned “policies”.
Focusing on the economy, the Trump administration seems to want to pursue an isolationist economy. If the tariff came through (but probably with much more limited scope and scale), it should raise prices somewhat. Besides that, I would be surprised if Trump administration doesn’t go for another round of Tax cuts. Referencing the 2017 bill, the Tax cut likely includes moderate cuts to income taxes, but the focus is probably in the corporate world. The stock market will probably like it.
In terms of budget, Republicans could shift money away from research spending (i.e. NSF), but if history is to go by, defense spending would increase. This means faculties who are majority funded by NSF could see fewer grants and therefore fewer students. Within computer science, fields with foreign competition could actually do significantly better (think nuclear physics during Cold War), albeit at cost of other subfields.
Shift to immigration. The border policy on the southern border may very well become a humanitarian disaster, but it does not concern international students per se. The US, as a matter of fact, is not my country. It’s hard to tell what will happen to H1B (and F1) policies: the corporate world has a strong incentive to keep work visas going. Trump at various occasions expressed support for expanding work visa for STEM students, but keep in mind the says-a-lot-things syndrome cuts both ways. But it should be safe to expect that H1B (F1) as a category will not vanish.
For Chinese students in the US, there’s always the additional risk of being caught in the crossfire, or becoming the scapegoat of the Sino-US tension. Policies that target this directly are very rarely rational, and are likely designed to be quite cruel. Everything seems fine in a moment, then nothing is. At this moment, anti-Chinese messaging is not a talking point of the Trump campaign. However, in 2018 the trade war seems to come out from nowhere. This is the kind of risk that keeps me awake at night.
Then there is the issue of whimsical executive orders. The WeChat/TikTok ban of 2020 was a reminder that what we take as granted as facts in life are very much subject to discretion of the President. The protections surrounding them are few but fortunately for now resilient. This is check-and-balances working as intended. However, there are two remarks that I would like to make. First, 2020 Executive Order is not challenged on the validity its core premise (i.e. national security) nor on its direct damage it would likely induce, rather on its potential (and unintended, as the order is framed) to harm freedom of speech. In other words, the law has no issue with the cruelty induced by the EO. Unable to connect your family? Fine by the law. Make no mistake: the courts does not offer protection from the intended harm of the order. Secondly, as the campaign unfold, all signs points to a weakened check-and-balance system. Executive power has been expanding, and the Trump personally seems more vengeful and more loyalty from people around him than before. It is difficult to tell if anything would definitively happen, but if they do, the odds are worse this time.
Finally, safety on the streets. This is largely a local issue. A Trump victory necessarily encourages local fringe groups. However, universities are, by and large, in Democrat leaning counties. Therefore, the day-to-day life on the streets should not differ much.
In conclusion, a sense of normalcy can probably be maintained, at least for most international students.
[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 with the electorate. Bad priorities are not.
[10] Example: What should a liberal society do with immigrants from less liberal cultures, that, say for the sake of example, is traditionally queer phobia?
[11] History (and the world at large) spells trouble for the incumbant government due to economy. It should not be surprising that the Democrats lost the election, even if they did everything perfectly. What is surprsing is the margin.
[12] Sections of it did get built. It was not nearly close to the scale being proposed, and it did not meaningfully change the situation.