COVID and Reading

Living under all the pandemic restrictions forces students to make many adjustments—some of them, perhaps, still being discovered in these early weeks, others not fully expected when you returned to the Hill. The loss of so many activities and interactions should lead to an especially keen focus on reading, on “your books,” what you are assigned. Doing all of the reading, and more intensively. Some of this may be involuntary. But much of it’s up to you.

 There are differing opinions about what is most fundamental in a class. But in many fields, a good case can be made that the readings are the heart of the course. This year is an especially good time to take that possibility more seriously—and, as a result, to begin a lifetime’s habit of consistently careful reading. Which would also be likely to improve, and continue to improve, your writing.

 Truly careful reading must generally be slow. And, especially in college, with a sophisticated dictionary immediately available—which you’re willing to use at any doubtful point. When Alexis de Tocqueville says, in Democracy in America, that he sought “the society of priests” in order to learn more about religious life in this country, he doesn’t mean that he got in touch with an association of them. He means that he associated with clergymen, talked with them.

 Such examples of possible misinterpretation in college-level reading are endless. Even simple words will often have two or more wholly different meanings, even in current books. The importance of this verbal complexity in a liberal arts education, as both a challenge and an opportunity to grow your understanding, is hard to overstate.

For a very long time in undergraduate education, it has been a commonplace, even something like an orthodoxy, to say “you learn so much from discussion” with other students. Probably all of us have learned much from discussion, from those around us in classes and elsewhere. If it’s done right, with patient, conscientious listening, it’s essential. But careful reading can be a discussion too—even though it’s the most socially distanced kind imaginable.

 Books are, after all, the work of actual people, usually one person. The author is often somebody about whom a book (or parts of a book) or articles have been written, or at least an interview, or a speech or talk, published or recorded. The book probably also has a preface or introduction, and may well have an acknowledgements section, with personal material. You can, therefore, get to know the author to a meaningful extent without much extra effort. And the book, or much of it, is often saying what this usually dedicated and talented person wants most to say. In addition, it’s often what they have prepared for decades to say, investing many years in acquiring the knowledge, and ability, to make their books or articles professionally credible.

 It is therefore reasonable, and may be quite intellectually enabling and quite motivating, to regard your books as not just words, but very consciously as speech on a page by a real human being. And indeed, in many cases, strongly felt speech, even if the style is moderate and controlled. To which you can, of course, and sometimes should, respond silently as you read. Responding, though, as if the author hears you—and can agree or disagree with your comments. No masks required.

 Dr. Frisk is a Resident Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute (AHI) in Clinton.

Sanders at Hamilton

With Bernie Sanders’s recent endorsement of Joe Biden, ending his second run for the presidency, an assessment of his long career’s significance seems warranted. There is no better place to start than Hamilton College, where Sanders taught for a semester in the spring of 1990. Many students are unaware of the popular politician’s connection to our school, and except for a few digitized articles from the Spectator, the college’s newspaper, it appears that his time at Hamilton is little more than a distant memory to most. 

Sanders was brought to Hamilton by Dennis Gilbert, then head of the Sociology Department. They developed a strong relationship that led to Gilbert leaving Hamilton later in 1990 to assist Sanders’s first congressional campaign. Both are clearly men of the left: Sanders’s policies easily show it, while Gilbert’s scholarship more subtly supports this assessment. Gilbert published a book in 1991 that was arguably favorable to the Sandinistas, a Marxist-Leninist party with a violent approach to taking power in Nicaragua, and commented on the Nicaraguan situation often in the Spectator. The issue was a popular topic on the Hamilton campus, but Gilbert seems to have been even more interested in it. Sanders backed the Sandinistas and even attended one of their rallies during a personal trip to Latin America.

A trip to the college’s archives allowed me to retrieve a course catalogue for the Spring 1990 semester, where I found that Sanders taught two courses, focusing on democratic socialism and urban sociology. The descriptions of them are as follows:

235S Democracy and Socialism: An examination of the current state of American democracy and a look at democratic socialism as an alternative to capitalism. Why are the richest people in America getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer? Why are our citizens increasingly not voting? The role of Big Money and the media in perpetuating capitalist ideology. Democratic socialism and its relevance to democratic values as the United States enters the 21st century. 

335S The Problems and Potential of Urban Life: An examination of such urban problems as weak and corrupt political leadership, low citizen participation, crime, failing educational systems, deteriorating infrastructure, unhealthy environment, low-wage jobs, and homelessness. The importance of cities for the cultural and intellectual life of the nation. The quality of urban life and the role of recent federal policy. Field trips to various governmental agencies in Utica integral to the course.

When he is mentioned in the Spectator, Sanders is sometimes described as a social democrat, which may be loosely defined as an egalitarian who wishes to soften or humanize capitalism through governmental policies that stop short of actual socialism. Interestingly, however, the first course focused on “democratic socialism as an alternative to capitalism,” and there are many references in the Spectator to Sanders as a plain socialist who wishes to “redistribute wealth and power.” This begs the question of exactly where he lies on the political spectrum. Many have debated whether he is a social democrat, a democratic socialist, or something more radical, despite his insistence that he is a democratic socialist and not something else. Sanders appears to be deeply indebted to Karl Marx, and at Hamilton he mediated an open discussion titled “Marxism: A Rescue Attempt?” along with Gilbert. Sanders opened the discussion by pitting capitalism and socialism against each other and asserting that the former had not defeated the latter, even with the imminent demise of the Soviet Union. He argued that there were many serious problems in capitalist societies which needed to be addressed, ranging from poverty and wealth inequality to the lack of universal health care -- issues which Sanders continues to focus on today. 

The rest of the discussion seems to have dwelled on theoretical applications of Marxism, with Gilbert assessing Vladimir Lenin’s idea of the vanguard (leading and only useful) party as a “powerful but problematic idea.” Professor Robert Kurfirst, a visiting instructor in the Government Department at the time, argued that Marx’s ideas are still relevant if they are detached from the idea of revolution. While Sanders is not recorded as having joined the discussion after his opening remarks, it is safe to assume that he agreed with his colleagues that changes in or replacement of capitalism, whether it be the abolition of private property that Marx desired or a simpler drive for equality, must be brought about democratically. 

Yet Sanders has not been immune to distasteful impulses. It is plain that he wishes to greatly increase the scope and active role of federal power to achieve his goals, even refusing to deny that he would bring back the “era of big government” in 2016. And Professor Bob Paquette, former professor of history at Hamilton and my mentor at the Alexander Hamilton Institute, has  been known to occasionally describe Sanders as a communist in disguise. “Communism” is a label he was allegedly ambivalent about disavowing in the 1970s, once stating that “I don’t mind people coming up and calling me a communist … at least, they’re still alive.” And his relationship, in terms of attitude, with authoritarian regimes is troubling. From happily singing in his underwear with Russians while honeymooning in Soviet-era Moscow in 1988 to praising Cuba’s literacy programs despite flagrant human rights violations in the county, he has not been a stranger to making what can fairly be considered enabling comments about America’s enemies. 

Regarding Cuba, Sanders has even said Fidel Castro’s literacy program was well-intended despite being imposed by a dictator, seeming to ignore the nation’s historically high literacy rates and the nature of the program as statist indoctrination. This parallels his and Gilbert’s sympathy for the Sandinistas in 1990. Sanders clearly seems blinded by his ideology, unwilling to change his opinions despite overwhelming evidence against them. A particularly potent example is his long-standing position that America should operate under a system of Scandinavian socialism like Sweden’s, a claim that many students at Hamilton and on other campuses also boldly make without understanding the benefits of the capitalism they oppose. A major difficulty with this opinion is that Sweden is not a socialist state, but rather a social democracy with a homogeneous population whose wealth is largely historic and which enjoyed healthy growth after a free-market rebound following disastrous policies of economic redistribution, according to a comprehensive policy report by the Cato Institute. Taxation is certainly high there, although somewhat low for corporations, but the country arguably still has a capitalist ethos and system. As Swedish historian Johan Norberg writes, a Swedish model for America would actually mean a more open economy.

With these points in mind, how do professors at Hamilton remember Sanders? Professor Dan Chambliss, who was on leave that semester and whose position he filled, says he has almost “zero recollection” of Sanders beyond his being an interesting man to have teach here. Suggesting that capitalism and socialism are not a simple dichotomy but a spectrum (contrary to how Sanders framed the tension between them in the “Marxism: A Rescue Attempt?” discussion), Chambliss says Sanders merely wants to open more room for discussion on the issues he cares about. But he believes it’s an understatement to call him a social democrat, and that Sanders has consistently wished to shift the political vocabulary to show that socialism “isn’t actually that bad.” When asked about his comments on Cuba, Chambliss deemed it a “bogus issue” that was taken out of context, although he conceded that he does not know what Sanders’s actual views on the country are.

Others remember him differently. Most notably, Paquette has rejected the predominant narrative of Sanders as a sweet old man who wishes for peace and equality, instead describing him as an ideologue who became cantankerous when he discovered that Paquette, despite being educated in Marxist theory by his mentor Eugene Genovese, was not a man of the left himself. When I asked Paquette for a comment on Sanders, he responded:

Bernie Sanders occupied an office above mine in the Kirner-Johnson Building during the spring semester 1990. We had few conversations after the first unpleasant one, when he learned I was not a fellow Marxist, nor a fan of Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, a hot-button issue at the time. A strident class warrior, hardly an avuncular type, he tended to pronounce rather than converse and became animated when his left-wing clichés were challenged.

Regardless of how people at Hamilton remember him, Sanders has one defining quality: his consistency. While Chambliss was quick to note that he has not stubbornly remained the same in all of his viewpoints over the past 30 years, the progressive face of the Democratic Party has nonetheless remained a strident class warrior and champion of what he calls social justice throughout his career -- a fact that both his supporters and his detractors can respect. Some of his more reasonable goals have come to fruition, such as greater acceptance of gays in the military, while his radical ideas remain a cause for concern for proponents of the free market and others who fear a greater expansion of government. There have been occasional changes in his platform and his voting record, although they may be indicative of an incremental move to the left, paralleling a shift in his self-representation. By and large, however, from his time at Hamilton to the present, Sanders’s song has remained the same.

Sanders and the Ticket

The Democratic party’s dilemma this year is simply stated but difficult. It can take back some of Donald Trump’s voters by nominating Senator Bernie Sanders, or it can keep the recently won support of anti-Trump former Republicans (or people who formerly tended to vote Republican) by choosing almost anyone else. It cannot, broadly speaking, do both. Although it isn’t clear which course of action would be more likely to win the presidency, a party should always consider the down-ballot consequences. And there, a Sanders nomination looks like a net minus.

Although Trump is not an extremist in policy terms, he seems extreme to many people who might accept a president with the same views who talked and acted differently. He also blatantly repudiates the moderate style that has long (almost always, really) been dominant in Republican presidential politics. Most of his supporters love that, and his opponents hate it. Trump is a name-caller and uses unprecedentedly aggressive language in other ways as well. Some of his opponents cite these characteristics in condemning him and are sincerely offended by them, but they are no loss to the Republicans since they vote Democratic regardless. But others find them deal-breakers, and this rather than policy is the main reason why they’re against Trump. Although a significant source of new support for the Democrats, they cannot be taken for granted.

Sometimes political converts are quite zealous for their new party or cause. But not always. The Never Trump people who to one degree or another have left the Republican party may not be voting Democratic for long. Their votes for Democratic candidates in competitive congressional districts in 2018 are ones the Democrats cannot afford to lose. And they aren’t a constituency for Sanders.

There are two reasons for this. One is that they don’t want their country or themselves to be oppressed by the confiscatory levels of taxation and regulation that Sanders can be expected to push for as president. The other is that their disgust at gross incivility is bipartisan, and Sanders is far from a nice guy unless you’re completely on his side. His hostility to the American economic system and passion for iron-fisted government has a psychological equivalent in his arrogant closed-mindedness. Voters who are themselves civil and somewhat open-minded can easily recognize its opposite—except among the minority of politicians who are both good at concealing harshness and arrogance and wish to, a charmed circle that doesn’t include Bernie Sanders. Granted, Sanders is real. But in his case that can be a problem.

The presidential nominee need not define the whole party, of course, and freshman Democrats in previously Republican districts can signal their discomfort with Sanders to moderate voters. But that is a difficult tactic in a superheated political environment like this year’s. My sense is that Berniecrats would expect strong, not vague, support for their guy if he were the nominee. Some Sanders backers who would reluctantly vote for, say, Joe Biden in order to get rid of Trump won’t necessarily vote for “sellout” Democrats in order to keep them in office, even though they are the ones responsible for the party’s House majority. One problem for the Democrats’ more moderate incumbents in 2020 is that they are too easily, however unfairly, associated with a Democratic establishment and a “Clinton machine” that are widely detested on the left wing of the party. They cannot afford to be charged with such sympathies more often than they already are. Both the resulting need to placate left-wing Democrats and their own total opposition to Trump would, I suspect, lead non-leftist Democratic incumbents to support Sanders (if he’s the candidate) more clearly than they would prefer to. And that might lose them more than a few of the votes they won in 2018.

Dr. Frisk is a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute. His views are his own and do not represent those of the AHI.

Democracy as Default

In our current political culture, democracy is often hailed with uncountable accolades for its genius across a wide range of situations (though this praise often withers away when people don’t like someone who was elected). However, at the time of our founding, democracy was referred to only in a pejorative way. Each founding father could have pointed to the ancient world’s democracies and pontificated on the tyranny of the masses’ unrefined (ignorant, thoughtless, or excessively selfish) will and the factionalization of the public. Democracy could also be seen as a necessary evil, a way to understand the will of the people, without being considered a good way to govern. Such views of democracy have declined over time, and now it is praised and viewed as the default system of governance.

The problems of the unrefined will and factionalization are prominently displayed in the current state of the Democratic primaries. From the first debate on, the supposedly informed voters who are most likely to watch have been subjected to non-stop pandering, petty insults, and bickering meant to energize a hodge-podge of demographic and ideological groups for candidates trying to eke out a narrow plurality. Reaching a consensus is irrelevant in a democracy. What matters more is who can buy the most ads, or make the most promises to a public in which simplistic instinct and prejudice are sometimes much too rampant.

The commonsensical belief in affordable health care, minimizing student debt, and racial equality are contorted into Medicare for All, cancellation of student debt, and reparations. There is clearly a need for something to be done, but policies resulting from fickle passions are rarely effective.

In contentious times, democracy’s advocates often point to the “miracle of aggregation,” the idea that the choices of uninformed voters are essentially random and thus don’t affect election results in any particular direction, meaning elections are decided by the more-informed. Although this can be true when the issues at hand are unemotional, many uninformed voters are animated by a particular issue that affects them personally. How can we blame them? Most Americans do not have the time to inform themselves on which candidate has the most effective policies or to weigh their various flaws. We all want to make our lives better, but we are all victims of fanaticism and fallacies.

People who acknowledge democracy’s flaws often fall back on the famous notion espoused by Winston Churchill: “democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” This notion, though, fails to apply to the everyday lives of Americans. From local government to the lengthy faculty meeting, the unrefined will of the majority of those who actually attend triumphs over or subverts the original agendas put forward. Our ever-shortening attention spans have created a chaotic environment where fads and a shallow rationalism dominate while experience, history, and tradition are laughed at. In situations where populists have to convince only a small number of people to vote for them or their ideas, the baby is often thrown out with the bath water.

Instead of using democracy as a way to find solutions, we should use it more as a way to find problems: to identify the long-term issues we care most about. Elected officials and leaders of organizations should be insulated from the short-term buffeting of public opinion and should be in office for long enough to effectively implement necessary but unpopular decisions. For some organizations, this would be achieved most effectively by appointed leaders; it would be undemocratic but effective. And as citizens, we need to focus more on the problems and less on the solutions. There should still be democracy in our American system, but its current ubiquity has troubling consequences. A longer-term approach to fixing our nation's problems would set the stage for difficult but vital changes to our system.