Columns

GUEST ROOM | Post-Confirmation Depression

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“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” — The dying wish of Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54

In confirming Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Senate Republicans have essentially said, “Whatever.”

Watching the confirmation on Oct. 26, as Democrats had all but given up on fighting the inevitable, I could feel a sense of helplessness creeping. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, aware that there was nothing left to do, said that Republicans would regret their actions “for a lot longer than they think.” He called the confirmation one of the Senate’s “darkest days.” All this bleak rhetoric left me feeling the same way I felt the night Ginsburg died: deeply saddened, yet powerless to change the outcome. 

No matter how blatant the hypocrisy was, Republicans insisted that they could find a justification for their actions. Senator Ted Cruz recited esoteric court confirmations from the 1800’s, shamelessly plugging his new book. Senator Lindsey Graham, declaring he wouldn’t seek a confirmation in an election year, and urging the nation to “hold the tape,” seemed unwilling to be held to his own standard.

Columns

BERNSTEIN | Election Day Does Not Affect the Need to Fight for Change

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With outstanding early and absentee ballots yet to be counted, it seems like the presidential election will take a long time — maybe days — before conclusive results are announced. Both candidates gave speeches of confidence late in the night, but victory couldn’t be formally declared. The night was tense and many fear for their futures, the futures of their loved ones and the future of the nation. Knowing this, we must not let the battle for progressive change end, regardless of the election’s outcome. Racial injustice, climate change and COVID-19 have not gone away; they never will without pressure from the people.

Columns

WILK | The Paradox of Election Harm Reduction

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Around 2 a.m. on Monday, my roommate and I were going through a slideshow of quotes from Joe Biden and then Donald Trump, in desperate need of entertainment. Our aimless procrastination had us following her mouse to online galleries that burned into our eyes with the unsavory clumsiness of the two men who were competing for the prestigious misnomer of leader of the free world. It was supposed to be funny, and for a bit, it was. Until their words stopped painting an image of their indiscretion, instead telling ugly truths of their aptitude to cause suffering. My laughter was interrupted by a lump in my throat.

2000 election

ST. HILAIRE | The Electoral College Bars Us From the Room Where It Happens

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This election day, I decided to commemorate the occasion with that most patriotic of soundtracks: Hamilton. While humming along to my personal favorite, “The Room Where It Happens,”I realized that I, myself, am barely in the room where it happens. I blame this fact on the electoral college; it has allowed politicians to neglect myself and my fellow New York constituents on the national level. For some context, the electoral college is an indirect popular voting system. In simpler terms, everyone votes and whichever candidate wins the majority of votes within a state takes home the entirety of the state’s electoral votes.

2020

Why Urban America Can’t Forget Its Farmers

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Why do agricultural issues matter to young cosmopolites attending an Ivy League institution and who quite possibly are from a family in the top one percent? Besides being consistently ranked as one of the top agricultural schools in the country and the world, Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences conducts an enormous amount of research and outreach to help end food insecurity, combat climate change and, most recently, protect food production workers against COVID-19; just check out the litany of innovations here. Cornell is in a unique position to conduct its research; unlike many of its peers, it’s role as a land-grant institution informs its involvement in communities surrounding it. 43 percent of the counties in the Southern Tier are classified as rural. If you include upstate micropolities, such as Corning and Cortland, as semi-rural, that figure jumps to 57 percent.

2020 election

How Television Becomes a Tool for Targeting Voters

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Audiences cannot avoid being targeted by political campaigns, but as long as they understand how their viewing preferences influence the perception of their identities or opinions by political campaigns, they will be able to recognize how and why they are targeted by such political advertisements.