Gimme Shelter!

Trump won? Cancel class!

When Hillsdale College president Larry Arn was asked what the college was doing Nov. 6, he replied, “Having class.”

Ordinarily, nobody would have had to ask a college administrator that question. However, following Donald J. Trump’s Nov. 5 victory, many schools had better things to do than have class. Academia overwhelmingly favors Democrats. A 2017 study by the National Communication Association “found 3,623 of the 7,243 professors [surveyed] registered as Democrats and only 314 registered as Republicans.” NCA noted that 60% of History departments and Communications/Journalism departments employed no registered Republicans.

No Republicans? No surprise, then, that students were stunned when a woman claiming Asian and Black descent had somehow failed to be elected. There she was, a three-fer, and Americans had said no thanks. The students were unable to cope with this perverse result. Something was wrong with the voters, not with the defeated candidate. How could Trump and his mob win?

Academic elitists regard those who have only a high school diploma as “uneducated,” as the people who should do what they are told by those who know better. It seemed that the uneducated had triumphed. On Nov. 6, as the Rolling Stones might have put it, the students had to “get some shelter.” A regular Mike Jaeger “storm” was “threatening [their] very life.”

Women anticipated a male backlash. After years of supporting only candidates who deferred to women and ignored men, they now had a president-elect who proudly stood with men. It seems that young men were tired of being shamed and faulted simply for being male. Donald Trump reached them. Black, white, and Hispanic, they responded. “Harris,” one of his ads said, “is for they-them. Trump is for you.” Men got the message.

At this unprecedented show of masculine strength, the Marxists and feminists of academia folded. No classes for them. They set up shelters and trauma centers across the Ivy League. Even at lesser schools, students were offered shoulders to cry on. Along with hot chocolate or herbal tea, they were handed coloring books, Play-Doh,  and other therapy materials that are apparently readily available at leading universities. They could comfort themselves with childhood make-believe. Ambitious schools set up petting zoos featuring goats and other “therapy animals,” no doubt under all the right conditions for animal protection.

What? Trump won? Don’t let it get your goat!

Cornell, which held a “cry-in” when Trump won in 2016, was quick off the mark. Georgetown offered cookies and “self-care,” as did Harvard and Virginia Tech. The prize surely goes to Northwestern University’s “Post-Election Wildcat Wellness” extravaganza. Northwestern students had fun with puzzles, crafts, games, and snacks “in order to care for their wellness.” Cookies and hot chocolate were offered at various locations. On the second day, an event featured “puzzles, crafts and games designed to help students take a break amid election stress.” Take a break from what, actually? From all NU’s post-election stress-relieving meetings and games?

I don’t make light of anybody’s sadness. Sadness on Nov. 6 was no doubt genuine. But I do wonder at academia’s way of responding to it. Fans of the nanny state, administrators and professor want students to see themselves as victims who need a mother-substitute’s tender protection. Docile, submissive customers are easier to control than those who think for themselves. Surprisingly, students, so often praised for being forward-thinking and innovative, seemed happy on Nov. 6 to be treated like children. 

Maybe he majors in going in circles

Jerry Seinfeld sends his children to a Manhattan school that charges $65,000 tuition. The school suspended classes the day after the election. “What kind of lives have these people led,” he asked of the school’s administrators, “that makes them think that this is the right way to handle young people?” The school’s aim, he said, “was to encourage [the children] to buckle.” We might ask Northwestern and other school administrators why they treat their adult students like Seinfeld’s kids. The universities want their students “to buckle” so that substitute mothers could care for them. Seinfeld wanted more for his money—and more for his kids. The kids at NU should want more for themselves.

This maudlin development is ironic. The frail students who on Nov. 6 were hovering over warm cups of tea were the same women and men who, just a year ago, were screaming to kill Jews. They urged the establishment of a Palestinian state “at any cost.” That meant, specifically, the slaughter of Jews by the tens of thousands and the obliteration of Israel, that being the first demand of Hamas. The students cheered the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Jews by Hamas, along with countless rapes and other acts of extreme violence. Like a professor from Cornell University, the kids found the rape and beheading of Jews “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

And now here they were, these angry, shamelessly violent students, hanging their heads, tearful and desolated because a democratic process involving 154 million voters did not turn out the way they wanted.

Last year, when students spit in Jews’ faces and blocked their access to classrooms, professors and administrators stood by and excused the violence as free of speech. This year the faculty was serving tea, wiping tears, and patting the backs of rich students who had indeed buckled, given way, and failed, like the weak bridges to the future that they are.

Forget the students. In the accounts I have read, I have found no professors doing the professional thing. What would that be? On campus, the professional thing would be to send distraught students to Western culture’s vast library of writing about fortune and misfortune. Harvard and UCLA students would have been surprised to learn that they were not the first people to have been disappointed. Just eight years ago (an eternity in student time, ancient history), Hilary Clinton’s supporters were devastated. Moms took to social media to ask what they should say to their daughters. How about telling them that “elections have consequences”? Evidently the moms knew what to say to their sons, which was nothing. It was and is all about women.

The devastated Democrats of 2024 could do worse than read a book. My suggestion for them: The Consolation of Philosophy, written in 524 by the Roman consul Boethius. He had been thrown into prison on false charges and had much to complain about. Lady Philosophy appeared to him in a dream and engaged him in an extended dialogue about fortune. The book has often been translated into English, not only by such celebrated dead white males as King Alfred (d. 899) and Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1399) but by dead white females, such as Queen Elizabeth I (d. 1603).

“Causarum cognitio” (Cicero: “Know the causes”). Raphael,

from the ceiling tondo above The School of Athens (1511)

The Consolation of Philosophy offers simple but valuable ideas to help those in distress.

1. Despite the apparent inequalities of life, all experience should benefit us.

2. What happens to us is less important than how we react to it.

3. Wise men should not complain about adversity, any more than warriors should complain about having to fight. Adversity is inescapable for you, just as war is inescapable for warriors. Times of trial offer opportunities to win glory and gain wisdom.

4. Pick your battles. Remember that your victory may not be part of the grand plan. The future is unpredictable. Expect the unexpected. See #1 and #2 above.

Why do academics settle for consolation without philosophy and for herbal tea instead of common sense? One reason is that the professors, like their students, are averse to serious thought. Books are long-form; social media are short-form. Those who restrict their intake to posts develop anti-intellectual habits. They have grown averse to reading and writing, as opposed to scrolling and texting. Short forms do not  encourage us to learn from our mistakes. Instead, they invite us to repeat our errors.

Some 1500 years ago, Boethius knew that, if we suffer, we should learn. Failure should instruct. If you fail to cope and you are rewarded with a hug and a cup of tea, you have no reason to do better when you face the next challenge. Life sucks, enjoy your hot drink. Life will continue to suck, but the faculty loves to make tea. Come back soon.

Professors and students shun ancient wisdom for the easy answers of presentism, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “a bias toward the present or present-day attitudes.” Oxford University Press’s Oxford Global Languages program defines presentism more helpfully as “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes,” which I read as “uncritical adherence to your own present-day attitudes.” Social media ensure that you surround yourself with people who think the way you do. The present-day attitudes of others are excluded in this learning-proof environment.

The woke imitate. They live on and in memes, reductive ideas and images that are easily communicated. The less a meme contains, the faster it spreads. Those who live in this kind of intellectually incestuous world are predictably shocked by the unexpected—by defeat in an election, for example.

Kamala Harris was the meme personified. Everything she said had already been said. That was reassuring. She carefully avoided saying anything else, even when asked about her habit of not saying anything. Rather than talk about illegal immigration and inflation, she talked about joy, which many people were not feeling this fall. Strike one. She also harped on Trump’s excesses, another foolish mistake. Strike two.

Trump, on the other hand, survived two assassination attempts, one in Pennsylvania, one in Florida. Obviously what he said mattered. He never avoided saying something. Indeed, many people worried that he said too much. Inflation and illegal immigration were his bread and butter. So was the lawfare that Democrats around the country waged against him. Always eager to support Democrats and disqualify him, the media reminded us every day that he was unworthy. But the worse things looked for him, the more people took his side. He was the underdog. Some people liked that. Professors and pollsters dismissed the enthusiasm of the “uneducated” and were happy with glib talk, tasteful pants suits, and DEI.

Harris hid behind Biden, timid, fearful, not the watchdog we needed, but loyal. To the elite, this meant she would stick with his hatred of Israel, his socialism, and his fear of a strongly-defended America, and pursue flagship woke initiatives like transgendered childhood. She advocated government payouts for transgender surgeries. She stood for “they-them,” Trump said. He stood for “you.” Harris could not escape her boss’s mediocrity and mendacity, or his economy, or the damage she fostered at the Texas border, her sole contribution to Biden’s record. She insisted that she would change nothing he had done. Strike three.

Presentists do not learn from their mistakes. They do not take in fresh air—that is, they do not reconsider what they overlooked or rejected. They inhale their own vapor. Harris believed that what she said was true because she said it. The New York Times believes that what it says is true because the Times prints it. Other media do the same. During the campaign, with a handful of exceptions, commentators comfortably and casually displayed their preference for Harris and their contempt for Trump. They believed what they said because they said it. Their job was to reproduce the meme: good woman, bad man.

The bad man won. On Nov. 6, pollsters praised themselves because this year they had underestimated Trump less than they had underestimated him in previous elections. They reluctantly admitted that they had not succeeded in getting Trump supporters to take their polls, most of which were wrong.

Early on Nov. 5, for example, Project 538, which is sponsored by ABC News, reported, “The model shifted toward Harris slightly on Monday, Nov. 4, after high-quality polls released over the weekend showed her tied or ahead in the key northern battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Polls from more frequently polled, but less well-regarded, firms had shown a more Trump-leaning race but also moved in Harris’s direction Monday.”

So on the morning of Nov. 5, the polls were moving in Harris’s direction. Trump won all three of ABC’s battleground states—and all the others. Pollsters didn’t seem to realize that many ordinary voters regard polls as part of the media and regard the media as the enemy, as part of the snooty academic world. What do they see of the academic world? They see rich students calling for the death of Jews. They see weeping students petting goats. Ordinary people know that academia is biased against those who do not work from home, those who mop floors, wash dishes, drive trucks, and fill potholes.

Post-election, ordinary people understood that, unlike the supposedly-fragile students and professors, and, not to forget, Seinfeld’s children, most people did not get a day to recover. They went to work.

That is what the students and professors should have done. Their business is books. On Nov. 6 they did not look to books for wisdom. They looked to each other for sympathy. They had no desire to learn. But then, as they see it, they have nothing to learn. And that is why they learn nothing.

Nov. 24, 2024