Demographics Are Not Destiny for The Democrats

For decades, pundits predicted that the Republican Party will eventually wither and die due to changing demographics. This thesis was the basis for a highly regarded book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. The authors of this book posited that the Democratic hold upon racial and religious minorities, immigrants, college educated voters, and women would drive the Democrats to a permanent progressive majority. While there has been some evidence in the past that substantiated this theory, this month’s results have shown that changing demographics and high voter turnout in minority communities will not always benefit the Democratic Party and their candidates. 

Even after countless allegations of racism, President Trump performed better in minority communities than any Republican presidential candidate has in decades: according to the exit polls conducted by Edison Research, President Trump received the highest share of the minority vote since Richard Nixon’s first campaign in 1960. This claim is further supported by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, an online academic study that includes over fifty thousand likely voters. According to their findings, which actually underestimated Trump’s levels of support, President Trump would perform eleven percent better amongst the Latino community and three percent better amongst the Black community. 

President Trump’s increased levels of support among minorities is excellent news for the future of the Republican Party, and if the trends continue in this direction, they are ominous for Democratic chances in our rapidly diversifying nation. However, Republicans should not take these voters for granted. In fact, they are the least stable component of the Republican coalition. If the Republicans go back to the establishmentarian politics expressed by George Bush, Mitt Romney, and now Nikki Haley, they will lose these voters. Many of these voters are first-time voters who specifically registered to vote for Donald Trump and against elements within the Democratic Party that are moving to the far-left especially on abortion and energy issues. They voted for the economic nationalism championed by Trump and against the growing left-wing of the Democratic Party. 

An example of this realignment is the small city of Central Falls, Rhode Island where President Trump performed nineteen and half percentage points better than he did in 2016. Central Falls is a poor, densely populated, immigrant-heavy community that is primarily composed of Puerto Ricans, Guatamelans, and Colombians. These are not your stereotypical Trump supporters, not even your stereotypical Latino Trump supporters. However, Trump did better in this community (which was ravaged by the coronavirus) than any Republican since 1988, when it had a significantly lower Latino population. James Diossa, the Mayor of Central Falls and a young, progressive Latino, has attributed this massive shift to controversy over abortion and increasing levels of support for socialism in the Democratic Party. 

This massive vote shift is not just happening in Central Falls. It is in every corner of our nation. From Lawrence, Massachusetts-- where there was a twenty-one point shift towards Trump-- to the South Bronx, to Doral, Florida,--the home of the Venezuelan exile community which Clinton won by forty points in 2016 and Trump won by a single point this year—and to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. In fact, the swing was nowhere as pronounced than in South Texas. 

The Rio Grande Valley and South Texas have historically been the most Democratic areas of the Lone Star State. Many of these counties have never voted for a Republican. President Obama carried this area with over seventy percent of the votes, and in 2016, Donald Trump even underperformed Romney’s drastically bad numbers. However, something changed in the last four years, and it does not seem to be a historical aberration. There seems to be a beginning of a long-term trend towards the Republican Party in the most Hispanic area of the nation. For example, in the 2018 Texas Senatorial Election, Beto O’Rourke massively overperformed Hillary Clinton in every suburban area of the state and achieved the highest Democratic vote shares in many suburban counties since the days of the Solid South. However, he massively underperformed Clinton in the Hispanic counties of South Texas. In Maverick County, where over ninety percent of people speak Spanish at home, O’Rourke underperformed Clinton by over ten percent. This pattern is evident throughout the entire Rio Grande Valley—where he underperformed Clinton in every single county.

This trend continued and massively accelerated in the 2020 Presidential Election. Many analysts expected Trump to slightly outperform his 2016 numbers in the area due to his increased share of the Hispanic vote in the polls. However, he blew past all expectations. In 2016, Trump lost this region by about thirty-three points. This year, he only lost it by seventeen points. Going back to Maverick County, Trump improved his vote share by twenty-four percent, even when turnout increased by over twelve percent. These new voters that Democrats hoped would flip Texas blue actually voted for Trump. This pattern was found throughout the entirety of South Texas, where Trump flipped counties that are over ninety-five percent Hispanic and hadn’t voted for a Republican in over a century. Some counties had an over fifty-five percent swing in the vote that benefitted President Trump. This swing is practically unheard of and virtually impossible in politics. However, it happened, and if it continues to happen throughout the nation, it will spell disaster for the Democratic Party and the stability of their coalition. 

Donald Trump did not just increase his vote share amongst Hispanic communities. The swings in Asian communities, especially Vietnamese and Korean communities, were almost as large as the ones in Hispanic communities. For example, in Westminster, California, the home of Little Saigon and the capital of the Vietnamese diaspora in the nation, saw a twenty-three percent swing towards Trump. Similarly, Garden Grove, California, a rapidly diversifying city where less than twenty-five percent of the population is white, saw a twenty-one percent swing towards Trump. This pattern was also replicated in Black and Native American communities, especially in rural areas. 

Robeson County, North Carolina is one of the most racially diverse counties in the nation, and it is also heavily voted to elect President Trump. Robeson is approximately forty percent Native American, twenty-five percent black, thirty percent white, and the rest identify with other races or as mixed-race. This area is not stereotypical Trump territory. Before 2016, it only voted for a single Republican candidate in its entire history, however, Trump won it in 2016 by around four percent. This economically depressed area with a large minority population was perfect ground for a Trump surge, and it happened. On Election Day, Trump won Robeson County by around eighteen points, and it voted straight Republican in almost every single down-ballot race. 

The typical consensus during this election, and especially in Texas, was that higher turnout, specifically minority turnout, would dramatically benefit the left and usher in a blue wave that would wash across the nation. However, it should be obvious to anyone who has paid attention to the results that this did not happen. In fact, the unprecedented wave of minority turnout actually helped Trump. Trump improved his margins and vote share in almost every single American city including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, and Milwaukee. He also improved in minority-heavy rural areas like the Black Belt, Robeson County, and South Texas. These results show that the consensus was just wrong, and that there is a shift up and down ballot for the Party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Trump. While Trump definitely did not win this election, he laid the groundwork for the party’s future electoral success.

It is sort of ironic that Donald Trump of all people was able to collect the highest share of the minority vote in the past sixty years of Republican electoral history. The man who ran as the antithesis of the famed 2012 Republican autopsy by campaigning on limiting immigration, law and order, and building a wall won the very voters that Republicans have been wanting for decades. If anything, it shows that the political class honestly does not understand the voters of this nation, and they really do not want to. A typical Republican would have run on increasing legal immigration and lowering cultural tensions. However, Trump, to his credit, threw out this playbook and created the least racially polarized electorate in American history. One must admit that it truly is bizarre that this happened, but it honestly should have been expected. Many of these voters are working class, culturally conservative, economically moderate, and fled from nations that have a history of popular right-wing populist caudillos and unpopular socialist leaders. It should have been obvious that Trump, who is personally more economically moderate and culturally conservative than most Republican politicians, would win these voters over. However, most prognosticators, once again, got it wrong, and if this trend of minorities towards the Republicans continues it is only bad news for the Democrats unless they can drag a sizable part of the Republican coalition into their party. 

President Trump: the Catholic Choice

His personal life will not be discussed, as that is covered in an article elsewhere in this issue. The formatting of the argument is based on St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.

Article 1: Is Donald Trump the Catholic choice for President in 2020?

Objection 1: Pro-life advocates are quick to point out the President’s record on abortion as evidence that he is a pro-life President. However, his other views are inconsistent. He supports and has used the death penalty on multiple occassions, which is a violation of the dignity of the human person.

Objection 2: His immigration policy is inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. His proposal to “Build a Wall!” across the Southern border is not only senseless, but is divisive and closes out a friendly country, and goes against the Roman Pontiff’s desire to build bridges with each other.

Objection 3: Continuing with immigration, the President’s policy of separating migrant families from their children was perhaps the cruelest policy in decades. Children were ripped from their parent’s arms, and many of them still have not been reunited with their parents.

Objection 4: The President, through leaving the Paris Agreement and repealing essential environmental regulations, has significantly damaged God’s creation, and if men like him continue to govern, the results to our environment will be catastrophic.

Objection 5: Even if Joe Biden’s beliefs contradict the Church's teaching in such a way that it would be sinful to vote for him, that does not automatically mean one ought to vote for President Trump. There are third party candidates to choose from who are more in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

On the contrary, “It must in any case be clearly understood that a Christian can never conform to a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the licitness of abortion. Nor can a Christian take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.”

I answer that, abortion is the single greatest human rights violation in the American justice system. Nothing comes close to this abomination in either nature or extent. In its nature, it is the direct murder of the most helpless person on earth: an unborn infant. It destroys the very object of the sexual act and the main purpose of the marriage bond: the upbringing of children. It has its roots in the eugenics movement and has impacted African American populations the hardest. In its extent, it has contributed to over 61 million innocent people being killed, all of whom were made in the image and likeness of God. U.S. Bishops, many of whom have been critical of some of the President’s actions, stated in a letter accompanying their 2020 voters guide that “the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.”

It is clear where the candidates stand on this most important issue. Biden has stated that he will, if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, “pass legislation making Roe the law of the land”. Further, the “public option” in his healthcare plan would cover abortion. The President on the other hand has been a consistent champion of the pro-life movement. After taking office, he reinstated and expanded the “Mexico City Policy”, which prevents about nine billion dollars of foreign aid from being used to “fund abortions internationally”. He has prevented funding for the “United Nations Population Fund” and has declared to the UN, along with other countries, that there is “no international right to abortion”. Two of his Supreme Court Justices dissented in the Louisiana abortion case of June 2020, and according to Planned Parenthood have long histories of “‘opposing abortion’”. Justice Barrett will likely be just as good, if not better, for the pro-life cause, as evidenced by the reactions of the Democratic Party throughout her appointment and confirmation. All of this being said, it is unlikely that the President’s Catholic critics doubt the President’s sincerity on this issue, but instead are focused on other aspects in criticism. He has done about as much as any President can do to end abortion.

Reply to Objection 1: Throughout most of its history, the Catholic Church has consistenly supported the death penalty as a just means of punishment by the State. The death penalty is allowed and even commanded within the Bible, was supported by Doctors of the Church St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, by Popes Innocent I and Pius XII (among others), and is allowed within the Catechism of the Council of Trent. At the very least, the question of its modern applicability is debatable and reasonable people can disagree on it.

Reply to Objection 2: While mentioning a right to immigration, the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that the State “for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions”. States are to let in immigrants “to the extent they are able”, which means that States can put just limits on immigration. Additionally, it states that immigrants must “obey [the State’s] laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.” The United States accepts over 1 million legal immigrants a year, the most out of any country in the world. This means that the United States, perhaps more than any other country, has the right to limit the number of immigrants it takes in and to have just vetting procedures to keep its citizens safe. Tighter border security, including in the form of a wall, is a just way of accomplishing this end assuming it is effective. Whether it is effective falls into the sphere of practical policy.

Reply to Objection 3: In 2018, the Trump administration ordered the prosecution of all adults who crossed the border illegally, with or without children. Crossing the border illegally is a federal crime, and when one is arrested by federal marshals, they are separated from their children, as when an American citizen is pulled over and arrested for an expired license while their children are in the car. When this person simply wants to be deported back to their country, the criminal proceeding is quick, the family is reunited, and they are deported back to their home country. The trouble comes when the individual claims that they have a right to asylum in the United States. Asylum claims take much longer to process, and because of the Flores Consent Decree of 1997, the government can only hold immigrant children for 20 days before having to release them. This leaves the government with two options: either release the whole family until the proceedings are done, or only release the children, preferably with a relative who is legally in the country. The problem with the first alternative is that the families are released with ankle monitors, many of which are cut. In fact, according to statistics from the Executive Office of Immigration Review, 39 percent of “‘non-detained aliens’” failed to show up for their court hearings in 2016. This led many bad people to use children as a commodity to get them into the United States — many times not their own children; if these children were girls, they were very likely to be sexually assaulted during the trip. The Trump administration's brief solution was to separate the children from the adults after 20 days, hoping to remove the incentive to use children as a means of entering the United States. Many would argue that this policy was worse than the problem itself, and perhaps that is true: but that does not make it the policy of a Nazi, but a flawed solution to a real problem. The best solution would be for Congress to make modifications to current immigration laws so that the whole family could be legally held, which would both remove the incentive and avoid the separation. In any case the policy was quickly rescinded and is unlikely to make any reappearance, allowing the status quo to continue. It is a flaw of this generation that people view complicated gray areas such as immigration policy as absolute, while viewing actual black and white issues such as abortion as relativistic and open to debate. As for the 540 kids who have failed to be reunited, for 485 of those children, the parents have been found and none of the parents have agreed to take their children back, as the children have made it to the United States.

Reply to Objection 4: Unlike abortion, which is a moral question and falls within the Church’s authority, the existence and extent of climate change is a purely scientific question. That being said, the earth is a gift that we are meant to be good stewards of, which means that we are neither to undervalue it, or to overvalue it, viewing ourselves neither as conquerors or as parasites. When it comes to the Trump administration, one should look at the regulations that were actually rolled back: for instance, the Obama-era methane-emissions rule had little environmental impact and was very harmful to the fossil-fuels industry. With regards to the Paris Agreement, the Agreement includes a clause to promote “gender equality” and the “empowerment of women”, which when cross-referenced with other UN documents, most certainly includes the advancement of abortion and contraception, both intrinsic moral evils.

Reply to Objection 5: As shown above, from a policy perspective, the President is in line with the Church’s teaching on the most crucial issues, especially abortion. Additionally, most of the criticism of him revolving around secondary issues (immigration, the environment, etc.) is exaggerated or even downright false. That being said, while it is immoral to vote for a pro-choice candidate like Joe Biden, it is not immoral to vote for a third party candidate, especially if you are in a state like Massachusetts that is likely to vote Joe Biden in the Electoral College anyway. However, if you are in a swing-state, while it is not immoral, it seems very imprudent to vote for a third party, as President Trump is the greatest hope the pro-life movement has had in a long time, and his reelection could very well mean the end of Roe v. Wade. For a Catholic that ought to outweigh any other consideration.

Leave Your Cave: Applying Plato’s Cave Image to the 2020 Election

​To say that 2020 has been a challenging year would probably be the understatement of the century. Out of the many challenges thrown at us in this tumultuous time, Americans are faced with another one come November 3rd.

​Out of the many issues brought up in the 2020 election, the ever apparent polarization of American politics is one rarely discussed. And as the gap between Democrats and Republicans grows, it becomes more important than ever  not only to talk about why it is occurring, but to present real solutions to this concealed issue. Starting off this conversation, I turn to an unlikely source: Plato.

While the ancient Greek philosopher Plato is one of the most well-known and influential philosophers, many are unfamiliar with his writings and beliefs. In his work, The Republic, Plato writes about the Cave Image. In this image, everyone in this cave is chained up, not knowing about their surroundings or the circumstances of the cave. As a matter of fact, the only thing that can be seen is shadows cast on the walls by a fire behind them. If one were to be freed from these chains and look into the fire, they would experience a painful, yet entirely new perspective of their situation.

In using the cave image, Plato is evidently asserting that we are all chained up in our own personal cave, looking at shadows cast by others. In essence, Plato is challenging us to look “into the fire” of new, unfamiliar ideas and perspectives. While it can hurt to hear contradicting ideas, it is important to know the real truth.

Connecting this back to the 2020 election, it is ever more apparent that we are all stuck in our political caves. Whether it be a Democratic cave or a Republican cave, one can not be content with the information they have; one must continually be on the search for new information. In an age of opinion news, it is without a doubt hard to turn the channel when you are hearing what you want to hear. Whether it be Fox News or CNN, many Americans are content with their preferred news network.However, in a world  of modern technology, ignorance is a choice. And sadly, many Americans are content with this comfortable ignorance.

Just as staring into the fire was painful, flipping the channel and hearing news from a different perspective will also be painful. Upon hearing this differing view and being confronted with information you thought you knew, you will certainly feel threatened. As a matter of fact, you may feel dumb for believing in something that you once held to be true. Despite these feelings, it is important to remember that life is a struggle of finding justice and truth. And upon hearing this new information and becoming better informed, you have a duty to spread this truth to others who are just as ignorant as you once were.

However, teaching this new information can be just as hard as learning it. Many ignorant people will not listen to you and more still will simply not care. Others will challenge and fight you tooth and nail to protect their beliefs. Nevertheless, everyone has a moral obligation to become educated.

Whether you are voting for President Trump or Vice President Biden, one should not merely tag along and vote for either candidate because of partisan allegiance. With the remaining time left, undecided voters should do their homework, study each candidate, and come to an informed decision. Ignorance has repercussions and in an election with stakes this high, these repercussions can certainly have a damaging effect on the future of the country.

When it comes to any decision, whether it be politics or any other endeavor, one must choose to have an open mind. Limiting yourself to certain points of view is like being chained up in Plato’s cave. You may be content with the information you have, but one must explore life and be in constant search for truth. As Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”.

Biden to Trump: “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Too!”

​Oftentimes elections, particularly presidential elections, are framed as matters of moral decision-making. Sometimes, this moral decision-making is centered around policy, with one policy being considered the moral option by one side, and the opposition considering it to be the furthest thing from a moral policy. This is also true of candidates, as those vying for power are framed through this lens of morality depending on their personal qualities and behavior. It is through this moral lens that the left is attempting to frame the 2020 Presidential Election. The argument goes something along the lines of, “Joe Biden is not perfect, but he’s still better than Donald Trump because we all know that Trump…” The remainder of this argument generally consists of a long list of moral grievances regarding Trump’s conduct, some legitimate, others decidedly less so. Democrats would do well to tread lightly, or not tread at all, with this approach. Joe Biden, for all his touted moral superiority, can be legitimately accused of engaging in the same behavior that Trump is so often criticized for.

​Opponents of Donald Trump often cite the numerous lies allegedly told by the President as examples of his flawed character and unworthiness for office. Unfortunately, Joe Biden has his own history of telling tall tales and bald-faced lies. A more recent example of this is Biden’s claim that “the boilermakers union has endorsed me because I sat down with them and went into great detail with leadership [about] exactly what I would do.” This statement was utterly untrue, as the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers has not yet endorsed any presidential candidate. Another infamous example is Biden’s tale of travelling to Afghanistan to award the Silver Star to a Navy Captain who rappelled down a ravine to retrieve a comrade’s body. Biden spoke of the sailor’s humility and stated that the story was “the God’s truth” and “his word as a Biden.” Except that it was not “the God’s truth.” The actual feat of heroism was performed by then Specialist Kyle White, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. As noted by the Washington Post “In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.” While hardly the only two examples of Biden’s dishonesty, the blatant nature of these two particular deceits demonstrates that Biden can hardly be considered on a higher plane to Trump in regard to honesty.

​Another common complaint is that President Trump often makes ridiculous or nonsensical comments. Again, Joe Biden is equally guilty, if not moreso, of engaging in this type of behavior. As far back as 2008, Joe Biden claimed that Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the nation in a television broadcast after the 1929 Market Crash. In fact, it was Herbert Hoover who was president at the time of the crash, and television would not become a common household utility until years later. During a December 2019 speech, Biden commented that he had hairy legs that turned blonde in sunlight and that the children at the pool he lifeguarded at would come up to him and attempt to straighten them. While it is unlikely that anyone would care to examine that quantity or quality of Biden’s leg hair to verify the story, it does raise the question as to why the former Vice President felt the need to make such a bizarre statement that was decidedly out of place.

​As far as ridiculous statements, Joe Biden also has a track record of insensitive and downright racist statements. While the media often touts President Trump’s uncontextualized remarks in the aftermath of the Charlottesville Rally, Joe Biden has made much more brazen comments regarding race. In respect to busing integration, Joe Biden stated that he feared his children growing up “in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point.” Regarding the Indian American community in Delaware, Biden stated in 2006 that “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” Perhaps his most infamously closed-minded remark occurred during an interview with Charlamagne tha God [sic], in which he told the presenter “I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black.” Needless to say, if Trump had made any of these remarks, it would have ended any chance he had for re-election, and rightfully so. But on account of the fact that Joe Biden is the alternative, Trump haters seem more than willing to overlook Biden’s history of comments that are at best gross and at worst racist.

​Arguably, the most egregious example of an accusation leveled against President Trump is that of foreign collusion. A nearly three year investigation and impeachment trial cleared the President of any sort of collusion with foreign powers regarding the 2016 Presidential Election. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has either actively utilized his influence to enrich his family and shape actions by other countries, or has looked the other way while his relations grow rich off of his name. Recently, whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, one of Hunter Biden’s business associates, stated in a letter that the information uncovered from emails on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was authentic, and that various stakes with the Chinese energy company CEFC had been set aside for Hunter and “the Big Guy." Bobulinski went on to confirm that “the Big Guy” in question was Joe Biden. This is not the only instance of Biden using his influence in improper ways. Other emails from the same cache include one from an adviser at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thanking Hunter for arranging a meeting with the then-Vice President. Hunter also received an email asking for “advice on how you could use your influence” from the same advisor in 2014, when Joe Biden still was in office. It is almost certain that Biden used the status of his office to secure benefits for his associates, and possibly himself, in a manner that fits the definition of collusion with a foreign power.

​Then there are the allegations of conduct with women. President Trump has seen his fair share of complaints, most notably as a result of the infamous Access Hollywood tapes. Biden, however, meets him in this area as well. Next to Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden was the individual Secret Service personnel disliked the most, particularly on account of his predilection for skinny-dipping in the presence of female agents in the White House pool and at his Delaware residence. As photo and video records demonstrate, Biden also seems to have a particular tendency to massage the shoulders and sniff the hair of various women who happen to pass within his reach, be they young girls or middle-aged women. This is a tendency that is invasive at best, and inappropriate at its worst. Most infamously, the former Vice President has been accused of digitally assaulting one of his Senate staffers, Tara Reade, in 1993, an account which has been corroborated by Reade’s former neighbor. If the commonly utilized hashtag ‘Belive All Women’ has any credibility, then Joe Biden and his supporters have no moral ground to stand on regarding his conduct with members of the opposite sex.

​As it stands, the quantity of incidents should be illustrative of one clear conclusion: there is no argument over the personal conduct of the candidates to be had in this election, and certainly not one that singles out Donald Trump. Supporters of both candidates should either choose to ignore their particular flaws, or merely acknowledge them as baggage carried by them, and focus instead on what they perceive to be the greater issues at hand. The unspoken truth of this matter is that the greater issue is ideology. This election is one of, if not arguably the most, ideologically-driven contests in the history of American politics. Therefore, I would encourage those on the left of the spectrum, who attack Donald Trump for his personal flaws and wrongdoings, to drop their facade of caring about personal morality and acknowledge the reality of the situation. The personal morality of the candidates is not the arbiter of their decision in this election.

If they were to accept this reality, they would acknowledge that for every potential accusation laid at the President’s feet, Joe Biden has engaged in conduct of an equal or greater nature.

Hold Your Nose and Vote for Trump

That President Trump is a man of many flaws is a surprise to no one in 2020. This point has been covered relentlessly — in good faith and not — by the media and others over the last four years, and the minutiae need not be repeated here. Yes, he is crude and boorish; no, he is not genteel or eloquent or particularly agreeable. But we’re not hiring a new hostess at Applebee’s — we’re choosing the next President of the United States, and we can’t afford to make such a critical decision based on considerations of personality or character alone. Policy must come first, and on this basis there is only one choice — because what Trump leaves to be desired in tone and personal qualities, his substantive record more than makes up for.

In 2016, after he clinched the nomination, there was concern among some Republicans that Trump would not govern as a conservative. In 2020, only the most vehement “Never Trumpers” could still hold this view. While his administration has departed from some positions — like an unqualified commitment to free trade — that were previously axiomatic within the establishment GOP, he has otherwise proven to be an ardent and effective champion of conservative causes. Whether his positions on abortion, religious freedom, and other topics are sincerely held is inconsequential — what matters is his record, which on these and other crucial issues has been near-immaculate. The Trump administration has seen over 200 district and appellate court judges appointed in the last four years, providing a bedrock of conservative judicial restraint that will be felt in the American judiciary for generations. And with Monday’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett as Trump’s third Supreme Court appointee, the nation’s highest court now enjoys a 6-3 textualist/originalist majority, finally making possible the ultimate pro-life victory: the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

If his reshaping of the judiciary isn’t enough, consider Trump’s remarkable foreign policy record. Since 2016, the Trump administration has overseen the obliteration of the Islamic State; the death of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by suicide amid a US raid; and the death of Iranian general and terrorist sponsor Qasem Soleimani. He has gone where previous presidents wouldn’t dare, moving the American embassy in Israel to the country’s rightful capital, Jerusalem; cultivating a strategic relationship with the volatile North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un; and gambling on peace in Afghanistan through a deal with the Taliban. He has brokered deals to normalize relations between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Sudan, and it appears that at least five more Arab states may follow. His administration has pulled the US out of both the capitulatory Iran deal and the farcical Paris Agreement. But perhaps Trump’s best accomplishment is not what he has done, but rather what he hasn’t — that is, being the first president in generations not to embroil the country in another foreign war.

Concrete victories at home include the Trump tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefit the middle class, with an average household saving $2,140; the First Step Act prison reform law that reduced a number of the mandatory minimum sentences that disproportionately affected black Americans; and a vibrant pre-pandemic economy with rock-bottom unemployment and significant real wage growth for low- and middle-income Americans; among many others.

But these feats are not enough for some. Many establishment GOP politicians voting against the president this election — a long list of whom the New York Times published in September — cite Trump’s incivility and dishonesty. Anti-Trumpers like these frequently bemoan the perceived loss of the “dignity of the office” — and they have a point. But we cannot simply vote for the person who least offends our sensibilities — there are much graver issues to consider. President Obama, for one, was the ultimate gentleman — a man who truly possessed the kind of poise, character, and dignity becoming of the presidency. But he also presided over a ghoulish abortion regime, undermined religious freedom, oversaw the quasi-socialization of the American healthcare system, and destroyed American credibility overseas with a ruinously flaccid approach to foreign policy — to name just a few. That Obama was a “nice guy” is no comfort to the Americans forced off their private insurance, the Catholic nuns he sought to force to distribute contraceptives, the small business owners who suffocated under red tape and overregulation, and other victims of his administration.

To be sure, Biden is similarly regarded almost universally as a man of grace and decency. “If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person… you got a problem,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in 2015. “He is as good a man as God ever created.” But if the Obama and Trump administrations have taught us anything, it should be that a good man can be a very bad president, and that a not-so-good man can be, in many ways, an excellent president. It is worth repeating that this isn’t to argue that Trump is the perfect president — he is not. But Americans do not have the luxury of being purists this election. This is a reality that progressive Democrats who now must stomach voting for Biden are experiencing just as much as Republicans who support Trump’s policies but are uncomfortable with his public rhetoric and personal character.

In a perfect world, Republicans could have a candidate who champions the pro-life cause and doesn’t separate migrant children from their parents; a candidate who defends family values while practicing them himself; a candidate whose persona is as suited to the dignity of the presidency as his ability to handle its powers and responsibilities. Maybe in 2024 the GOP will have such a candidate. But on November 3rd, America will choose between two imperfect options, and no citizen, right or left, will be lucky enough to vote for their ideal candidate. Instead, we must make do with whoever would do the least harm and the most good, and that man is President Trump.

Voting as a Catholic

Every time an election looms on the horizon, Catholics have to ask themselves: who will I be voting for? To pretend that there is ever an easy answer would be to fool oneself, for the fallen state of man makes a perfect choice almost impossible. That being said, there are certain principles that Catholics must abide by when exercising their civic duty at the ballot box. This article is not going to tell the Catholic voter who to vote for, as that is ultimately the choice for them to make. The purpose of this article is instead to inform the conscience of the voting Catholic so that he or she can make the best decision in line with Church teaching.

Catholics have a duty to participate in the political affairs of a free society, and to bring the Christian message into the world. In choosing a candidate, the first and most important consideration are the policies that candidate wants to implement. If those policies are intrinsically evil, a Catholic has an obligation to vote against them. Of course, it is almost never that simple. More often than not, every viable candidate advocates for an intrinsic evil of some kind. In this case, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, a Catholic can take the extraordinary route of not voting at all, or he can opt to vote “for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods.” 

Deciding which candidate is likely to affect the least amount of evil is no easy decision, but it is one that can be made. The USCCB designates abortion and euthanasia as the “preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others” and “because of the number of lives destroyed [by abortion and euthanasia].” Further, the “direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong... [and] must always be opposed.” According to America Magazine and other news sources, Pope Francis has stated that he concurs with the designation of abortion as the preeminent threat. In 2017, 862,000 children were aborted, and since 1973, over 60 million have been killed. Pope Saint John Paul II, in his 1988 Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici, said that “the inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.” Thus the right to life supersedes all else — without the right to life, there can be no other rights; there can be no other priorities. 

According to the USCCB, a Catholic can never vote for a candidate because of his or her support for abortion. The Church teaches that to do so is formal cooperation with evil, and is a grave sin. Further, a Catholic can never vote for a candidate who supports abortion just because he or she agrees with the candidate’s other positions. To do that would constitute material cooperation with evil, and is also a grave sin. 

The USCCB states that it is “permissible [to vote for a candidate who supports abortion] only for truly grave moral reasons.” Catholics must not, however, engage in a “moral equivalence that makes no ethical distinctions between different kinds of issues involving human life and dignity.” A “truly grave moral reason” means that the alternative to the candidate who supports abortion must advocate for an evil that is inordinately greater than abortion. Because abortion is the greatest evil that the nation faces today, there are few issues that can supersede it. Some examples of a greater evil would be something on the order of genocide, or an openly expressed desire to use nuclear weapons without provocation. 

There are a few moral equivalencies that some make in an attempt to justify voting for a candidate that supports abortion. The most common equivalency is that the alternative (not pro-abortion) candidate does not take as stringent a stance against climate change or environmental degradation, and therefore it is justifiable to vote for the candidate who supports abortion and more stringent climate policy. The argument is that climate change will, eventually, be more destructive than abortion. Both climate change and environmental destruction are, undoubtedly, issues that Catholics must work to solve, for we are obligated to protect and care for our common home and God’s creation. There is an extremely important distinction between climate policy and abortion, however. First, the Church places the issue of abortion above that of climate change (as can be seen in the USCCB’s Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship). In other words, the Church unequivocally categorizes abortion as a worse, more pressing evil than climate change. Abortion is also the most immediate and direct threat to life that the nation faces, and results in hundreds of thousands of deaths every year in the United States alone. 

The climate issue, while certainly necessary to address, does not have the same immediate and direct threat. Even if one were to consider the long-term, whatever climate policies that the US enacts, the effect on overall climate change would be negligible, particularly when the largest polluter, China, and the other great polluters, namely India and Africa, remain (and are almost guaranteed to continue to remain) unchanged. Further, even with the most dire credible predictions, there is no reason that technological advances and engineering would be unable to prevent potential mass loss of life or to rectify the situation (be it through carbon-capture technology, renewable energy, emission reducing technology, infrastructure [like sea walls], or the like). This does not mean that the voter must abandon the environmental issue, in fact quite the opposite. Climate change is most certainly happening, and the Catholic will always have a duty to advocate for policies that protect God's creation. But the Catholic voter must consider the most immediate, direct, and known threat to human life as paramount, and that is abortion. Abortion, of course, is a policy choice with clear and obvious consequences (the killing of the unborn) being enacted. There are no major US politicians who are advocating for a purposeful increase in climate change with the intent to kill, so there is not even a remote comparison to abortion. 

Another claim made is that electing pro-abortion politicians has actually served to reduce abortions in the US. This claim is both illogical and false. Firstly, it neglects the fact that the abortion rate has slowly declined for every administration since and including Ronald Reagan. Further, the pro-life movement having gained traction and the Supreme Court allowing greater state restrictions on abortion after Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, have served to aid in this decline. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion organization, much of the decline was due to the “declines in births and pregnancies overall,” along with state restrictions. It also has to be noted that the incredible strides in recent years of the pro-life movement are yielding very promising results, with pro-life judges appointed to the courts, and numerous states enacting pro-life legislation. The Guttmacher Institute, for example, reports that between 2011 and 2019, 483 legislative restrictions on abortion were enacted. So if nothing else, electing pro-life candidates and advocating for the cause of life have actually been one of the main drivers in the reduction of abortions in the United States. Electing pro-abortion politicians, especially when they look to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law or use federal money to fund abortions, would be a grave setback for the cause of life. 

A corollary to the previous claim is that it is reasonable to vote for pro-abortion candidates if they support expansive welfare programs, because those programs will help alleviate the need for abortions, and thereby reduce them. The first problem with this claim is that it assumes that abortions are mostly the result of financial issues. This is false. As the Guttmacher Institute found, 74% responded that their reason for receiving an abortion was because it would “interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents,” 73% responded that it was about affordability, 48% responded that it was because of relationship issues or parenting concerns, 40% responded that they were done having children, and about 30% responded that they were not ready for a child. The reasons for abortions are therefore “typically motivated by multiple, diverse and interrelated reasons.” Therefore, while financial issues certainly play a role, they are far from the only, or even the largest, role. Further, the states with the largest welfare programs also tend to be the states with the greatest number of abortions. California, a state with generous welfare programs, accounted for 15.4% of US abortions (despite being only around 12% of the population), and had an abortion rate of 16.4 per 1000 women in 2017. New York, another state with generous welfare programs, accounted for 12.2% of US abortions (despite being only 6% of the population), and had an abortion rate of 26.3 per 1000 women in 2017. In the same year, the abortion rate for the entirety of the United States was 13.5 per 1000. In other words, the evidence for the claim that welfare programs reduce abortion is just not there (in fact, there is more evidence to the contrary). 

The nation faces an extremely important decision on November 3rd, and it is a decision with serious consequences. Hopefully this article has served to help the Catholic voter in making that decision. Catholics have a duty to participate in the democratic process, and equally have a duty to bring the teaching of the Lord into the formation of public policy. In the end, of course, the choice of who to vote for rests on the individual conscience.

The Supreme Court, Politics, and Illiberalism

There is no reason to be surprised at the vitriol and the partisan brutality surrounding the Supreme Court vacancy left by the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The political capital that one side of the isle has invested into the Court, however imprudently, has made a non-controversial vacancy effectively impossible. Yet, the timely appointment and confirmation of Ginsburg’s replacement is absolutely essential. There is no precedent being violated in proceeding with the confirmation process, and the illiberal rhetoric coming from the left only serves to underline both the necessity of standing up to such threats, and the problem with the left’s conception of the Court itself. 

The confirmation of Ginsburg’s successor is set to become a poster child for the nation’s political divisions. But before delving into the controversy, it is worth highlighting public opinion. Judge Amy Coney Barret, President Trump’s nominee to succeed Justice Ginsburg, has been gaining support for a swift nomination. A Morning Consult/Politico poll from October 2-4 found that 43% of voters felt that Barret should be confirmed as soon as possible, with 37% thinking her confirmation should wait, and 20% undecided. This is a change from 39%, 40%, and 20% respectively in September. The same October poll found that 46% of voters support Barrett’s nomination, and 31% oppose it, compared to 37% for and 34% against in September. When it comes to public opinion, the confirmation process is gaining steam. This should serve as a background to the forthcoming analysis, for there is not widespread public distaste for the confirmation process, despite the left’s rhetoric.

Among a vast swath of criticism, the move to confirm Judge Barret has been cast as ‘illegitimate’ for violating a precedent set by Senate Republicans in 2016. The supposed precedent is that no vacancy should be filled during an election year, for the voters deserve to have a say in filling the seat. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously refused to consider President Obama’s nominee for Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat, Merick Garland, arguing that the appointment should wait until after the election. On its face, it would seem Mr. McConnell was setting the aforementioned precedent. Whatever the political rhetoric, however, the precedent was never to avoid Supreme Court confirmations during an election year, but rather, in an important distinction, was to eschew Supreme Court nominations during an election year when the party controlling the Senate was different from that of the Presidency. While this distinction may seem trivial, it is actually essential. Mr. McConnell may have used some cover reasoning, appealing to the upcoming election as partial justification for his refusal to consider Mr. Garland’s nomination, but that could scarcely have been the true guiding principle. Rather, the driving principle was the same one that governs most political actions: partisan interest. No shrewd politician, which Mr. McConnell most certainly is, would set such a flawed precedent as never confirming a new Justice during an election year; a precedent like that would eventually work to his detriment. Further, Republicans took the Senate in 2014 in large part as a check on President Obama’s policies, so their opposition to Mr. Garland was partly the GOP fulfilling its electoral commitments. 

Further, nominating a Supreme Court justice during an election year is nothing new: it has been done 29 times in American history. Daniel McGlaughlin points out in the National Review that of the 45 presidents to hold office, 22 of them nominated a Supreme Court justice during an election year, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. Neither is it unusual for the Senate to hold up or refuse a Supreme Court nominee; it has happened many times before. William Rehnquist and Samuel Alito were both held up by Democratic filibusters. It is worth noting that the reason Democrats are unable to filibuster Barret today is because they opted to eliminate the filibuster for court nominees. If the left had played by the rules rather than changing them, they might still have been able to hold up Barret. 

Precedents aside, the threats from many on the left require attention. The two main threats being levied in response to the Senate considering the nomination are, one, that Senate Democrats will end the filibuster, and two, that they will pack the courts. Both of these threats, of course, rely on the Democrats retaking the Senate, but that will inevitably happen at some point. Ending the filibuster would be nothing new out of the left’s playbook: former Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid ended it for judicial nominees during the Obama years. However, it would certainly contribute to the ever deepening divisions in American society. The filibuster is the requirement of a two thirds majority to pass legislation, which allows for the minority party (assuming the majority is not a supermajority) to stymie legislation they oppose. Ending the filibuster completely would make the Senate into a simple-majority legislating body, whereby every piece of legislation would only require over 50% of the vote to pass. While this may seem desirable, it is in fact quite dangerous. The Founding Fathers explicitly wanted to avoid governance without broad support for the simple reason that governing by slim majority engenders division. 51% of the country cramming down its views on the other 49% does not bode well for long-term unity. 

The second threat, that of court packing, is far more insidious. Court packing is the practice of adding justices to the Supreme Court with the intent of altering the ideological balance of the Court. The left has a history of such threats, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt advocating for court packing in 1937 after the Supreme Court struck down some of his signature New Deal legislation. The number of justices on the Court has not changed since 1869, meaning if ever there was a precedent to uphold, it would be this. Packing the court failed in Roosevelt’s time for the same reason it should fail now: it is illiberal. If the number of justices on the Court are manipulated according to the ideological whims of the party in power, there can be no impartial justice, and the Court would simply sway with the electoral winds. Packing the Court verges on the authoritarian, for it abrogates the role of the Court as a check on the legislative and executive branches, and eliminates its status as an independent branch. If the Court is simply packed with partisans whenever one party takes the Senate and the Presidency, then the Court is not independent, for its power is shifted to the legislative and executive branches of government, who can manipulate the Court at their will to fit their policy prescriptions. Fumbling with the court system is one of the hallmarks of illiberalism, and is often among the first institutions of democracy to fall. In Hungary, authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has reworked the high court to fit his far-right legislative agenda, neutering its ability to check his power. In the process, Hungary has become ever less free. That is not to say that the Democrats want to emulate such results, by all available evidence they do not, but it is to say that diminishing freedom is the result of policies like court packing. 

Leading Democrats have either advocated for or refused to rule out both ending the filibuster and packing the court. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is quoted as saying, “nothing is off the table,” and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) was even more forthright, directly calling for both policies. Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is also the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has stated that if a new justice is confirmed during the lame duck session, “then the incoming Senate should immediately move to expand the Supreme Court.” Potentially more concerning, the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), has said she is “absolutely open to it [packing the Court],” and studiously avoided answering the question of what the Biden campaign believes at the Vice Presidential debate. Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden himself refused to say where he stood on the issue at the first 2020 Presidential debate, claiming, “Whatever position I take in that, that will become the issue.” In response to a recent question from the press, Biden said that the nation “will know my opinion of court-packing when the election is over.” According to Biden, voters “do not deserve” to know his position. That he refuses to rule it out is telling: he had previously been against packing the Court, but it would appear that he is now open to or supportive of it. More broadly, a survey from Marquette University Law School found, before Ginsburg passed away, that 61% of Democrats supported court packing. Only 41% of Independents and 34% of Republicans supported it. One can reasonably guess that the figure for the Democrats has risen sharply. 

Capitulating to these threats would both legitimize and normalize such behavior. Giving into the demands of a would-be criminal rarely does any good, and instead emboldens the criminal to make the same or worse threats down the line. This is not comparing the Democrats to criminals, but is meant simply to illustrate a point: bending the knee to illiberal threats will not prevent their continued use in the future, rather, it only increases their use. If the country devolves into one which makes policy based on the radical threats of one side of the isle (be it left or right), then it cannot be rightly considered a true democratic republic. At that point, the proper functioning of democracy ceases. Instead, those threats need to be met with a resolute commitment to the law, and respect for the foundational institutions of the nation. If the other side chooses to continue, or worse, follow through with its threats, it will bear the consequences both in public opinion and, eventually, at the ballot box. 

However, the illiberal rhetoric of the Democrats begs the question: how did the country get to this point? The answer lies in the way the left views the role of the Supreme Court and the court system as a whole. For the left, the court system is supposed to rule based on what is morally right. Not what is legally right, but what is moral. Morality, unfortunately, is a subjective judgement in the modern secular world, making it an imperfect (at best) tool for carrying out the law. The left often sees the Constitution as a ‘living’ document, a document that has no set and indisputable interpretation, but rather is interpretable based on the ever-shifting moral principles of contemporary society. Effectively, the Court is a tool to forward policies that the left could not hope to pass through the legislative process. Take Roe v. Wade for example. Nowhere does the Constitution enumerate a right to abortion, and the case itself basically acknowledges that, referring instead to ‘emanations’ and ‘penumbras’ in the text that somehow indicate such a right. The faults in this judicial philosophy should be obvious: there is no limiting principle, indeed no principles at all, besides the opinion of the judge or Justice. The danger is that without a set principle of legal interpretation, there are effectively no safeguards against wayward rulings in either direction, and if the law is itself fluid, there is no clear rule of law. The end result is an overarching lack of confidence and trust in the court system, thus undermining one of the key institutions of American political life. 

While the left might appreciate a relativistic judicial philosophy today, it is doubtful that they would be equally supportive if it were used to their detriment. If relativism is the method of legal interpretation, then there is nothing to stop judges from deciding that free speech, for instance, does not apply in one of the causes the left supports. Of course, that sort of decision would be entirely wrong from a textualist perspective (more on that later), but there is nothing according to relativist judicial doctrine that would make it wrong. The problem is that relativism is able to be weaponized by anyone, and there is no guarantee that it will work in the left’s favor forever. It is a path that everyone would do well to avoid pursuing any further.

None of this means that the left (or any political leaning for that matter) will never be able to achieve its policy goals, it can, but it has to do so through the legislative process. It is the job of the legislature, not the court system, to make law. It follows that it is the job of the court system to interpret the law, as written. The court system is unelected, and has no direct line to the will of the people, which should be the ultimate source of political power and policy. When an unelected few begin to make the law for the populace as a whole, there can be no doubt that division will follow, for there are few checks on an unelected power. 

It is because of the left’s judicial philosophy that the Supreme Court has become so contentious, for the furthering of the left’s policies rely on it. The solution to this problem, besides going through the proper legislative process, is a return to a textualist judicial philosophy. Textualism is the reading and interpreting of the law based on the meaning of the text at the time of the law’s passage. The purpose of a law is to further policy in accordance with the will of the people, and the will of the people is crystallized in the meaning of the law upon its passage through the duly elected legislature at the time. Legislative intent does not matter, for it is not how the law is understood. The law is understood based on the words on the page. Further, intent of lawmakers is not fully available for study, it simply is not wholly documented. There is no way to know every thought and motive of those who passed a law. Textualism is not a philosophy of strict constructionism, for one must use one’s reason when reading a text. It is understandable to a rational person that the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which only states that people cannot be forced to quarter soldiers, extends to people not being forced to quarter police officers as well. Through a textualist judicial philosophy, there are clear guides to proper interpretation, making it non-relativistic, and therefore predictable and stabilizing.

Of course, if the law is unsatisfactory, it can be subsequently changed, or in the case of the Constitution, amended, in accordance with the will of the people. The Founders gave the nation processes by which to effectuate those changes, among which the courts do not feature. For the judiciary to reinterpret statutes in light of present circumstances or moral views is to circumvent the will of the people and thus undermine the rule of law and democracy itself. Rather than supporting judges legislating from the bench, the left would do well to focus on persuading the nation to support their policies.

The Silent Heroes of Holy Cross

From room inspections to fun hall events, Resident Assistants (RA’s) work to create a safe and inclusive community within Holy Cross.  While some students may believe that RA’s are unwelcome and a nuisance, the truth is that many students are supported and uplifted by their RA every semester.  

Despite their hard work, RA’s oftentimes do not receive recognition by the student body, and are even degraded at times.  In fact, with the creation of the Remote RA program, one student felt the need to personally attack remote and on-campus RA’s, likening the program to a “car crash.”  Because of this blatant and ignorant attack, it is even more necessary to uplift these silent heroes and bring a new perspective concerning RA’s role at Holy Cross.

RA’s play an integral role in maintaining the physical safety of the Holy Cross community.  Whenever there is a safety concern, one can expect an RA to be first at the scene.  They are on call overnight in case of a late-night emergency, and they coordinate with Public Safety to resolve dangerous situations.  

While the commitment to physical safety is an RA’s number one priority, RA’s also play an enormous role in creating an inclusive community and caring for the mental and emotional  health of their residents.  The ability to dive into new social environments is hard for some students, and RA’s have proven to be valuable resources to help residents transition to college life.  Let’s explore the experiences of those whose RA positively impacted their lives and, in some cases, even inspired them to become RA’s themselves.

One current HRA states that his freshman year RA “offered a safe space for people not super extraverted.”   This particular action of supporting those who don’t fit in is what inspired him to become an RA in the first place.  The same HRA’s favorite aspect of the role is “developing friendships with residents and helping residents in need of support.”

A Sophomore Remote RA spoke about what inspired her to become an RA, “My first-year RA was such a community builder! She worked hard to make my first-year experience productive and fun; she made the 4th floor Mulledy vault feel like home! Even on a virtual platform, I'd love to be able to give my residents those same memories of community!”  Her goal as a first-year remote RA is to “bring people together and facilitate the normal get-to-know-yous that would be happening on campus” and to “make everyone feel welcome and supported.” 

A Sophomore resident says that her HRA last year “inspired me” and “convinced me to sign up for hall council and get more involved in our building.”  Looking back on her first year experience at Holy Cross, she states, “I was extremely thankful for it because it allowed me to make friends with people I may not have otherwise met…”  

As a person that doesn’t easily fit in myself, moving to Holy Cross last year was hard for me.  Oftentimes, all I wanted to do was leave Holy Cross for good; I felt so different and separated from everyone around me.  I was a Oneness Pentecostal submerged into a Catholic world, and my unfamiliarity with Catholicism made me feel nervous and somewhat inferior.  Also, I was extremely close to my family back home in Tennessee, and being separated from them was extremely difficult.  

I didn’t know anyone at Holy Cross.  But there were a select few who noticed me on the sidelines and included me.  Most of them were RA’s.  My HRA made it her mission to ensure that I felt included.  Two friends of mine who were RA’s also went out of their way to include me in their already-formed friend groups.  That commitment to those on the margins is what inspired me to do the same and become an RA myself.

This semester, COVID-19, which has prevented many of us from being on campus, made achieving this mission all the more challenging. .  In response, a few RA’s volunteered to become “Remote RA’s” to help keep the sense of community alive through this hard time.  The Remote RA program seeks to accomplish this through planning fun virtual events, facilitating one-on-ones, and continuing to be a resource for all students.  

Despite what some may say, the role RA’s play in the lives of residents is definitely not an unwelcome part of campus life.  Some may think that RA’s are just that annoying knock on the door, but that could not be farther from the truth.  To those who’ve struggled adjusting to Holy Cross or struggled with loneliness, RA’s are heroes.  And, for the most part, these heroes don’t take any credit.  They do it, not for applause, but because they have a passion for helping others, especially those who feel on the margins.  This mission carries on whether we are in person or remote.