Donald Trump’s Challenge to the GSB

Since I arrived on campus 14 months ago, everybody who has learned that I worked for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and in lobbying in Washington, DC, has asked me some variation of the same question:

What in God’s Holy Name is going on with Donald Trump, and are you voting for him?

The short answer to the latter question is no (I’m not voting for Hillary either), and to the former question is that it’s complicated. The results of the non disclosure poll of the GSB student body show a clear problem that the GSB community must confront.

Trump’s candidacy as distinct from Trump’s campaign is the place where I think the GSB needs to deepen its understanding of the consequences of this election cycle, regardless of the result. The values to which Trump speaks are antithetical to the principles of this school, and their popularity is a challenge with consequences for our future.[1]

We are a staggeringly multiform group by national and ethnic origin, professional history, nominal political affiliation, and almost every other traditional diversity metric. These differences, however, hide a very strong uniformity in worldview.[2] The numbers bear this out. Of 227 people who took an election survey, only seven are voting for Donald Trump. Of those, only two are voting for him because they support his candidacy, and not because they don’t like Hillary. More people are planning to write-in, vote third party, or not vote at all. Despite having the support of close to half of American voters, Trump is anathema at the GSB.

That Hillary Clinton has over 80 percent support at the GSB is especially surprising when you consider that 40 percent of the class has voted Republican at least once in the past, and about 25 percent self-identifies as having done so consistently. Half of those consistent Republicans are voting for Hillary Clinton. (For full poll statistics, click here). This is completely at odds with the rest of the country.

RealClearPolitics has the race within two percentage points, and polls show Trump with the support of 86 percent of Republicans nationally.

The gap between Trump’s overall appeal and his utter lack thereof at this school is stunning. This is a distinction that runs far deeper than ordinary partisan preference. Students here are unusual in actively putting aside their past affiliations to reject Trump and his worldview.

Donald Trump is a symptom, not a disease.

The contrast between Trump’s appeal across the country and his utter lack thereof at this school is stunning and worrisome. Trump’s support is rooted in the astonishing lack of trust that most Americans have in the institutions that GSB students will ostensibly lead upon graduating. According to Gallup, only three are above 50 percent approval:[3] the military, small businesses, and the police.[4] The rankings from the bottom up are as follows: Congress — 6 percent; big business — 18 percent; newspapers — 20 percent; television news — 21 percent; the criminal justice system — 23 percent; organized labor — 23 percent; banks — 27 percent; public schools — 30 percent; the Supreme Court — 36 percent; the presidency — 36 percent. These are the bedrock institutions of American society, and most people have (at least temporarily) written them off.

The question for GSB students is how to lead effectively when there is so little confidence in these institutions’ ability to act in the people’s own interests. It is equally troubling that gaping divisions have opened between the values of the elites who manage these institutions and those for whose benefit we will supposedly run them. If the mission of the GSB is to train the leaders of our public and private institutions, how on earth are we supposed to lead when our values disagree so starkly with so many others’?

The best defense for the GSB’s values lies in improving people’s lives in measurable, tangible ways — not just economically, but socially, morally, and spiritually.

The principles of free and democratic societies have rested for hundreds of years on Jefferson’s maxim from the Declaration of Independence: Any morally sound government must derive its “just powers from the consent of the governed.” The current political environment suggests that for many, consent to the current political and cultural order is both conditional and wavering.

From this, we face a tradeoff. The first option is to try to deny people with opposing worldviews a say in the institutions that oversee society. This is fundamentally undemocratic, and will bring our society to an extraordinarily dangerous place.[5] It will lead to the ultimate discrediting of our already unstable institutions, and enable the rise of mendacious demagogues far more insidious than Donald Trump.

The alternative involves giving these opposing values more legitimacy. That would mean giving the race/class-based solidarity of the Trump movement that makes most of us recoil an open place in our society. Many would feel a dereliction of duty if we allowed ideas we find so toxic and destructive to proliferate.

Reconciling this conflict must involve more than just an iron fist or a velvet glove. The best defense for the GSB’s values lies in improving people’s lives in measurable, tangible ways — not just economically, but socially, morally, and spiritually.

What can we do? In the immediate term the best thing we can do is listen. You will hear arguments that make you deeply uncomfortable, but treating these voters as legitimate dissenters and not apostates is a crucial first step for bridging this gulf.

In the long run, we must remember that civic leadership doesn’t require being a Cabinet Secretary or a Senator. Strong leaders in our hollowed communities, as unglamorous as that job can be, are what this country needs more than anything. We need to set leadership examples in school boards, PTAs, state legislatures, and town councils.

Donald Trump is a symptom, not a disease. He is a manifestation of our failure to deliver real, inclusive leadership, our inability to recognize that tribal and national distinctions still matter to the human psyche, and ultimately our loss of perspective on the true nature and source of power in our society. The GSB community is a minority. We must listen to what people say, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us. Our aspirations as a school depend on it.

[1] I can’t emphasize enough that Trump is not unique. Bernie Sanders and Brexit are other examples of contemporary populist rebellions in Western politics. Populism has also always been a part of America’s political DNA. See: the Tea Party in 2010, Ross Perot in 1992, William Jennings Bryan and the “Cross of Gold” in 1896, Andrew Jackson, and so forth.

[2] To make a ham-fisted analogy, imagine a meal at the French Laundry, the Bay Area restaurant voted best in the world in 2003 and 2004. The menu there may be a potpourri of exotic ingredients from all over the world prepared in ingenious ways, but the Wagyu beef in the sixth course has a lot more in common with the turnips in the fourth course than it does with a Big Mac, even though it nominally comes from the same animal as the latter.

[3] Gallup uses the metrics “[a] great deal of confidence,” “quite a lot of confidence,” “some [confidence],” “very little [confidence],” and “none.” The numbers above reflect the addition of the first two categories.

[4] Given recent events, it is certainly worth noting that there are well-grounded demographic discrepancies in police approval.

[5] Jefferson’s take: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”