Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff’s “The Future of Free Speech” explains why this pattern keeps recurring. Politicians invoke free speech when they are out of power and narrow it once they have some. University leaders suddenly discover procedural nuance only when they are cornered in a congressional hearing. Democratic governments praise open debate while steadily carving out new exceptions to it. But hypocrisy is not the book’s main subject. Its real concern is free-speech pessimism: the growing belief that open debate is simply too dangerous to leave alone. Before Trump promised restoration, universities had already trained students to self-censor, employers had turned speech into a reputational risk, and the Biden years had supplied their own examples of speech panic, from the Disinformation Governance Board to pressure on platforms to take down posts. Censorship rarely ends with the people who first justify it. More often, it creates the backlash that empowers the next censor.

The book’s central argument is that we are living through a “free-speech recession.” The second half of the twentieth century was a golden age, when democracies were principled that liberty required broad protection for dissent, criticism, and open argument. That time is now gone. Drawing on Freedom House data, the authors note that roughly 6.3 billion people in eighty-one countries experienced a decline in freedom of expression in just ten years. Internet freedom has declined for fourteen consecutive years. Pew found in 2023 that 55 percent of Americans support government restrictions on false information online even at the cost of free expression, up from 39 percent in 2018. Mchangama and Kosseff argue that America’s free-speech tradition is now under greater threat than at any point since the Second Red Scare. This is not a book about dictators doing what dictators do. Its subject is the spreading conviction, even inside liberal democracies, that open debate is too risky to leave alone.

The book’s moral center is not built around the hateful men who populate some of its most memorable chapters, but around the people who most needed the right to speak. Frederick Douglass published an abolitionist newspaper while the postmaster general intercepted his mail. Eleanor Roosevelt fought to make free expression a universal human right over the objections of governments that preferred silence. Nelson Mandela argued from the dock at Rivonia that the right to speak was inseparable from the right to be free. Mchangama and Kosseff invoke these figures not as decoration, but as proof. The people who most needed free speech were never the powerful. They were the people the powerful wanted silenced.

That is why the chapter on the Four Hateful Men lands so hard. The speakers at the center of those cases were racists, bigots, and provocateurs, nothing like Douglass or Mandela. Yet the precedents advanced the rights of the very groups they despised. Terminiello v. Chicago, a case defending an anti-Semitic priest’s right to deliver a hate-filled speech to an angry mob, was later cited to overturn the convictions of 187 Black students arrested for peacefully protesting segregation at the South Carolina state legislature. Critics like law professor Mary Anne Franks argue that the First Amendment has been hijacked by a white male supremacist agenda. The historical record says otherwise. The ugliest cases built the legal floor that the civil rights movement stood on. Rights that depend on the moral appeal of the speaker do not remain rights for long.

That tension lies at the heart of the book. Two democratic instincts are in conflict, and they have been for decades. The first is the Jackson instinct. Justice Robert H. Jackson prosecuted Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, saw Julius Streicher sentenced to death for propaganda, and came home convinced that democracies could be too trusting of dangerous movements. In his Terminiello dissent, he warned that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. The second is Justice Louis Brandeis’s instinct: that the answer to bad speech is not enforced silence but counterspeech, civic confidence, and the marketplace of ideas. Mchangama and Kosseff write squarely on Brandeis’s side, and their European chapters supply the evidence. Censorship does not simply threaten liberty. It backfires, hardening grievance and handing the next censor a ready-made justification.

That backfire effect runs through every country they examine. Germany, France, and Britain have all built expanding regimes of hate-speech laws, anti-extremism rules, and anti-disinformation measures in the name of preserving liberal order through militant democracy. The returns, however, are weak. Germany’s NetzDG, aimed at forcing platforms to remove hate speech quickly, has been in force for years; yet right-wing extremist offenses still reached a new high in 2024. France had more than 20,000 people listed as security threats in 2020, then watched Marine Le Pen win 33 percent of the vote in the first round of Macron’s snap election. British police now make around 12,000 arrests a year for offensive online posts. The Dutch case is the starkest. When Geert Wilders was prosecuted for anti-Muslim hate speech in 2011 and again in 2016, his party surged both times and became the largest in parliament by 2023. These laws do not quiet extremism, restore trust, or reduce polarization. They expand the state’s authority over expression.

Germany supplies the book’s sharpest example of that danger. After October 7, crackdowns on pro-Palestinian activism reached not only extremists but Jewish critics of Israel. Iris Hefets, a Jewish activist born in Israel, was prosecuted under Germany’s anti-Semitism laws for protesting the war in Gaza and calling it a genocide. The state begins by claiming it is protecting minorities. It ends up using those same powers against the people it claimed to protect.

When democracies censor, they do not merely imitate authoritarian logic. They legitimize it. Two days after the EU banned RT and Sputnik, Russia blocked the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and Voice of America, citing the EU’s own rationale about false information and national security. In Hong Kong, the 2020 National Security Law that jailed Jimmy Lai borrowed the same language of public order that liberal democracies had spent years normalizing. Once democracies grow comfortable treating speech as a threat to manage, they hand authoritarians both the vocabulary and the excuse.

The book’s most interesting example is Taiwan. With China targeting the island with sustained propaganda, Taiwan has more reason than most democracies to panic about disinformation and foreign influence. Yet it has largely resisted the European path anyway. Rather than build a censorship regime, it leaned into radical transparency, rapid public communication, and civil-society fact-checking. Digital Affairs Minister Audrey Tang’s formulation is the book’s best line: make the state transparent to citizens, but never ask citizens to be transparent to the state. Openness is not a weakness. It is a democratic advantage. That model has a partial echo even on the platform most associated with free-speech absolutism. X’s Community Notes, where volunteers with opposing viewpoints must agree before a correction goes public, has proven surprisingly resilient. It has flagged Karoline Leavitt for falsely claiming that most Americans supported the war in Iran and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem for misrepresenting ICE’s killing of Alex Pretti. Its most unintentionally revealing validator may be Elon Musk, who ranks forty-third on his own platform’s Community Notes leaderboard.

The weakness of “The Future of Free Speech” is not that it lacks seriousness or candor. Mchangama and Kosseff do not pretend to offer a magic bullet, and they are right to reject the fantasy that censorship can solve democratic disorder. Still, the book is far more persuasive in diagnosis than in blueprint. Its practical alternative leans heavily on Taiwan, which it treats not just as an illuminating exception but as a prototype. That makes the case both stronger and more vulnerable: stronger because Taiwan shows that democratic resilience need not depend on censorship, more vulnerable because one unusually cohesive and geopolitically singular society can carry only so much argumentative weight.

The authors acknowledge that digital platforms bring out some of the worst parts of human behavior. What the book does not fully resolve is how its preferred remedies work in an online world shaped not just by virality, but by personalization. For curious people, this era is remarkable. Ordinary users now have access to more arguments, reporting, archives, and serious debate than any previous generation. But abundance cuts both ways. Large language models and recommendation systems do not just spread falsehood faster. They can generate tailored content that tells users what they already want to hear. That makes the problem deeper than ordinary propaganda. Community Notes and similar tools can help, but only up to a point. They can correct claims. They cannot make people want correction. Still, the alternative is worse. A government that protects citizens from being misled also claims the power to decide what they are allowed to hear. The best case for an open internet is not that it guarantees wisdom. It is that it keeps rival arguments and evidence available to anyone willing to look. That does not prevent democratic error. But it does make bad ideas harder to protect from scrutiny and easier to discredit over time.

The real danger, Mchangama and Kosseff argue, is not censorship itself. It is the confidence behind it. The people most eager to regulate speech rarely think of themselves as censors. They think of themselves as realists, managing risk, preserving democracy, and protecting the vulnerable. The book is a rebuttal to the belief, now common in both politics and academia, that free speech is a principle for easier times, a luxury once politics grows too volatile, too hateful, or too online.

“The Future of Free Speech” is strongest when it shows how censorship backfires. It is less convincing on whether counterspeech and transparency can hold up in an abundant information economy that rewards affirmation more reliably than judgment. That gap is real. But Mchangama and Kosseff’s larger point still stands. A free society cannot save its citizens from every falsehood before it is believed or every bad idea before it is tried. Some illusions collapse only when they meet reality. Democracies do not prove their strength by silencing what they fear. They prove it by refusing to panic and by allowing error to be tested in public.

Following the election and inauguration of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, there has been debate regarding whether the ideology of individualism or collectivism is superior. Mamdani and his supporters praise collectivism, while their critics vehemently argue that history shows this is a siren song that must be ignored at all costs. President of Davidson College Libertarians Gabriel Russ-Nachamie argued in “The Coldness of Collectivism” that collectivism has failed spectacularly, from the Soviet experiment to Maoist China. These catastrophes reflect the failures of command economies, but ought not be used to evaluate all collectivist policies. Russ-Nachamie is essentially equating the efficacy of any policy that might benefit the collective over an individual to that of planned economies. This is simply a false equivocation, as the relevant question is not whether to subscribe to pure collectivism or individualism, but rather how democratic governments ought to address market failures without distorting price signals and individual liberties. I will concede that I believe some of Zohran’s platform does overstep with regard to price controls, such as the proposed rent freeze. However, that does not mean his stance towards practical collectivism should be tossed aside without a second thought.

The central problem of command economies is information. Russ-Nachamie eloquently describes failures resulting from such problems in a command economy. His example regarding the complexity of information required for something as seemingly simple as the production of a pencil makes this idea clear. This process relies heavily on information constantly updated by price levels in a responsive market based on the incentives afforded to actors in the economy. This information is lost whenever binding price controls are imposed, causing shortages and surpluses that would otherwise be avoided. For Zohran’s rent freeze policy, this is where I find the most issue, as putting a binding price control creates inefficiencies and misallocations, which likely outweigh any benefits to the well-being of a few individuals who stand to gain from the locked prices. This is why price controls should be used very sparingly when making policy, and their costs must be truly weighed against a tangible gain. An example of a socially beneficial price control is a minimum wage. Minimum wage is effectively a price floor on labor, preventing firms from exploiting individuals who lack bargaining power and cannot afford to refuse a job offer with a suboptimal wage. This is a prime example of how sparing, but intelligent, use of a collectivist price control can be beneficial to society and broadly endorsed.

This is where a distinction must be made. There is a stark difference between command economies, such as those of the 20th-century authoritarian regimes, and mixed economies, such as those of most modern democracies. The types of economies that Russ-Nachamie references throughout his article are all complete command economies. These systems had broadly applied price controls and central planning, whereas in typical market-based economies, such as in the U.S. and by extension New York, there are few of these price controls. Furthermore, the implementation of these policies is generally tactful and thought-out. Being compared to the image that Zohran envisions for New York City would likely be taken as an insult by the radicals who built previous communist regimes.

Now, even if I were to concede that all price controls are always inadvisable, collectivist policy is a broad umbrella encompassing any policy intended to primarily benefit broader society. Under this definition, there are still many “collectivist” policies within Zohran’s platform that would be beneficial without price controls. This includes free public bus fares, the construction of affordable housing, the fight against corporate exploitation, higher tax rates on the wealthy, and no-cost childcare. Each of these policies aims to address a market externality that a laissez-faire system would turn into an inefficiency. Zohran’s approach to addressing externalities is built on creating new incentive structures through reformed regulation as well as direct financial carrots and sticks.

There are many examples of how collectivist policy has benefited Americans for decades, if not centuries. Public education is a collectively paid-for service that benefits all Americans. Even if you yourself never attended a public school, you still benefit from the positive externalities associated with having an educated public providing services to your community. Public infrastructure is the result of collectivist policy, paying for highways that connect our cities and allow for the transportation of not only goods but also people at far lower cost, benefiting everyone. Antitrust policies have benefited all consumers since they were first implemented under Theodore Roosevelt, preventing the exploitation of the public through monopoly pricing and price setting behavior by large cartels.

Some might be concerned that this could lead to a “slippery slope”; however, I would argue that is extremely unlikely, considering we are talking about a handful of policies directed towards specific problems in one city in one state in a very divided country. The likelihood that any of these policies are implemented at a country wide scale is essentially negligible. The only way this becomes a widespread policy stance is if there is at least some degree of success in this particular iteration of collectivist policy.

If Mamdani’s policies fail, they should be rejected for their lack of merit. If they succeed in addressing externalities without damaging individual liberties and market efficiencies, they should be accepted and adopted elsewhere. Our real quarrels should not lie with collectivism itself, but with the refusal to delineate between authoritarian command economies and pragmatic democratic governance. Sound policy is not an ideological holy war, but rather the balancing of incentives, information, and human welfare. Perhaps with such an attitude, we can warm any coldness from collectivism, but also quell the inferno of individualism.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. This ruling invalidates both the “fentanyl” tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, and the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs enacted on “Liberation Day,” April 2, 2025.

The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, argued that revenue-raising tariffs are a form of taxation that requires congressional authorization, while Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented on the basis that the IEEPA grants the President authority to “regulate” importation, establishing his ability to unilaterally introduce tariffs. However, this ruling does not affect Section 301 tariffs on goods from China or Section 232 tariffs on steel (50%), aluminum (50%), and automobiles (25%).

Despite President Trump’s repeated insistence that tariffs are “paid for by foreign countries,” a tariff is a tax levied by a government on imported goods. The domestic company that pays the tariff is confronted with three options: sacrifice profit margins, raise prices, or cut costs through layoffs and forgone investment. A February 2026 report from the New York Fed found that 90% of the 2025 tariffs’ economic burden fell on American consumers and businesses. According to the Budget Lab at Yale, consumers pay 31–63% of the cost of tariffs on core goods like clothing and household supplies and 46–96% of tariffs on durable goods such as appliances and electronics.

Since everyone spends a similar amount on necessities regardless of earnings, tariffs function as a regressive sales tax that disproportionately hurts low-income households. The Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank, estimates that tariffs caused an average household tax increase of $1000 in 2025. This is an amount that 53% of Americans say they lack the sufficient liquidity to cover in Bankrate’s most recent Emergency Savings Report, and runs contrary to the President’s campaign promise of “making America affordable again.” Despite this, the ruling unlocks up to $175 billion in tariff revenue for refunds to affected firms, which does nothing to remedy the impact on consumers and produces little incentive for businesses to reduce prices to pre-tariff levels.

While the administration points to a fourth option of companies reshoring supply chains to bring middle-wage manufacturing jobs back to the US, Section 232 tariffs raise the cost of imported inputs, offsetting potential job gains with job losses in downstream industries like automotives and construction where there are 80 jobs for every job in steel mills and 177 jobs for every job in aluminum production. The Tax Foundation predicts a loss of 154,000 jobs in 2026 as a direct consequence of tariffs. This phenomenon can be witnessed in the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia Metropolitan Statistical Area, where Parkdale Mills, a historic textile manufacturer in Gastonia, recently shuttered its Walnut Cove factory and laid off 72 workers due to rising costs.

Tariffs imposed on exports from other countries do not exist in isolation; US trading partners such as China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union have responded with retaliatory tariffs, causing American firms to lose access to critical export markets. According to the John Locke Foundation, North Carolina’s agricultural industry is projected to lose $695 million in net farm income and incur a total economic loss of $1.9 billion, over 2% of the state’s GDP. After factoring in ripple effects from lost revenue, North Carolina stands to lose 8,000 jobs, concentrated in rural communities.

Even without accounting for job losses from higher input costs and retaliatory measures, steel consumers paid $650,000 per job created in the steel industry through tariffs in 2018. Meanwhile, other job creation programs such as infrastructure investment are much more cost-effective, creating 18,000 jobs per $1 billion in spending, or approximately $55,600 per job.

In response to the Supreme Court ruling, President Trump imposed a 15% global surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. However, Section 122 tariffs have a statutory limit of 150 days, after which Congress must vote to extend them. This grants Senate Democrats the opportunity to use the filibuster to allow the 15% tariff to expire on July 24, 2026. Even then, the surcharge is vulnerable to lawsuits since Section 122 can only be invoked to address “large and serious balance-of-payments deficits,” which the current “system of floating exchange rates completely eliminates” according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman.

President Trump’s decision to continue to pursue sweeping tariffs comes as his trade agenda faces a crisis of legitimacy. A February 2026 ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll reveals that 64% of American adults disapprove of the administration’s handling of tariffs, including a significant 72% of independents who view the policy as exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis the President promised to solve.

Trump’s tariffs have time and again proven themselves to be inefficient, inequitable, and utterly pointless for certain goods. As Pennsylvania Representative Madeleine Dean told Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, “We cannot build bananas in America.”

Necessitas facit licitum quod alias non licitur.

Necessity makes that lawful which is otherwise unlawful.

The doctrine of necessity is a controversial legal maxim of extraordinary proportions.It mandates that under certain exceptional circumstances deemed necessary, the state, or an agency of the state, may engage in activities that would otherwise be in contravention of its constitution and consequently illegal. It is a convention that has served as the legitimiser of coups in countries such as Pakistan, Uganda, Nigeria, and Fiji. This idea is inappropriate at adjudicating any action by an agency of the state, let alone deciding upon a case wherein it has struck a blow against the state in a military takeover. This is because of the looseness of the legal definition of “necessity” that permits the unconstitutional act of the uprooting of a government on the grounds of “restoring justice”. Notwithstanding, this principle has been vastly used by the highest courts of law of the aforementioned states in order to legitimise military governments that unconstitutionally withdrew the fundamental rights of their people, including the right to life. For example, the Zia-ul-Haq regime in Pakistan, which seized power from the civil government in 1977, conducted mass arrests of students, journalists, politicians, and activists in the 1980s under the Defence of Pakistan Ordinance 1971 and the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1960. In order to prevent judicial review, the military also suspended the jurisdiction of Pakistan’s superior courts over its military courts and overrode the authority and independence of its judicial system.

The violence inflicted against both the public and the institutional design of the state in the case of Pakistan was a mere illustration of the damage the doctrine of necessity is capable of. Its application is, by any reasonable metric of justice, not a justifiable one. St. Thomas Aquinas’ declaration, “Lex iniusta non est lex” – “an unjust law is no law at all” – comes into picture here. No state that finds itself obliged to provide justice as a public good to its citizenry would be expected to choose this path. Naturally, one might also be forgiven to believe that the doctrine of necessity has no place in the democratic life, for it cannot co-exist with the ideas of constitutional liberalism.

Until it does, albeit in a contorted form.

The evolution of a state governed by a democratic constitution is built around certain rights that its citizens give to themselves and are typically beyond the scope of destruction by any measure available to an agency of the state. These fundamental provisions, rooted in the natural rights of life and liberty, permit citizens to exist in equality and perform activities such as expression, association, religious exercise, and economic occupation without any undue interference by the state. Any legislation or executive ordinances produced by the state that violate this basic structure of the constitution, which is in its essence a manifestation of the social contract that is the foundation of the state itself, is voided by the judiciary as it is found to be without the just character of the law.

The line of control the basic structure attempts to draw, however, blurs when the fundamental rights it attempts to protect are potentially contributory to the possible destabilisation of the state itself, thus compromising the general welfare – and the right to life – of the body politic. Under these circumstances, the state warrants the exercise of emergency statutory and constitutional provisions that permit it to override individual rights, even fundamental ones, in the name of the maintenance of public order. These emergency provisions, therefore, are premised on the doctrine of necessity.

While constitutionally run states cannot exercise emergency powers without a formal declaration of exigency, which in most cases must be sanctioned by the national legislature within a certain period, it is important to note that these provisions have a critical flaw that warrants consideration. States often have constitutional provisions that permit “reasonable” restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression that go beyond the prospects of limiting hate speech and the incitement of violence. The constitutions of India, Bangladesh, and Turkey, for example, allow laws that restrict the freedom of speech and expression on vague grounds such as maintaining state integrity and public morality. Such leeway to restrict civil rights only compounds when dealing with more extreme circumstances that threaten public safety, the most significant one of which is terrorism.

Considered to be a significant criminal offense that entails the simultaneous destabilisation of the state, the incitement of violence within the national community, and the actual commission of violence against members of the community, it is interesting to see how terrorism has been dealt with as an existential threat by states, especially in the context of the 9/11 Attacks and the Global War on Terror. Drawing from Christopher Preble, states have adopted a “zero-risk” policy against the possibility of terrorism and have implemented protocols ranging from preventive detention to digital surveillance to the deployment of military and paramilitary forces within domestic territories. What has also been seen is an increase in the rhetoric of security being treated as a fundamental right. For example, Franco Frattini, the Vice-President of the European Commission from 2004 to 2008, termed the right to security as “A precondition for all other freedoms.” Richard Jackson, in his work on the rhetoric of counter-terrorism, contended that the way in which the public narrative around acts of terror is instrumentalised to permit the strengthening of the punitive power of the state. The state effectively cultivates a narrative wherein innocent civilians are pitted against barbaric monsters and the spirit of the democratic state is at the threat of being put to the sword, thus creating access to emergency powers even easier. This is indicative of a global transition from attempting to balance liberty and general welfare to prioritising public order over all else. Furthermore, since these measures neither fall within the traditional ambit of emergency provisions typically used in the case of insurrection and war, or are used for dealing with problems that would have otherwise had a timeline (thus warranting sunset clauses which would have terminated these powers after the exigent circumstances are dealt with), the state is not as constrained as it would otherwise have been in a conventional national crisis. Consequently, what we have are governments with extensive powers to withdraw the liberties of their citizens with little to no accountability, and this is a problem.

This securitization of the doctrine of necessity is exactly what permits governments to remain authoritarian in a democratic guise today. By creating a worldview for the citizenry wherein the nation is under a constant state of siege against untrustworthy foreigners and disloyal citizens, the executive forces laws that permits it sweeping punitive powers down the throat of the legislature on the grounds of national survival. It then uses these powers to aggressively crack down on dissent: civil society and political opposition are the first to go. A report by Ben Saul, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism, warns against the global exercise of anti-terror laws against ordinary citizens without due process or judicial safeguards. This issue worsens when the other branches of the state, especially the judiciary, defer to the executive on counter-terrorism cases. Instead of taking a firm stance on the maintenance of the basic structure, courts globally are more reluctant to rule against the government under these circumstances. In many scenarios, the onus of proving guilt beyond a reasonable level of doubt is also reversed from the prosecution to the accused, case in point being India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2019: the presumption of innocence thus devolves into the presumption of guilt, which is in itself a perversion of the golden thread principle of criminal law.

In conclusion, the securitization of the doctrine of necessity in the constitutional state presents a paradox – the political order emergency provisions claim to protect may be destroyed by those very safeguards in a time of exigency. Consequently, the question that begs consideration is not whether the state of exception is needed in a national crisis, but rather whether a national crisis is triggered by the declaration of the state of exception itself.

My colleague Nic Cutler wrote in The Honor Code Prisoner’s Dilemma that the “suboptimal stable state” on campus today was the outcome of an unfortunate feedback loop, students and professors in a deadly downward lockstep of reducing trust, neither party to blame or with the power to break out. But a feedback loop has to start somewhere. The Honor Code is tied to the foundations of Davidson itself, dating back nearly two centuries to its inception in 1837. The Honor Code has withstood the Civil War, two world wars, integration, and co-education. What it could not withstand, however, was a deadly combination of societal pressures that began to combine only recently.

The first of these factors is, ironically enough, the declining value of the college degree. At the time of the Honor Code’s formalization, not even 10% of Americans went to college; today the figure is over 60%. The commodification of the bachelor’s degree has had consequences that range far and wide across American society, but the one most relevant here is that having a college degree means far less in 2026 than in 1966. The degree has become an expectation instead of a qualification, a box to check when applying for almost any white-collar role; today, most college graduates do not end up working in a field related to their degree.

On campus, this decline in value manifests in additional pressure, both academically and in extracurriculars, with students needing to “do more” with their time in college with every passing year. As employers begin to expect extensive leadership experience, several summer internships , and a straight-A average for even “normal” jobs, the pressure upon students inexorably grows, and the option of an easy way out becomes steadily more attractive. Even this duress, though, was not enough to really show the cracks in the Honor Code until recently; Davidson students, after all, are selected for both their honor and their ability to work under pressure. But honor and resistance to pressure cannot remain when the barriers to cheating disappear.

The advent of generative AI has been a watershed moment for academia as a whole, but Davidson has felt its effects particularly keenly. It takes so little effort to run that paper through ChatGPT, to ask Claude to touch up your coding assignment, to query Gemini about the film that you just didn’t have time to watch. Generative AI strikes at the heart of the twin pillars that kept the Honor Code afloat—individual compliance and strict reporting. In practice, this means that cheating is both significantly more accessible and extremely difficult to accurately report, creating a student body where misconduct is as widespread as its reporting is not.

It’s easy to point fingers and assign blame—to students for cheating in the first place, to the Honor Council for its passivity, to the college’s administration for its slow and inadequate response to AI. I think what matters more, though, is the reality we’re now living every day on campus, an effective “worst of both worlds” where the Honor Code is used as an excuse for inadequate testing procedures and wasted class time. These conditions are only going to get worse as entry-level jobs are cut and generative AI continues to improve. Any student who now chooses to follow the Code is at a disadvantage, and we’re seeing the consequences in real time. I’ve personally witnessed several professors publicly lamenting the fact that they can’t trust students anymore. We can either do nothing and watch student life continue to deteriorate under an imaginary Code—or face reality. The main problem isn’t an institutional failure nor externalities. The problem is us.

You have broken the Honor Code. I have broken the Honor Code. We have all broken the Honor Code, broken it and beaten it into a shape which scarcely retains any memory of its original. An institution which was once the beating heart of Davidson is now at best a decaying husk, subsumed by layer upon layer of calcified untruth and mistrust. We aren’t turning back, aren’t taking action, aren’t changing the system. This cannot continue—but it will, unless we do something about it.

As Davidson students, students who signed the Honor Code, it’s our responsibility to force college leadership to address the situation on the ground. Even as the death throes of the Code echo across campus, marketing material and admissions spokespeople continue to extol the virtues of take-home reviews. It’s in the college’s interest to keep up the charade as long as they can—to retain the tremendous recognition and advertising power that the Honor Code’s still-untarnished reputation affords them. Actually taking steps to restore the “community of trust” we once had won’t happen without pressure—because it requires acknowledgement that something’s gone wrong in the first place.

This acknowledgement won’t be easy to obtain; it might not be possible, given how easy it seems to be to paper over the cracks. But that shouldn’t matter, economic incentives shouldn’t matter. As Davidson students we are honor bound to hold ourselves and our community to the highest possible standard. Allowing deceit to slip through our fingers unnoticed is the ultimate vindication of the death of the Code. It could be as simple as going to office hours and talking to your professors about what it could take for them to trust students again, or making integrity the central issue when you respond to the Campus Climate survey. All I ask is that you try.

I don’t know if we’re ever going to return to the academic climate we once had—the pressures to cheat today might simply be too strong, the trust between parties on campus too eroded. Rebuilding trust is, as Nic Cutler wrote, far harder than breaking it. That makes it all the more important that we cherish and uphold the trust we do have on this campus, the trust that allows us to leave our bikes unlocked or our laptops out in Flibs all day without a trace of worry. We still have something special here at Davidson—let’s promise to ourselves that we won’t let it slip away.

On Thursday, February 26, Davidson College officially announced the creation of the D.G. and Harriet Wall Martin Institute for Public Good, promising to usher in a new chapter of deliberation, civic engagement, and service on campus. The Institute represents one of the most ambitious investments in Davidson’s civic mission in the college’s history and signals a strong desire for the college to position itself as the national leader in two of its keystone pillars: ethical leadership and democratic engagement.

The announcement in the Duke Performance Hall during common hour came after a cryptic invitation from the President’s office the day prior, inviting its thousands of recipients to hear the “terrific news.” And terrific it was, with a $47 million donor investment to work towards building out the five sectors of the Martin Institute, encompassing deliberation, the arts, public policy, ethics, and civic engagement.

This staggering investment builds on the $4 million federal grant Davidson received earlier this year. Plans for renovations to Phi and Eu Halls and the construction of the new outdoor Mack Plaza between them indicate that the Institute will become a visible center of campus life that will encourage gathering, conversation, and reflection.

The deliberative focus of this initiative will be embodied by The Beacon Program on Deliberation and Free Expression and could be the most interesting test of the institute’s strength. However, the most important work of deliberation at Davidson did not begin with this announcement.

A culture of peer-to-peer debate and intellectual curiosity has existed at Davidson since its founding nearly 200 years ago. One of the most significant steps toward strengthening that culture in recent years was the launch of the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI) in 2020, led by Dr. Graham Bullock. The program is a serious effort to realize Davidson’s Statement of Purpose, which calls on the college to educate students with “disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service.”

The DCI has created a plethora of opportunities for students to practice the exact kind of civic engagement the Statement of Purpose envisions, hosting small Deliberation teams throughout the semester and speaker panels that serve as models for student discussions.

At the same time, the unfortunate reality is that many deliberative events at Davidson attract the same relatively small group of participants. The same twenty or thirty students frequently appear at discussions, eager to engage and willing to give their time to the cause of deliberation. And while their commitment deserves recognition, the more difficult challenge is convincing the hundreds of other students on campus who never attend these conversations at all to show up and try out the deliberative experiment the DCI offers.

If Davidson hopes to fulfill its commitment to developing leaders capable of thoughtful public engagement, the challenge is not simply to host more conversations. It is to convince a broader range of students that this kind of engagement strengthens their own intellectual development, regardless of their academic discipline or political interests.

Deliberation should feel like a natural extension of the liberal arts education that Davidson promises to provide. A biology major discussing climate policy, an economics student debating public welfare programs, or a philosophy student grappling with ethical quandaries are all participating in the same fundamental process of intellectual exchange.

The new Martin Institute presents a significant opportunity to deepen Davidson’s culture of engagement, both within and beyond deliberative spaces. Dr. Hugh Lee, who leads the Institute’s Program on Ethics, Honor, and Leadership, described the broader ambition as helping “Davidson to be a national leader and model for other schools in how to foster a community of honor with a strong honor code, honor council, and system of respect.”

Yet Lee is equally clear that institutional structures alone cannot create that kind of community. Honor, he emphasized, must be something students genuinely believe in and take pride in upholding. It cannot exist merely as a set of rules written in a handbook or enforced through disciplinary procedures, it must be perpetuated proactively. The same principle applies to deliberation. A culture of meaningful conversation cannot be created simply by scheduling programming or administrative initiatives. It must be sustained by students who see engaging with difficult ideas and opposing viewpoints as part of their shared responsibility to the community.

There is also a risk that discussions about deliberation can become hollow if they remain disconnected from the real issues students care about. When conversations feel overly abstract or too carefully moderated, students quickly lose interest.

If the goal is to cultivate a culture of engagement, the discussions must confront the difficult questions that shape public life today. The future of American democracy, political polarization, immigration policy, economic inequality, climate change, artificial intelligence, freedom of speech, and religion are precisely the kinds of issues that demand thoughtful discussions. Avoiding them does not eliminate disagreement; it simply moves those disagreements into less productive spaces such as the combative world of social media.

During a recent visit to Davidson, BridgeUSA founder Manu Meel spoke about the possibility of what he called a “Deliberation Davidson,” a campus culture where students actively engage with one another across ideological and cultural differences. Meel believes many students today are deeply frustrated with the vitriolic tone and stagnation of national politics. “The majority of Americans, and students, are exhausted by the lack of problem-solving and the level of polarization,” he said. BridgeUSA chapters aim to provide an alternative model by encouraging students to engage directly with people who hold different views.

A BridgeUSA chapter is currently being formed at Davidson, adding another initiative to a campus already investing heavily in dialogue and civic engagement. Alongside the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, the new Martin Institute, and the Beacon Program on Deliberation and Free Expression, the chapter enters a space that is already fairly crowded with programs pursuing similar goals. That raises the question of how these efforts will ultimately distinguish themselves from one another. If each initiative ends up hosting similar panels, discussions, and workshops for the same small group of already-engaged students, the broader goal of expanding participation may remain elusive.

If Davidson is serious about strengthening a culture of deliberation, we must not shy away from difficult conversations. The real test of the success of the Martin Institute and related initiatives will not be measured by the number of events hosted, but by whether students feel comfortable engaging honestly with issues that could divide them.

Meaningful deliberation requires more than just a willingness to talk. It demands students who arrive at these conversations informed and prepared.

The modern information environment poses a significant challenge in this regard. Much of the news students encounter today comes through social media feeds, short videos, and curated content designed to attract the user’s attention and not necessarily provoke thoughtful questions or conversations.

Even traditional news outlets sometimes present issues through strongly partisan lenses, with headlines and perspectives that reinforce existing beliefs instead of encouraging deeper reflection. When students enter deliberative spaces relying primarily on fragmented or biased information sources, the conversation itself becomes more difficult and less productive.

Resources such as Tangle, Ground News, AllSides, and ProPublica can help students become more informed citizens and stronger deliberators by offering different approaches to presenting political information and context. While their methods vary from aggregating perspectives across the political spectrum to producing in-depth investigative reporting, they all aim to give readers a clearer understanding of the facts and the range of interpretations surrounding major public issues. Engaging with sources like these can help students approach political conversations with greater context and awareness of competing viewpoints.

Ultimately, the promise of the Martin Institute lies in its ability to bring together several elements that already exist at Davidson. The Institute provides institutional support, the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative offers key programming, student organizations like BridgeUSA can generate grassroots energy, and nonpartisan news platforms can help students approach conversations with a stronger factual foundation.

The question now is whether these pieces can truly come together. Despite the creative announcement teaser, The Martin Institute’s reveal event was noticeably sparse in student attendance, with a much larger presence of alumni, faculty, trustees, and other members of the Davidson community. This raises a natural question about how aware the broader student body is of this new institute and how big of a role it will ultimately play in student life.

Can the college successfully present the Institute as something that helps students grow and better themselves intellectually, take greater pride in their school, and contribute to Davidson’s broader ambitions? Can faculty initiatives, student organizations, and civic programming operate under a shared vision that strengthens the college?

The answer to all of this will depend almost exclusively on student engagement and student buy-in. Deliberation, in particular, is not something students learn by hearing about how to do it. It is something they learn by doing. The Martin Institute can provide the structure and the space. But what will become of it depends on whether the Davidson student community chooses to fill that space with curiosity, courage, and a willingness to wrestle with the difficult questions that could very well define their lives.

“Yesterday, you spent 3 hours on your phone.”

Harmless enough, right? But keep that up for a year, and you have just spent a month and a half of your life aimlessly scrolling. Stretch that to age 75, and that’s over 9 years of your life, surrendered to algorithms designed to steal your attention. In reality, 3 hours is on the short end of the spectrum. According to a 2023 Gallup poll, teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media apps, with total screen-time likely being much higher.

This digital addiction is common because we are constantly exposed to short-form content. Online, people have a simpler word for it: “brainrot.” Every time you open Instagram, TikTok, or any other highly dopaminergic app, you could be conditioning your brain to expect quick, intense bursts of rewards. If time on these apps is prolonged and becomes a habit, this can make studying, working, or focusing on mundane tasks feel less engaging by comparison. In addition, dopamine, which is our brain’s reward chemical, fluctuates throughout the day, so making a habit out of scrolling first thing in the morning trains your brain to crave that same pace for the rest of the day. As a result, slower, effortful tasks can feel disproportionately difficult after waking up and immediately checking your phone.

Percent distribution of teenagers ages 12–17, by hours of daily screen time: United States, July 2021–December 2023

Another problem with these dopaminergic apps is that they are built around variable rewards: unpredictable scrolling and algorithms that track your watch time, likes, saves, and shares. Wolfram Schultz, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, found that dopamine neurons fire strongest not for the reward itself, but for the surprise of getting more than you anticipated. Once a stimulus becomes predictable, the response fades out entirely. So, the possibility that the next swipe might deliver something better than the last is what keeps you pulled in, and what could turn a harmless 30-minute scroll into your whole afternoon gone.

What Endless Scrolling Does to Your Brain

Aside from the mental health issues, doom scrolling can have multiple effects on your brain. A systematic review and meta-analytic investigation of over 98,000 participants conducted by psychologists at Griffith University found that engagement with short-form videos, like the ones present in TikTok and Instagram is consistently associated with poorer cognitive performance, with the strongest hits landing on attention and inhibitory control—which is your brain’s ability to suppress impulsive behavior. Memory and language also showed much weaker associations, while reasoning abilities weren’t significantly affected at all. The researchers suggest this is driven by two processes: habituation, where your brain becomes desensitized to slower tasks like reading, and sensitization, where constant dopamine rewards condition your brain to crave instant stimulation. Interestingly, these effects were consistent across both young and adult users, meaning your brain’s reward and attention systems don’t have a significant impact on the brain developmental stage.

Furthermore, the same study found that short-form video use is also linked to poorer mental health, with stress and anxiety showing the strongest correlations, and weaker but still notable associations with depression, loneliness, and sleep quality.

How to Break the Cycle

If you find yourself tied to your screen or facing some side effects from this scroll-induced “brain rot,” the good news is that you can fix it. According to Bruce Goldman, a science writer at Stanford Medical School, all you need is a timeout. Goldman states a month is “typically the minimum amount of time we need away from our drug of choice, whether it’s heroin or Instagram, to reset our dopamine reward pathways.”

Deleting the app, setting time limits, or having someone else hold you accountable can all be good measures to keep your screen time in check. As students, we already spend so much time on screens, and supplementing that with hours of meaningless scrolling is only going to make things worse. If you still struggle with keeping it low, find a friend who’s in the same boat, and set screen time password locks on each other’s phones so only the other person knows the code. Write the password down somewhere safe—or don’t. Honestly, losing it might be the point.

February 7^th, 2025. A green gown, a hospital bed, a teddy bear. I sit in a hospital bed, waiting to be seen by a doctor. Fear in my parents’ eyes. A nurse tells me if I’m not careful, doctors will keep me here with no contact with the outside world. For over twenty hours, I sit with my thoughts. What do my parents think of me? My teachers? What does this mean for my future? I was told to stop “faking it for attention.” As a young adult, I was sent home with less than a kid’s dose of antidepressants. My second stay would come three months later, and my next hospitalization seven months after. In both cases, no doctor was ever assigned to my care. All this is to say that my experience with the psychiatric system has been more than unsatisfactory.

In recent years, commercialized drugs have been ubiquitous in American media. No matter where you look – television commercials, billboards, pop-up ads – pharmaceuticals are being displayed constantly. But these are not ordinary consumer products you just buy off the shelf. Psychiatric medication can be life-altering, both positively and negatively. While medications have saved many lives, American society has developed a culture of pharmaceutical quick fixes that prioritizes suppression of symptoms rather than encouraging scientific literacy. The crisis is not medication itself – it is that we are rarely taught what we are taking, why we are taking it, and what alternatives exist. People with disorders like me are not puzzles to be solved or problems to fix; we are people who deserve the same right to choose as anyone else.

Psychiatrists and Pharmaceutical Companies

According to the CDC, one in six American adults were on antidepressants in early 2025. That is somewhere in the 15-17% range, up from 11.3% in 2023. It is not just antidepressants, either; the CDC also reports that 43% of Americans are on some type of mental health medication. As a nation, mental health outcomes stay deeply troubling despite the rising prescription rates. There were drastic increases in suicides in a 15-year period. Back then, 14.1 million Americans were on antidepressants with 20.1% of the US population being treated for mental health. Provisional data shows U.S. suicide deaths fell less than 1% in 2024, showing that although there is some progress, mental health is still a major issue.

To get a drug to the market, it has to go through rigorous testing phases. Lots of time, money, and effort go into clearing for the public. The specifics of any pharmaceutical is there, locked behind a wall of “Here, take this and don’t ask questions.” We must choose to educate ourselves about what we agree to take, and while medication is thought of as the only answer, the underlying mental health issue remains at fault.

The Stigma Around Mental Illness and “Quick-Fix” Culture

A study done by Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) in 2022 shows that 23% of adults seek mental health care, with women more likely to do so than men. But accessing that treatment often comes with steep financial barriers. One in five Americans do not fill a prescription because of the cost, and one in seven risks taking a lower dose or skipping doses for the same reason. Consider what this says about our society and the economy. There is the philosophy that nothing in this world is free, but insurance providers and pharmaceutical companies do not need to charge as much for potentially life-saving medication. Nor should they be prescribing medication solely for their profit.

The trend seen with excessive prescriptions is also seen with excessive hospitalizations. A study by The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that 27% of men and 73% of women hospitalized for mental illness had substantially higher risk of suicide in the first 90 days after discharge. Those hospitalized for depression were 16 times more likely to commit suicide after hospitalization. Those who were not seen by outpatient care in the six months leading up to hospitalization were at even higher risk. Thus, hospitalization alone is not adequate care and often leaves patients even more vulnerable. Care does not stop at the hospital; it should continue at home. A hospital stay in any case can be life-changing and often traumatic, making individuals feel more alone, more helpless, more antagonized. Hospitalizations and medication are not the “quick fix” that society has been conditioned to so desperately want. The stigma that “all people with disorders are broken” is what causes doctors to try and “fix” something that is extremely difficult to understand. This misunderstanding caused the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to launch StigmaFree, a campaign suggesting educational, conscious language regarding mental health that encourages equality and shows compassion. (The key point here is that compassion does not mean complete understanding – just empathy.) Although I believe this is a great start, it is not nearly enough for systemic change. When I was diagnosed with a mix of mental disorders, I was told that I was an overthinker who became sad, but the extent of what I experienced was much greater than the labels ascribed by doctors who treated me. Experiences like this are why patients should be encouraged and given the tools of educating themselves; not only on pharmaceuticals, but on mental illness as well. Access to medication is important, but it should not replace understanding.

The Current Field of Psychiatry

These mistakes, along with the paper-ceiling hierarchy between psychiatrists and counselors, hurt patients. Researchers from John Hopkins University conducted a study that shows under-diagnosis and over-diagnosis go hand-in-hand. In fact, six out of seven participants did not meet the 12-month criteria to be diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Part of this overdiagnosis epidemic is the expansion of the DSM-V, the primary source of diagnostic criteria for mental disorders and illnesses. This expansion, although minorly contributed by the everchanging conceptions of mental illness within neuroscience and clinical psychology (which I completely understand and am studying to understand the human mind myself), is arguably due to the development of pharmaceutical drugs. These ever-changing conceptions do not, however, excuse ignorance on the part of patients nor professionals. If more people are diagnosed with mental disorders, more people buy the “necessary” drugs that are promoted by these large corporations. As more patients are diagnosed and prescribed medication, pharmaceutical companies profit more – even when those patients continue to suffer. Not only does medication generate profits for pharmaceutical companies, but it can also function as a form of social control. If someone is seen as acting out of what is seen as the “norm,” they are put on medicine to be stabilized. Yet the idea of being “stable” is subjective and depends heavily on individual and experience circumstances. Think of the extreme in the not so far in the future: if everyone is medicated to be normal in accordance with society, there is an erasure of individuality and culture as we know it – something straight out of a dystopian novel. Medication as the first prescribed solution is an attack on those who are deemed “irregular.”

Know What You Are Taking!

Medication can be necessary. If an individual is truly ill and a danger to themselves or others, intervention such as hospitalization or medicine is crucial. This is not a call to stop taking prescribed meds; I am simply saying that there is a lack of neuroscience comprehension within our society. When we are told how our mental illness is caused, we often get the “dumbed-down” version that is easier to digest and understand, usually meaning oversimplifying processes such as chemical imbalance. This is not mandating all of us to be neuroscientists – it is a call to educate yourself.

There is a systematic and cultural preference of speed rather than efficacy, putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Doctors prioritize informed consent over helping patients understand what is happening in their own minds. In other words, many professionals think of mental patients as lab rats rather than humans who want to know why they cannot function like everyone else. Medication can save lives, but it can easily also cause harm. Those on medication should be able to make informed decisions on what we put in our system and how we choose to heal, rather than immediately spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year on “happy pills.” I am calling for transparency within clinical psychological, neuroscientific, and psychiatric fields. I implore – no, I beg you – educate yourself when your doctors will not. For people like me, do your research. Do what you feel is right for your body, for your mind. Do not let a broken, inefficient system push you towards a pill.

Works Cited:

“9 Ways to Fight Mental Health Stigma.” National Alliance on Mental Illness, www.nami.org/blog/9-ways-to-fight-mental-health-stigma.

Hedegaard, Holly, et al. “Antidepressant Use Among Adults: United States, 2015–2018.” National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief, no. 419, 2021, www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db419.htm.

Hedegaard, Holly, et al. “Use of Prescription Medication Among Adults Aged 18 and Over: United States.” National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief, no. 528, 2024, www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db528.htm.

Mojtabai, Ramin. “Depression: Over-Diagnosis and Over-Treatment.” Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2013, publichealth.jhu.edu/2013/mojtabai-depression-over-diagnosis-and-over-treatment.

Mojtabai, Ramin, et al. “National Trends in the Prevalence and Treatment of Depression in Adolescents and Young Adults.” Pediatrics, vol. 138, no. 6, 2016, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles.

Olfson, Mark, et al. “Continuity of Care and Suicide Risk After Psychiatric Hospital Discharge.” American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 168, no. 3, 2011, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles.

Olfson, Mark, et al. “Short-Term Suicide Risk After Psychiatric Hospital Discharge.” JAMA Psychiatry, vol. 74, no. 7, 2017, pp. 694–702.

“Public Opinion on Prescription Drugs and Their Prices.” KFF, www.kff.org/health-costs/public-opinion-on-prescription-drugs-and-their-prices.

“Suicide Statistics.” American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, afsp.org/suicide-statistics/.

“The Behavioral Health Care Affordability Problem.” Center for American Progress, www.americanprogress.org/article/the-behavioral-health-care-affordability-problem.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Romina Boccia is the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute. She has been featured on CNBC, Fox News, and C-SPAN, and her research and commentary on federal spending, Social Security, and fiscal sustainability have been published in and cited by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg.

She recently spoke at Davidson College, where she gave a lecture to students in Dr. Katherine Bersch’s comparative politics class. She later sat down for an interview with Lux to discuss the misconceptions surrounding Social Security and why the program now faces mounting fiscal pressures.

Romina, you have described Social Security as a legal Ponzi scheme. Can you explain why?

There are a lot of misconceptions in the American public about what Social Security is and how it works. Cato polling from August 2025 showed that about a quarter of Americans think that Social Security is a private retirement account.

These myths arise from misleading terminology. We hear about a “trust fund” and “earned benefits,” which leads many people to think that they are contributing to their own retirement and later getting their money back with interest. That is not how the system works, although that is partially how it was sold.

Social Security operates more like a legal Ponzi scheme because benefits are paid out using money from new entrants rather than from real investment returns. When the program began, it paid benefits far in excess of what early beneficiaries had contributed. The example I like to give is the very first Social Security recipient, Ida Mae Fuller, who paid very little into the system and got about a 1,000-times return. By the end of her lifetime, she had collected the equivalent of roughly half a million dollars in Social Security benefits, while her total tax contribution in today’s dollars was closer to $23,000.

Why is Social Security less sustainable today than when it was created?

When Social Security was first implemented, there were roughly 50 workers paying taxes into Social Security for every one beneficiary collecting benefits. Today, that ratio is about 2.7 workers per beneficiary.

During that time, the tax rate has gone up significantly, from 2 percentage points of payroll or earned income to now 12.4%. But even at that much higher tax rate, the dollars coming into the system fall short of the benefits that have been promised.

Another major driver of that imbalance is demographic change. When Social Security was first implemented, far fewer Americans reached the eligibility age. Life expectancy in 1935 was about 64, while Social Security eligibility began at 65. Since then, life expectancy has grown by roughly 17 years, and life expectancy at age 65 has grown by about seven years. Today, the eligibility age has only gone up by roughly two years. And so you have more people collecting benefits for longer at a time when U.S. fertility rates have declined. So you have fewer workers now paying in than was the case in the past. Those factors together—the aging of the population, longer life expectancies, and the decline in fertility—have all contributed to the growing imbalance.

You’ve described Social Security as a failure of John Rawls’s veil of ignorance test. Who is advantaged, who is disadvantaged, and why?

Social Security represents an intergenerational transfer program. The way it works is that younger working Americans are taxed on their earned income through the so-called payroll tax, and then that money is redistributed to older Americans who are, in many cases, retired and eligible for Social Security benefits.

Now, usually when you have a redistributive transfer system that a government sets up, and if you have a fairly just government, you would redistribute money from wealthier individuals to poorer individuals. It’s a question of: What is the legitimacy behind the transfer? What justifies the government taking money from one group of people and giving it to another?

In many cases, that transfer is justified because some people need the money more than others. But in the case of Social Security, that moral legitimacy doesn’t really apply, because the money is collected from people who tend to have fewer assets and lower wealth, and then given to people who often have much higher assets and higher wealth. And so you have Social Security operating on the Robin Hood principle in reverse: taking from the poor to give to the rich.

So would it be better to just drop the pretense of a savings account and make it means-tested? Or perhaps something like a flat universal benefit?

I believe that we should stop talking about Social Security as if it were a retirement savings program. We should drop misleading terms like “the trust fund” or “earned benefit.” Even the name of the Social Security payroll tax is misleading. It’s called FICA, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

All of those terms mislead people about the true nature of Social Security, which, if you look under the hood of the program, is really just a wealth transfer scheme. There’s no savings. There are no real assets in the so-called trust fund. There are no contributions. There are taxes paid and benefits received.

In that sense, Social Security functions similarly to food stamps or other government welfare programs. The only difference is that people think about it differently because of political rhetoric and a comforting lie they’ve been told their entire lives about what the system is, compared to how it actually works. So, yes, I believe we should be honest with the American people about how the program functions. And in light of that discussion, we should also consider who benefits should be for. What should the purpose of Social Security be?

It shouldn’t be income replacement regardless of need, because we can’t afford that anymore. It should be, if anything, poverty prevention for seniors who wouldn’t otherwise be able to provide for themselves, in order to reduce distortions in American saving behavior. Social Security could adopt a universal benefit that wouldn’t be means-tested. You would basically just give everyone the same benefit, which would also be more fiscally affordable than the current structure. You could means-test a benefit, but the tradeoff is that people will come up with elaborate ways to hide assets so they can qualify for the means-tested benefit in old age. You don’t want to discourage people from saving and investing, which are good things to do. Unfortunately, those are some of the side effects of having a means-tested versus a more universal old-age benefit.

What if Social Security were structured as a true savings account?

You could look to Australia, which for many Americans has been a model for what a government-mandated, defined-contribution savings account could look like. Australia is interesting because they also have roughly a 12% contribution to retirement savings. But unlike in the United States, where Social Security’s 12% payroll tax is just a pure transfer, the way it works in Australia is that workers’ contributions are actually invested in the stock market for the worker.

It’s like an American-style 401(k), except 401(k)s or IRAs in the United States are voluntary. The Australian superannuation is mandatory. And that’s the key difference.

If you look at American voluntary savings behavior, when people actually have a choice about how much to put into their 401(k)s or IRAs and they’re not forced to, you find that younger workers tend to be less focused on retirement savings, as they should be, and more focused on other investments. Some invest in education, some start businesses, and some borrow to buy or build homes to raise their families. As Americans reach their peak earning years, their retirement savings go up. This tends to be the case around ages 40 to 60, which is why our system allows for so-called catch-up contributions.

I think one of the downfalls of having a mandatory defined-contribution system like Australia’s is that you’re taking away people’s choice about when to save and how much to save, which can actually make younger people worse off by taking away money they could use in better ways.

That said, if you’re comparing it to U.S. Social Security, you could say it’s superior, because at the very least it’s not just a pure income transfer. The Australian system is actually a retirement savings account. People’s income is forcibly saved and then gets to grow. And so Australians often end up with higher income in retirement from superannuation than Americans generally receive from Social Security, depending on income level.

The key difference is that Social Security is redistributive, from workers to seniors, generally from lower-income earners to higher-income earners, although some of that is changing. Australia, by contrast, is contributive. It’s mandatory, but it’s a contribution system.

My favorite system combines the best of two worlds. It would provide a predictable basic benefit, like New Zealand does, where everyone gets the same amount. You know how much you can expect from the government, which then tells you how much you should be saving on top to meet your personal preferences for the living standards you’d like to enjoy in old age.

And then New Zealand makes it simple and easy for people to save in private accounts through automatic enrollment. There you get at the concern that some people will be too short-sighted and won’t be saving for retirement. Many people argue that therefore we have to force them, but if you look at automatic enrollment, that’s one nudge you can use where people can opt out. People who are too lazy to opt in will often also be too lazy to opt out. So you capture that population without reducing individual autonomy for those who want more control over their own income and savings.

What reforms would actually make Social Security sustainable?

We have to get at that question from two angles. One is how do we get it done politically, because that’s really the bigger issue. And then two is what reforms would actually make a difference. That depends on your preferences about how much redistribution you think government should be doing and how much economic growth you want to prioritize.

So first, how do we get it done politically? Given the political nature of Social Security and all the misconceptions people have about how the program works, we will most likely need to rely on an expert commission. This is not something Congress is willing to tackle directly, because the incentives are against it. Members of Congress want to be reelected, and if you poll people on tax increases or benefit reductions, both are unpopular. So politicians find themselves between a rock and a hard place, and their choice has been to do nothing. But if Congress delegates responsibility to an independent commission, that can give politicians the necessary political cover to implement economically necessary reforms, while allowing them to point to the commission rather than take the full political fallout themselves.

Then there’s the question of what should actually be done. You have two primary levers. You can reduce benefits to close the imbalance, or you can raise taxes. And so the question becomes: what is the most equitable approach, and what is most conducive to economic growth? People will have different preferences.

For example, European countries tend to have more expensive welfare states that are primarily funded by lower- and middle-income taxpayers through consumption taxes. In the United States, we currently have a very progressive tax system, but there’s a limit to how much you can tax upper-income earners if you’re unwilling to tax lower- and middle-income earners. Right now, the top 10 percent of income earners pay about 70 percent of the entire income tax burden.

Things change when you look at payroll taxes because they actually affect lower-income taxpayers. But some of the top proposals that are most politically popular right now for fixing Social Security would actually try to raise taxes more on higher income earners. One of them is about lifting the payroll tax cap, because right now, about $189,000 in annual income are subject to payroll taxes, but also people’s benefits are based on that payroll tax cap. And so there’s a maximum benefit that some of the highest earners can collect, in 2025, that’s roughly $62,000 annually for an individual.

But if you eliminate the payroll tax cap and tax all earned income, you immediately raise another question: do you give higher-income earners credit for those additional tax contributions? If you do, you could end up paying a top earner a $200,000 annual benefit. Is that really something the government should be doing, especially given our fiscal situation? If instead you raise taxes on higher-income earners without increasing their benefits, then you fundamentally alter the nature of the program. And if we’re willing to go that far and delink benefits from earnings and contributions, then why not ask a more substantive, foundational question: who actually needs Social Security, and what is the most economically efficient way to provide a needs-based benefit?

Lifting the payroll tax cap also comes with real tradeoff costs. In high-tax states like New York and California, marginal tax rates for top earners could rise above 60 percent, meaning every additional dollar earned would face a 60-cent tax. That changes behavior. People work less, invest less in their own human capital, and we all end up with lower innovation and slower economic growth as a result. That’s not very economically efficient, especially for the purpose of paying outsized benefits to the highest-income earners. What’s the point?

Instead, if we focus on what the program should justifiably do—perhaps keeping seniors out of poverty—we can then ask how to achieve that goal at the lowest cost. Those are the questions we should be raising, rather than making incremental tweaks that often don’t make sense once you’re clear about the end goal. Why would we be giving a $200,000 annual benefit to someone with millions, or even billions, of dollars in assets? And even today, why are we paying $62,000 annual benefits to millionaires, including people like President Trump, who is also eligible for Social Security? The system doesn’t make sense. I think we need to look more fundamentally at what the system should do, and then how we should finance it.

How could Congress realistically create a fiscal commission given opposition from groups like the AARP?

That has actually already happened. In 2024, Congress considered a bipartisan fiscal commission, and it was voted out favorably from the House Budget Committee but never came to the House floor because special interest groups, including the AARP, opposed it.

The way for Congress to overcome those political pressures will likely be in the face of a more severe crisis. And that crisis is coming. It could be imposed externally if bondholders demand much higher interest rates to continue lending to the U.S. government, triggering a fiscal crisis that gives politicians both the motivation and the political cover to put an effective commission in place.

Or it could come from legal and statutory deadlines. In the early 2030s—2032 for Social Security and 2034 under current projections for Medicare—Congress will be forced to act, or the default will be automatic benefit cuts. If lawmakers are confronted with the prospect of their constituents facing a 24 percent Social Security benefit cut and an 11 percent cut to Medicare’s hospital benefits, which would limit access to care, they will likely look for other options.

How do you prevent a fiscal commission from being captured by institutional or political incentives?

I’ve been an advocate for a fiscal commission modeled after the successful Base Realignment and Closure Commission. One problem with these kinds of institutions is that they can get hijacked if they stick around for too long. So one important safeguard is to make the commission temporary and give it a very specific goal that it has to achieve.

Another safeguard is oversight. You have congressional watchdogs like the Government Accountability Office that can verify whether the commission’s recommendations fall within the bounds Congress set and whether those proposals actually achieve the fiscal goals Congress established.

Personnel selection also matters. You have to nominate the right people, and a system of checks and balances, such as Senate confirmation, helps ensure that compromise is built into the process. That makes it harder for either party to stack the commission with people who would undermine its purpose or push proposals that wouldn’t be palatable to the American public.

The commission should also be designed to dissolve. Once its goal is achieved, it should discontinue, or be placed on a timer so that even if it fails, it is automatically dissolved. The longer powerful institutions like this exist, the more likely they are to lose their independence over time.

And finally you have external organizations, ideally nonpartisan, that serve Congress and the American people like the Government Accountability Office. They can monitor the commission’s proceedings and review its recommendations before they go into effect to confirm that the commission did what Congress tasked it to do.

You just spoke to a class of Davidson students. What is the main takeaway you want them to leave with?

The federal budget and our national debt aren’t abstract issues that only happen in Washington. Our constitutional republic depends on an active, informed, and involved citizenry to provide real checks and balances on politicians. We all stand to gain or lose from how Congress chooses to address the growing debt crisis, which is driven in large part by unsustainable entitlement programs that provide significant benefits to some of the wealthiest people in the country.

If you look at the federal budget, about 45 cents of every dollar Congress spends goes toward benefits for people aged 65 and older, even though they make up roughly 18 percent of the population. As that population grows, so does its share of federal spending. By 2030, about half of all federal spending is projected to benefit this group.

Individuals aged 65 and older tend to have both the financial resources and the time to be politically involved, and the federal budget reflects that reality. They are disproportionately more likely to vote than younger people, with more than two-thirds of people in that age group voting compared to roughly one-third of people aged 35 and under. They have more time to attend town halls, they know who their representatives are, and they regularly contact them through phone calls, emails, and letters. Seniors also participate in powerful political organizations like the AARP, which organizes on a grassroots level to preserve Social Security and Medicare benefits, and they are more likely to donate to political campaigns because they have had more time to accumulate assets and deploy them in the political system. As a result, policymakers tend to hear primarily from people on the receiving end of these benefits, rather than from the taxpayers who are paying for them

It is important that students, who have the highest stake in this debate, become more informed about how decisions made in Washington affect their lives, their economic opportunities, and how much money they will ultimately have in their bank accounts. They also need to become more involved and make their voices heard using the tools available in our political system, not just through voting, but by contacting their members of Congress. That can mean writing letters, sending emails, or making phone calls. Politicians are representatives, and they exist to represent the people. Right now, they are mostly hearing from those on the receiving end of these benefits. They also need to hear from the taxpayers who are paying for them.

Editor’s note: Boccia also publishes regular analysis of fiscal policy and entitlement reform through her Substack, The Debt Dispatch, which is widely read by policymakers and congressional staff.

On December 31, 2025, enhanced Premium Tax Credits (ePTCs) officially expired, eliminating $0 health insurance premiums for low-income earners and restoring the subsidy cliff: as of January 1, 2026, anyone earning even $1 over 400% of the federal poverty line ($62,600 for individuals) is responsible for the full sticker price.

ePTCs were introduced by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and extended by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) so that no one had to pay more than 8.5% of their income for the silver benchmark plan. As a result, Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace enrollment grew from 12 million in 2021 to 24.3 million in 2025, while net premium costs fell by 44% on average. Ironically, the Republican states of Texas and Florida that fought hardest against the ACA were the largest beneficiaries of IRA subsidies, receiving $1.5 and $2.2 billion in 2024 respectively.

According to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, the expiration of ePTCs will cause net premiums to roughly double for people earning over 250% of the poverty line and quadruple for those earning less. An estimated 4.8 million people will lose health insurance in 2026. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy group, projects a $40.7 billion drop in GDP and loss of 340,000 jobs, disproportionately affecting Texas and Florida.

On September 19, 2025, Senate Democrats took advantage of the 60-vote filibuster threshold to block H.R. 5371, demanding that any bill to fund the government include an extension of enhanced subsidies. Republicans refused to compromise, triggering a government shutdown beginning on October 1 that would become the longest in US history. However, when the 43-day duration began to disrupt federal food assistance programs and airport operations, eight moderate Democratic senators agreed to a short-term funding bill that crucially did not extend ePTCs.

The Republican Party opposed the extension on the grounds that it would increase the deficit by $350 billion over ten years, function as a subsidy for insurance company profits, and provide little patient value. On the other hand, the deficit cost would manifest itself in higher hospital bills for everyone else to cover the costs of emergency care for uninsured patients, while the ACA’s 80/20 Rule requires insurers to spend at least 80-85% of premiums on medical care. Furthermore, people who decide against purchasing health insurance are not doing so because they do not value it, but because they are priced out. The United States has the highest health care costs in the world, and coverage can quite literally be the difference between life and death.

In light of the expired ePTCs, the Trump administration has proposed a “Great Healthcare Plan” that seeks to lower health care costs. On February 3, the president signed H.R. 7148, which implemented part of the plan by removing perverse incentives for pharmacy benefit managers to drive up drug prices, requiring hospitals to use unique National Provider Identifiers (NPIs) for off-campus outpatient clinics to ensure site-neutral payments, and codifying most-favored-nation (MFN) deals so that the US pays the same prices as other developed nations for certain prescription drugs.

While these policies are a step in the right direction, the bigger question is what will replace the enhanced subsidies. Republican Senators Rick Scott and Bill Cassidy propose depositing the $350 billion earmarked for ePTCs directly into Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that individuals can use to pay for health care. However, an HSA deposit of $1000-1500 would do little for people like Adrian Pitts, a 57-year-old small business owner and North Carolina resident who just saw his monthly premium rise from $1000 to $2670 and is now considering bankruptcy insurance. Meanwhile, HSAs will incentivize healthy people to choose cheaper Bronze plans, leaving a sicker, higher-risk population in the more comprehensive Silver and Gold tiers. This adverse selection threatens even higher premiums for those who need coverage the most.

Fundamentally, the debate over ePTCs and HSAs misses the forest for the trees. By treating health care as a commodity instead of a right, the United States is not saving money; it is merely shifting the cost. When millions like Adrian Pitts are priced out of preventative care, they inevitably return to the system via the emergency room, where we pay twelve times the cost of a doctor’s visit to stabilize crises that could have been avoided entirely.

Political activism at Davidson is undergoing a significant transformation. Within the past year, the College has seen the emergence of new partisan organizations such as Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) that do not receive funding from the Student Activities Office. Their arrival reflects a growing fragmentation among partisan coalitions, particularly amongst conservative students.

This fragmentation, however, is no longer confined to the political right. In recent weeks, it has been further compounded by the formation of the Davidson chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (DC-YDSA). According to its constitution, the organization’s mission is to “articulate and defend the idea that true human liberation is impossible under capitalism.” In doing so, the DC-YDSA introduces a new ideological strand into a campus long dominated by the Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians.

Following in the footsteps of TPUSA, the DC-YDSA neither aims to receive monetary funding from Davidson College nor wants to fall within the registration of the Center for Political Engagement (CPE), the entity that presently houses the Davidson Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians. Instead, DC-YDSA will source its funding from the national organization.

For DC-YDSA president Carter Ratcliff ‘27, this decision stems from a desire for autonomy. “While the CPE does not govern political organizations on campus, we still wanted a greater degree of independence and separation from the college, especially given the current political climate,” Ratcliff said. “This protects both us and the college, and further opens the door for us to opportunities such as endorsing political candidates in the future.”

Ratcliff emphasized that alternate funding does not preclude the DC-YDSA from cooperating with other groups on campus. “The organization is premised upon three critical pillars: community-building, political education, and social service,” Ratcliff explained, pointing to a YDSA project in Charlotte that involved building benches at bus stops for people to rest as an example of the group’s approach.

“By maintaining consensus on certain foundational principles, we aim to work with other groups towards political aims and community well-being.” This sentiment echoes comments provided by other political organizations, such as the Davidson College Democrats, alongside non-partisan entities such as the CPE.

The spirit of cooperation, however, is tempered by political realities. Ratcliff notes that partnering with the DC-YDSA would be a considerably difficult proposition to consider for other groups due to its socialist nature. The issue is further compounded by the opinion provided by Alexa Cohen ‘27, President of the Davidson College Republicans: “I am not sure if cooperation would necessarily be possible owing to ideological differences; I am also uncertain if [DC-YDSA] would want to engage with any event we would be interested in hosting.”

She claims that the ideological gulf between the Republicans and the DC-YDSA, which she considers to be a far-left organization, would make cooperation very difficult. She further contrasts it with her group’s interactions with the Davidson College Democrats, claiming that they, despite different policy prescriptions, “have a lot in common.”

Cohen further suggested that Davidson’s political landscape may be fragmenting into what she described as a “Europe-styled multiparty political system”, in which multiple organizations occupy narrower ideological lanes. Even so, she argued that these entities are coalescing into broader political factions of “left” and “right” that operate on their own respective lines.

For the political left, Cohen speculated that any alliance-building between the Democrats and the DC-YDSA would be in response to the recent resurgence of conservative organizations such as Turning Point USA and Young Americans for Freedom. If this is the case, such polarisation risks undermining prospects for cross-group cooperation on campus, as political interactions will become more adversarial in nature and less focused on shared interests.

Yet even within these broader factions, ideological unity is far from guaranteed. That reality was made evident during Turning Point USA’s “Prove Me Wrong” event held last semester, where divisions within conservative student politics surfaced publicly. Among the students who challenged TPUSA president Oliver Genovese ’28 was Cohen herself, who debated him over legal immigration.

They disagreed on the restrictions of immigrants from what Cohen called “target” countries, with Cohen arguing that such restrictions were needed to prevent immigration from “populations that are extremely anti-western, anti-American.” Genovese disagreed on the restriction, stating that “people who come to the U.S. generally align with our ideals” and therefore we should “give people the chance to come to the U.S.”

The fact that these differences were unveiled at TPUSA’s “Prove Me Wrong” debate event in an argument between the organization’s leader and the president of the College Republicans shows that organized politics on our campus is fragmenting.

As for DC-YDSA’s interactions with organizations like TPUSA and YAF, it is natural to assume that these will be fraught with tension. Unlike the umbrella-like structure of the Democrats and the Republicans, which permits different ideological dispositions within the same organization and facilitates outside cooperation, the same cannot be said for these revisionist partisan groups, which hold directly opposite views of democratic socialism and limited government with free market capitalism. This polarization would pose a great impediment to collaboration at Davidson.

Even so, cooperation amongst these organizations is not impossible. Davidson’s partisan groups can navigate this polarized environment through mediators such as the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, which has previously worked with political organizations on campus. Furthermore, it is important to account for the positions of individual leaders within these organizations.

Oliver Genovese ‘28, the President for TPUSA’s Davidson chapter, argues that collaboration on issues such as civic discourse can be made by all parties concerned, regardless of ideological affiliation. Reflecting upon his attempts to coordinate a debate event with the Davidson College Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, Genovese welcomes YDSA’s participation in the exercise, “I attempt to look beyond the political affiliation for the dignity of the human being….if the YDSA wants to participate, I would be more than happy to have them there. The more opinions there are, the better.”

If nothing else, perhaps the spirit of multipartisanship might be found in something as fundamental as community service, which is something Genovese thinks TPUSA can work with the YDSA on, provided any explicit socialist connotations are kept out of the event programming. “I mean, if it’s a community event [YDSA] wants to do, it’s good for the community, and it’s not something that’s purely socialist; that’s good for the community, I’m fine working with them.”

Despite ideological polarization on the national stage, Davidson today sees a more unique process of political fragmentation on its campus. Partisanship at this college stands at an evolutionary crossroads. As to the nature of what course it takes, that is something which the members and leaders of our institution’s partisan organizations will decide: the ball is firmly in their court.

Today, assessments are administered differently. Monitoring has replaced discretion, and precaution has replaced assumption. Whatever its moral standing once was, the Honor Code no longer governs how exams actually work. The result is a system that frustrates everyone, even though no single person decided to build it.

Ironically, the clearest explanation for this came from my economics professor: game theory. The idea is simple. People make choices that depend on what they expect others to do. A choice is never just a choice. It is mutual guessing dressed up as decision-making.

To illustrate this, my professor used the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma. Two people are arrested. Each must choose whether to stay silent or confess. Cooperation produces the best joint outcome, but the rational individual’s move is to confess, because neither prisoner can trust the other.

The same logic now governs take-home exams at Davidson. The two players are the professor and their students. The professor can allow take-home exams or require the testing center. If the professor allows take-home exams, students gain convenience and professors avoid surveillance. But cheating becomes possible. If the professor uses the testing center, no one cheats, but every student bears the cost of coordination, scheduling, and stress. If the professor’s primary goal is to minimize cheating, the rational move is surveillance, even if it leaves everyone worse off than the trust-based system it replaced.

When a student asked how trust affects efficiency, my professor answered without hesitation: “The absence of trust is a cost to all of us.” The statement is general, but its implications are specific. Without trust, the cooperative option disappears. When professors cannot rely on students, surveillance replaces discretion. That surveillance then creates its own costs: administrative, logistical, and psychological.

The timeline is straightforward. Low trust leads to surveillance. Surveillance consumes time. Time cuts into teaching. Defensive behavior follows on both sides. The new equilibrium sustains itself.

In our class alone, we now take four major tests in the testing center and around 15 quizzes in the classroom. These quizzes often consume 30 of the 50 minutes of class time. Sometimes the entire period is lost. Just the quizzes totaled 450 minutes of class time across the semester, the equivalent of nine full class sessions that could have been used for instruction.

Davidson’s tuition is roughly $73,000 a year, which means each class costs about $9,000 in pure tuition. A standard class meets for about 2,250 minutes per semester. Our course spent 450 of those minutes on quizzes, or 20% percent of its instructional time. That is the equivalent of spending roughly $1,800 of tuition on administrative assessment rather than teaching.

The testing center adds its own layer of inefficiency. Professors forget to send tests, students miss time slots, and the schedule backs up. When I took my exam, it was the final day before Thanksgiving break, and almost every seat was filled. The environment is more stressful, especially for students who need accommodations, which can already be difficult to secure at Davidson. The clicking of pens, the squeaking of shoes, and the metallic clinks of water bottles make it harder to concentrate. Before this shift, a student could take an exam in an empty classroom and avoid these conditions entirely. Now, silence and focus are traded for noise and coordination.

The same dynamic appears outside of testing. Professors increasingly distrust students in group work, so projects now require check-ins, progress logs, and evidence that no one is free-riding. Once a few students defect, everyone is treated as if they might. The Prisoner’s Dilemma returns in miniature: nobody chooses the system, but everybody participates in it.

The relevant point is simple: it is implausible that students today are morally weaker than students five or ten years ago. Human character does not decay that quickly. The class of 2026 was not born with worse morals than the class of 2016. What changes is the environment. The expectations. The culture. When people believe others will cheat, they protect themselves. When they are treated as if they cannot be trusted, they act defensively. Fear becomes the new baseline expectation, and like any feedback loop, the low-trust equilibrium sustains itself.

At some point, genuine learning becomes secondary to its policing. A surprising share of an instructor’s time is now spent watching for defection: walking up and down rows, monitoring glances, and later reviewing assignments for AI use. When professors begin to view students as defectors, students view professors the same way. The shift does not arrive through one large decision, but through many small ones.

Game theory makes the logic blunt. When trust is high, cooperation is rational. When trust is low, defection is rational. Davidson once felt like a cooperative setting. Now it leans toward defection. Shared expectations have been replaced by proctoring, testing centers, and administrative controls. The institution did not choose this end state outright. It arrived there through small, local decisions that accumulated into a system.

Both sides now defect. Professors assume the worst; students respond in kind, and eventually the assumption becomes true. But if trust can disappear through small decisions, it can return the same way, not through a policy announcement, but through quiet choices to cooperate even when defection is available. Distrust wastes more than time. It diminishes the education itself. If trust ever returns, it will not arrive with ceremony. It will look like a professor handing out an exam and walking out of the room, and students choosing not to take advantage. That is how cooperation is built: one move, then another, until the high-trust equilibrium reappears.

The phoenix’s wings are torn apart,

By million mites of different shade,

For unjust survival or righteous rage,

Who cares?

Just as long as the bird’s fiery glory decays.

Introduction

The international system as we have known it is in a state of flux. The unipolar liberal world order led by the United States is crumbling in the face of multipolar competition posed by rising great powers such as China, India, and Russia. We live in an era wherein liberal principles are losing ground on both global and domestic levels. Globally, we see the failure of international organisations like the United Nations at preventing the actions of states like Russia that have caused extraordinary human disasters such as those in Ukraine. Domestically, we see democracies like India move away from liberalism in favour of competitive authoritarianism. I contend these two phenomena are inextricably linked to one another. Be it outrightly authoritarian states such as China, Russia and Iran, or democratic states that have now begun to move towards illiberalism such as Turkey and India, all of these states have both a revisionist character and a desire to reshape the international system into a multipolarity, which they have made a central pillar of their foreign policies. It is this connection between illiberalism and multipolarity that I will attempt to investigate through this article.

The Basics: Ends, Ways, and Means

Prima facie, it is possible to understand why states with illiberal governments would want to redefine the international system as a multipolarity through a game of ends, ways, and means. This is a contest rooted in both the relative capabilities of states and their respective domestic attributes.

The fundamental political end for all illiberal regimes is survival, and the philosophy of liberalism threatens this from both national and international levels. Internationally, the status quo has so far been a scenario managed by international organisations such as the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank that are majorly backed by the United States, a country that, as Henry Kissinger claimed, has the principles of liberalism inherently infused in its foreign policy. Given this, it is very difficult for illiberal governments to conduct their ordinary business with a US-backed liberal order forcing checks-and-balances on their activities every step of the way: an example behind this could be the sanctions the United States has instituted against countries like Iran and Russia in concert with its allies. Domestically, the very philosophy of liberalism strikes a deep fear into the hearts of autocratic governments owing to the fact that it can propagate popular demonstrations and even “colour revolutions” that may oust them out of power. Consequently, it becomes a matter of natural interest for illiberal regimes to strive towards the establishment of both a world order and a national ecosystem wherein liberalism is rejected and shunned, wherein their power can be indefinitely preserved without the normative coercion of this philosophy.

This brings us to the topic of the larger way through which the aforementioned political end can be achieved, which illiberal regimes consider to be multipolarity. Such an ordering of the international system is favourable because it emphasises upon the unitary, sovereign nature of states and removes the possibility of the formation of any enforceable norms that could determine the legitimacy of the actions of an illiberal regime. A multipolarity is also profitable for illiberal regimes because it is open enough to permit collaborative action amongst them for mutual “win-win” benefit such as the Russian PMC deployment in the Central African Republic, wherein private military contractors would secure critical infrastructure and stabilise the government in exchange for access to key mineral resources such as gold and diamond. Most importantly, illiberal regimes posit multipolarity as an answer to the issues the incumbent world order has failed to address, and that only national governments are best attuned to the needs of their respective peoples (regardless of the nature of the government itself). As a matter of fact, this is a policy position that China has explicitly taken through its 2021 White Paper titled, ‘Pursuing Common Values of Humanity – China’s Approach to Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights’ wherein it prioritises sovereignty, emphasises heavily upon the provision of socio-economic opportunities, makes no policy proposals for the provision of civil rights, and disparages liberal democracy for its inability to solve the world’s problems. This conjunction between domestic illiberalism and a joint effort to undo an America-sponsored world order thus forms the heart of our argument.

There are various means revisionist illiberal regimes pursue in order to strike against the status quo powers of the international system. Governments with overlapping interests often cooperate with one-another for mutual benefit and also go so far as to institute alternative global dialogues such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in order to counter liberal international organisations. They are also able to block inquiry into their domestic affairs by exploiting loopholes in the existing world order, an example of this being China’s usage of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter to block investigative efforts into alleged human rights violations in its Xinjiang region. More aggressive states with greater resources go so far as to conduct “sharp power” action against democracies in order to destabilise them. An example of this would be China’s 2018 disinformation campaign against Taiwan following the carnage of Typhoon Jebi, wherein a purportedly Taiwanese news agency with links to the CCP was responsible for circulating fake information on social media portraying Taiwan as incapable of helping stranded citizens in a disaster in contrast while presenting a comparatively efficient Chinese rescue. Mass proliferation of the incident by social media was such that the false information brought great discredit upon the Taiwanese government, and resulted in a diplomat taking his own life out of shame. Ultimately, all measures are directed towards weakening the legitimacy of the practice of liberalism, and so far, the ‘Illiberal International’ are greatly successful in this endeavour.

An Illiberal State or an Illiberal People?

So far, this article has only considered why multipolarity is an enticing proposition for illiberal regimes without considering the positions of the people they supposedly represent. This would be a mistake, because illiberal regimes are often supported by their respective populations. The common misconception of leaders being unpopular because they are illiberal, because they do not respect civil liberties, is something that must be dispelled. Granted, while illiberal governments frame the issue of multipolarity in a certain fashion in order to maintain legitimacy and remain in power, cultural differences and historical grievances held by a people also make the case for a “national” system of governance that resonates with a state’s own “culture”. Putin, as an example, is able to maintain his popularity on the backs of hypernationalism and the importance he publicly assigns to traditional Russian values. China explicitly rejects Western conceptions of government on the basis of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial values it has come into possession of after its “century of humiliation.” As a matter of fact, India is an extremely illiberal state owing to the fact that it is reasonably democratic and has constitutional provisions that warrant the withdrawal of fundamental rights on grounds of public order, morality, and the security of the state. This means that as the Indian government censures civil rights, jails academics, kicks out international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, and ignores bodies such as the United Nations, it can claim to have done so in accordance to statute passed by an elected Parliament, in the name of the Indian people that wish to preserve their way of life without being told what to do the way they were under British rule. As the people of this South Asian republic reject constitutional liberalism and multipluralism today in favour of hypernationalism that is centered on the premise of a single “Indian” identity, we see similar robust trends arising in traditionally liberal European states such as France and Germany with the increasing popularity of far-right political parties such as the le Rassemblement National and der Alternative für Deutschland Consequently, it may be contended that while the transition of the world from an America-led liberal world order to a multipolarity is being caused by illiberal regimes, the illiberal regimes themselves find their support base in populations that attach a great degree of value to their respective civilisational constructions. The political scientist Samuel Huntington, who postulated a “clash of civilisations” in the early years of post-Cold War unipolarity, argued that the nature of discord itself would shift from the traditional conflict between states to conflict between peoples, cultures, and ideologies.

The world today is divided on similar lines, and so are nations. What is to be done? Will liberalism continue to be an authority that distinguishes between right from wrong, and attempt to keep the world together at the risk of homogenising it? Or will endemic strongmen seize the reins and divide it instead? Liberalism appears to be losing this contest.

Bibliography

1. Applebaum, Anne. 2024. Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. 1st ed. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

2. Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.

3. Kissinger, Henry, 1923-2023. 2011. On China. Penguin Press.

4. Zakaria, Fareed. “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 6 (1997): 22–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/20048274.

History has been unkind to political movements that challenge liberalism. Yet in his inaugural address on January 1, 2026, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” The 20th century offers a long and brutal warning against that aspiration. Across the globe, collectivist and authoritarian regimes arose to challenge liberal democracies and supplant them with planned social orders. Their collapse, alongside the political repression and mass starvation they produced, revealed a fatal misunderstanding of both human nature and economic reality. Given that record, Mamdani should be reluctant to romanticize collectivism. Yet the temptation persists among those who believe society can be consciously designed, who discount human incentives, and who underestimate the complexity of allocating resources without markets.

The modern collectivist project began in an agrarian autocracy, not the capitalist society Marx anticipated. In Russia, the Bolsheviks violently overthrew the Tsardom, eliminated political opposition, and set out to construct a new order. Land and industry were nationalized, the press was brought under state control, and agriculture was forcibly collectivized. Convinced that history itself justified their rule, the regime subordinated economic life and civil society alike to centralized authority. The result was mass repression and famine, including the Holodomor in Ukraine, in which millions died. Mao’s China followed this model, collectivizing agriculture during the Great Leap Forward, resulting in the Great Chinese Famine, the deadliest famine in modern recorded history, which killed an estimated 36 million people.

Collectivism was not confined to left-wing ideology. The 20th century, after all, was defined by sustained assaults on liberalism from both political extremes. In the Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini wrote, “Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual.” Like the socialists, the fascists subordinated the individual to the state, replacing class struggle with national struggle. Adolf Hitler enacted this collectivist logic in racial terms, constantly subjecting the individual to the collective interest of the Volk. Under National Socialism, the regime rebuked the free market and coordinated nominal “private” firms by dictating their prices, outputs, and wages. It demolished the private sphere by crushing independent institutions, censoring any dissent, and enforcing conformity through state-propagated organizations. In the end, this collectivism cultivated in a state-defined “racial community,” achieved through the exclusion and eventual extermination of Jews and other designated outsiders.

The 20th-century conception of collectivism was not new but a revival of utopianism. In The Republic, Plato imagines the rule of a philosopher-king that will eradicate all class conflict. Private property would be forbidden, families and all voluntary associations would be dismantled, and the education of children placed entirely under state control. All these measures to eliminate any individual identity were to ensure that the individual would be completely oriented towards the collective interest of the city.

The fundamental flaw in this vision, and any subsequent collectivist ideal, was that it ignored human nature. Individuals always have self-interest, have goals and aspirations of their own, and ultimately care more about what belongs to them than what is held in common. Aristotle made this point clear in his Politics, where he argued that what is held in common is cared for the least. When property is held in common, and it belongs to everyone, no one feels fully responsible for it. People assume that others will do the work and pay the costs to care for it. The incentive to contribute declines, and then free riding becomes a problem. Over time, this leads to shared resources being neglected and overused.

At the same time, collectivist economies face an insurmountable knowledge problem. Consider the simple example of a pencil. Producing one requires wood, graphite, rubber, paint, fuel, machinery, labor, and many other resources, all moved from across the world. No centralized committee or expert can possibly direct that process in real time. Instead, markets solve this through price mechanisms. If graphite becomes scarcer because a mine shuts down, its price rises, which signals to producers to conserve graphite, look for substitutes, or expand supply. If fuel costs rise, shipping becomes more expensive, and shipping methods might change, including finding closer suppliers or changing the production process to use less transportation. If demand for pencils rises at the start of the school year, the pencil’s price rises, telling manufacturers to produce more and telling buyers to purchase only what they truly need. The pencil appears on store shelves not because anyone designed the system, but because millions of people pursue their own self-interest, and information is coordinated through prices.

Given the historical record and economics, one wonders why Mayor Mamdani would embrace collectivism. Again and again, the conceit of central planners has produced starvation, repression, and catastrophe. Markets, by contrast, have generated unprecedented prosperity. In the early 19th century, 75% of the world lived in extreme poverty. By the end of the 20th century, that figure had fallen below 10%. The rise in living standards didn’t come from bureaucratic planning or collectivist schemes. It came from markets that emerge spontaneously from the decentralized decisions of millions of individuals using their private property to pursue their own self-interest.

On November 4, Mecklenburg County voters will be voting on “potentially the biggest local public works program in state history.” This tax referendum would increase sales tax by one percentage point, or by one cent for every dollar spent on goods purchased in Mecklenburg County. The funds from this tax would be allocated to the expansion and upkeep of roads, rails, and buses aimed at increasing economic activity and alleviating traffic across the county. The current sales tax rate sits at 7.25%, and following this increase, could rise to 8.25% if voters approve the measure.

For reference, Mecklenburg County’s 7.25% sales tax is made up of three components:

• 4.75% North Carolina Sales Tax

• 2% Mecklenburg County Sales Tax

• 0.5% Mecklenburg County Transportation Tax

• * Items such as single-ingredient foods (fresh fruits, bread, milk, meat) are exempt from the state rate, and only subject to the 2% Mecklenburg County sales tax. (§ 105‑164.13B)

While the referendum outlines how the tax would be collected and spent, critics, including advocacy groups such as ActionNC, argue that the referendum raises three major concerns: the regressive nature of the tax, a lack of public trust in transit leadership, and uncertainty over how residents will be represented in decision-making. say the proposal raises broader issues that go beyond percentages and projections. Their criticisms fall into three major categories: the regressive nature of the tax, a lack of public trust, and uncertainty regarding representation in oversight.

A Regressive Tax Structure

A common argument among those opposing the referendum centers on the regressive nature of sales taxes. Sales taxes disproportionately impact low-income communities, since poorer households spend a larger portion of their income on the sales tax. This is why certain necessities such as food are exempt from state sales tax— “to make such taxes less regressive”.

Some critics note that marginalized communities, who often rely on public transportation the most, would bear the heavier burden while large businesses and higher-income residents benefit from improved infrastructure without contributing proportionally to its cost.

• ActionNC calculated the annual burden to be $858 per household, while the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) reports a $240 annual increase in spending associated with the tax.

Eroded Public Trust

Perhaps the most significant obstacle facing the referendum is the deficit of trust. Promises of improved shelter for buses, extension of the Silver Line, and creation of the Red Line, have fallen short in the past. An October 6th article from ActionNC captures the frustration: “A quarter century. Five mayors. Multiple plans. Billions in spending. And still, no Red Line. And where did that money go? Buses in North Meck have been cut. Bus shelters throughout the city are largely non-existent or worn down”.

Mark Tofano, a Matthews Town Commissioner, said, “Now, we’ll never get the [silver line] rail. Anyone who thinks we’ll get the rail is delusional, it’s not ever going to happen” in response to the lack of Silver Line development, despite millions of dollars in planning.

Questions of Representation

Concerns have also been raised about who will oversee the allocation of these funds and whether the committee will reflect the diversity of residents most affected.

Larry Shaheen, an attorney with the Charlotte Alliance Foundation who was involved in shaping the ballot language, states that daily transit riders would be able to qualify to participate in oversight committees, while City Councilman Ed Driggs suggests they would “not necessarily qualify.” While it’s true that riding the transit does not confer expertise in the CATS planning and expansion, to opponents, this contradiction raises more doubt into the validity and organization of this project.

The Decision Ahead

This referendum provides a rare opportunity to invest in Mecklenburg County’s future, despite legitimate criticism over trust and representation. A connected, more efficient transit network could expand access to jobs, reduce I-77 traffic, and connect students into Charlotte. Economic growth and sustainability depend on an efficient transportation system, and this referendum could make that possible.

Ultimately, as Davidson students, it’s important to approach this vote carefully. Look beyond the slogans and weigh the costs and benefits to decide whether this investment represents meaningful progress or disappointment.

The two founders of Davidson’s Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter announced their complaint through The Daily Signal, a publication originally of the Heritage Foundation, turning what might have been an internal dispute into a national campaign against Davidson’s administration.

From their complaint, they urge the federal government to withhold all funding until Davidson “complies with federal law.” If that were to happen, Davidson could lose roughly $5 million in annual federal grants that have supported research in cancer, nuclear physics, and cybersecurity.

By turning to Washington, Huang and Fay abandoned the very principle they claim to defend—free expression. Their complaint isn’t about liberty anymore; it’s about inviting the federal government to decide what counts as free speech at Davidson.

The Grievances

The complaint centers on disciplinary sanctions the college imposed after YAF distributed pamphlets labeled “Islamophobic” and “harmful.” It also cites broader grievances, including delays in registering the group and approving speakers, and the removal of 1,195 Israeli flags placed to commemorate victims of October 7.

While some grievances are debatable, Davidson was wrong to attempt to punish YAF for engaging in explicitly political speech. The group’s pamphlets expressed their opinions on the Israel-Hamas war and were never forced upon any student. However disagreeable their content may have seemed, it did not obstruct access to campus spaces or threaten anyone’s safety. The college’s response reflects a troubling inconsistency with its stated commitment to open inquiry and helps explain its persistently low free-speech rating.

Nevertheless, this incident does not warrant federal intervention on our campus. Such interference exceeds the government’s proper authority and represents a misguided effort that will ultimately fail to achieve its supposed aim of restoring free speech in higher education.

A Misuse of Civil Rights

Huang and Fay’s invocation of Title VI and Title IX mirror the Trump administration’s charge in Harvard v. Department of Health and Human Services. Both allege that their respective institutions discriminated against particular ideological or ethnic groups—conservative and pro-Israel students in Davidson’s case, and Jewish students in Harvard’s.

Yet the two complaints differ in scope and substance. In Harvard v. HHS, recently rejected by a federal judge, the government argued that Harvard violated Title VI by tolerating antisemitism among faculty and student protests. Huang and Fay’s complaint, by contrast, claims ideological discrimination: that Davidson’s administration censored and punished pro-Israel expression rather than permitting hostility toward it.

This distinction presents several problems for Huang and Fay’s appeal to civil rights law. Most importantly, ideologies are not a protected class under Title VI, which prohibits discrimination only on the basis of “race, color, or national origin.” Even if discrimination against pro-Israel ideology were construed as discrimination against national origin, the law protects people for who they are, not what political views they hold.

They could instead invoke the First Amendment, arguing that Davidson violated its own Commitment to Freedom of Expression. Yet this would still fall short of a constitutional claim. That policy is a self-imposed pledge, not a government mandate, and its breach—if any—would be contractual, not civil-rights-based. As Moody v. NetChoice affirms, the government cannot compel or redefine the speech choices of private institutions. Huang and Fay’s appeal, then, ultimately demands the very government intrusion that the First Amendment forbids.

The Curse of Government Intervention

But let us suppose for a moment that Huang and Fay got what they wanted. That Davidson draws the ire of the Trump administration and sees its federal funds withdrawn. Perhaps this solves their alleged discrimination problem and Davidson becomes a free speech utopia where no one gets censored for their beliefs again. But do we really think there will be no strings attached?

For one, the current administration has gone far beyond simply upholding free speech. It now ties federal funding to demands that universities “reform ideological bias” and enforce “viewpoint balance” in hiring and curriculum. What sounds like fairness in theory— especially when new faculty at colleges like Davidson must show how their teaching and research advance DEI—turns coercive in practice. Departments feel pressure to reorganize, professors to watch their words, and ideas to be tallied like demographics, as institutions overcompensate with arbitrary faculty reshuffles to prove compliance. It all amounts to an artificial attempt to shuffle opinions rather than strengthen debate.

Furthermore, the current administration has proven to be a poor arbiter of free speech. The attorney general has wrongly claimed that “hate speech” is not protected, despite no legal basis for that view. And despite clear Supreme Court precedent, the president issued an executive order banning flag burning. Most recently, the administration has even revoked visas over online political speech, treating dissent as a threat rather than a right.

A Liberal Alternative

Davidson doesn’t need Washington’s hand to find its footing. It needs only to remember what it already stands for—the pursuit of truth. The college’s Commitment to Freedom of Expression wasn’t forced upon us; it was chosen as an extension of the values written into our own constitution. We voluntarily committed ourselves to this demanding standard, not because of pressure or politics, but because freedom of inquiry has always been central to Davidson’s mission of excellence.

And this year, the college has shown real steps toward that ideal: the creation of the Institute for Public Good, the full recognition of the Turning Point USA chapter despite campus controversy, and the hosting of a dialogue with Senators Thom Tillis and Amy Klobuchar that brought students from every political corner into the same room. These moments—imperfect but genuine—mark a campus learning again to argue, to listen, and to seek truth without fear.

These are not the signs of a silenced campus, but of one rediscovering its voice. Davidson’s progress doesn’t come from decrees or lawsuits—it comes from the students who argue with courage, the faculty who teach with conviction, and the alumni who still believe the truth is worth defending. Reform, in that sense, is not rebellion but return: a return to the liberal-arts experiment that trusts reason over regulation, dialogue over dogma. Washington should take note and perhaps educate itself in the very virtues of self-government it so often forgets to practice.

Davidson’s community can reform itself.

Economists have become increasingly concerned about workers’ lack of bargaining power and the presence of monopsony power in the labor market. A monopsony is traditionally defined as a firm that is the only buyer of labor. However, any firm with an upward-sloping labor supply curve is considered a monopsony in economics, even if the firm faces competition. If a firm faces an upward-sloping labor supply curve, it must raise wages to recruit new employees and to retain current employees. Because this situation makes the next hire costlier than the posted wage rate, the firm hires fewer people and pays less than it would in a competitive labor market.

In this non-competitive labor market, firms can artificially maintain low wages and employment levels because workers have no real alternatives. Even in today’s economy, where multiple small businesses and large companies often compete for labor in the same city, monopsony power can still exist. For instance, the high costs that workers face—e.g., losing employer-provided health insurance—when changing jobs can give firms a degree of labor market power.

Labor unions can alleviate this non-competitive labor market by increasing workers’ bargaining power against these employers. By allowing workers to negotiate as a group, a union can collectively bargain for a higher wage, one closer to the market rate in a competitive market, which can lead to increased employment and higher wages for workers. If the wage rate is pushed beyond the market rate, though, employment can fall.

However, while unions today still strive to obtain higher pay for their workers, which can theoretically increase efficiency where firms have some market power, the reality is that most labor unions today act as rent seekers. Unions primarily advocate for policies at the national level that benefit their members at the expense of all Americans. Overall, the economic costs of rent-seeking behavior by unions likely outweigh any benefits from the efficiency gains that some unions achieve by eroding monopsony power. In fact, many unions likely drive up wages beyond the competitive level, which lowers employment in the sectors and eliminates the benefits of challenging monopsony power.

Two examples of union rent-seeking behavior are the large $90 billion bailout for private sector unions under the Biden administration, which primarily benefited union members earning six figures, and the tariffs implemented by the Trump administration to protect unions while increasing costs on American businesses and consumers. The $90 billion spent on bailing out union pension funds under Biden could have almost covered the full cost of SNAP (food stamps) for an entire year for poor families.

Unions can also create significant economic inefficiencies. For example, unions often create barriers to entry for new workers, particularly in heavily unionized industries, which limits employment opportunities for job seekers who are often members of the lower or middle class. Furthermore, unions often resist technological changes that benefit Americans if these changes threaten their interests. For instance, unions frequently oppose port automation, which would enhance the resilience of U.S. supply chains. We should not consider policies that benefit only 6% of the workforce, who are private sector union members, “pro-worker,” when the policies harm the other 94% of American workers.

Public sector unions can also impose significant costs on the public. Research indicates that when school districts receive additional funding during collective bargaining with teacher unions, they tend to increase the compensation of existing teachers rather than hiring new ones, resulting in no improvements in student achievement. This negative effect happens because funding is tied to the tenure of teachers rather than merit. Teachers then lose the incentive to improve teaching and outcomes for their students.

Moreover, teacher unions enforce some of the strictest protections against firing, even if it means children are taught by someone incompetent. Most notoriously, in New York, these protections were so strict that schools opted to just remove incompetent teachers from the classroom, still technically employing them and paying their full salary. Such effects can also be seen in police unions, where a study found that police unions increase violent misconduct among officers because they make it more difficult to fire officers who engage in such misconduct.

Labor unions are not the only way to give workers more bargaining power and help those in need. Maintaining macroeconomic stability and tight labor markets with an adequately expansionary monetary policy increases firms’ demand for labor, leading them to bid up wages. Additionally, increasing access to education for workers, whether through technical school or a college education, equips them with skills that enable greater flexibility in their employment options.

The government can also directly increase the incomes of American families in need by modifying existing federal programs. For example, making the Child Tax Credit refundable and sent as monthly payments can support poor and middle-class families raising children. Additionally, they can expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to increase the income of low-income Americans while increasing incentives to work. Decoupling health insurance from employment and making coverage portable would give workers more flexibility in changing jobs, thereby eroding the monopsony power of employers. The federal government, along with states and localities, can also eliminate policies that increase costs for goods and services, like tariffs and restrictions on building more housing.

Private sector unions can play a crucial role in enhancing the bargaining power of American workers, particularly when they voluntarily join to address common workplace concerns. However, unions are not the only solution to improving workers’ economic conditions and can come with significant costs. Addressing monopsony power, implementing an effective monetary policy, and increasing incomes through programs such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit can significantly enhance workers’ well-being. Focusing on a comprehensive approach that includes these strategies can make the American Dream more attainable for everyone.

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.” -Fredrick Douglass

A day after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Davidson College Republicans quickly organized a memorial to “remember and celebrate Charlie’s life and take a stand against the political violence that has engulfed our great nation.” That same day, the Davidson College Republicans filed a complaint with President Doug Hicks about students’ reactions to Kirk’s death. They submitted 94 screenshots of Davidson students’ YikYak and Instagram posts, which they described as “egregious and hateful” for condoning political violence.

They argued that such speech could ultimately endanger them, urging the administration to take disciplinary action against those students—framing their request as a defense of their own “rights to freedom of expression.”

As many others have pointed out, there’s no better way to insult a man than to contradict his convictions in his name. Endlessly, Kirk did exercise his first amendment rights—both to debate and associate himself with people he disagreed with. And now they try to defile that prerogative.

This complaint puts a painful stain on the Davidson College Republicans. Only last year, they condemned the administration for suppressing speech. Now, in the same breath, they demand the administration do exactly that on their behalf. They run to the administration to enact their ideals, and in doing so, surrender any title to free speech.

The Charges

Most of the screenshots they sent to the President were either apathetic over Charlie Kirk’s death or critical of his character. Only a small, nevertheless disturbing, minority actively celebrated his death. And only a single image actively encouraged more political assassinations, a statement that was thankfully so erroneous that it got downvoted into the negatives.

Based on the complaint, there are three possible charges that the Davidson College Republicans seemingly wants the college to pursue: hate speech, incitement, and threat.

Hate Speech: A Faux-Legalese

One can certainty classify those curated social media posts cited as hateful and ugly. It seems distasteful to insult a man not even a day after he was assassinated. Even more perniciously, to celebrate political violence undermines the very foundations of civil society. It would seem very easy to convince a good load of people that those comments are “hate speech.”

However, contrary to what Attorney General Pam Bondi seems to think, there is no legal distinction between hate speech and free speech—they are one and the same. After all, one man’s hate speech is another’s conviction.

My own disapproval of the posts is just that: a personal judgment of another’s conduct and thought. However convinced I am that such sentiments corrode society, I cannot call for their censorship. Even if the vast majority were to agree, there would still be no just cause to silence dissent, for it is precisely that kind of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect—“freedom for the thought we hate.”

The Law

Unlike hate speech, the complaint has potential for two legally unprotected classes of speech: incitement and threat. These two have been universally accepted as unprotected because their restriction is due to the external danger presented, not the content itself.

For speech to qualify as incitement, it must fulfill a strict standard where the speech incites “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” To claim the curated social media posts satisfies this strict standard requires a great deal of mental gymnastics. None of the posts encouraged violence and many even went further in directly condemning the assassination. To determine that these posts will even have a chance of inciting Davidson students is an even more erroneous conclusion.

Legally, a threat is an expression of serious intent to harm someone. The Davidson College Republicans’ suggestion that they may be under serious threat is their most absurd argument. None of the cited posts directly threatened a person, much less another Davidson student. To construe those posts as such is not only a distortion of law, but an insult to our college and community.

Davidson’s Commitment

As a private institution, Davidson would normally not have to care for the first amendment. Most private colleges could just concede to the Davidson College Republican’s demands and sanction those students. But since Davidson committed itself to free speech, it cannot, by any circumstance, silence that right. To avoid breaking a legitimate contract, the college must stand for the first amendment.

On that standard, the posts at issue—however caustic—do not qualify as defamation, true threats, or unlawful harassment. Punishing them would blur the very lines the policy draws and would erode the College’s credibility. A community that prides itself on intellectual rigor and civic virtue ought to meet bad ideas with better arguments, not top-down administrative shortcuts.

This is the work of a liberal arts college: to let students test claims, challenge orthodoxy, and learn in public. Censorship is a poor teacher. It breeds resentment, especially among the young, and leads to more confusion. The answer to rhetoric that romanticizes violence, and I find that to be a rarity at Davidson, is not force imposed from a higher power, but argument, history, and moral clarity.

As our College President said after the assassination:

“A necessary element of addressing any and all social problems--including violence--is the free expression of ideas, mutual listening and respect, and the willingness to learn and act. College campuses must be a forum and an exemplar of open debate. This is a core part of our Davidson College community.”

The path forward is clear: enforce the policy’s narrow exceptions when speech breaks the law, but otherwise protect open expression. The real test is consistency—especially when the speech is unpopular.

First, it’s important to note that the weakness in the labor market likely reflects a real shock to the labor market, rather than a nominal shock to the economy. Instead of a nominal or demand shock to the economy that lowers total spending, which usually occurs during a recession, such as through lower investment or consumer spending, the economy’s capacity to turn inputs into outputs has been constrained. In such cases, the Federal Reserve's tools are limited. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the weakening labor market stems from more people entering the forceforce but struggling to obtain employment, as well as fewer unemployed workers being able to find jobs. Additionally, the president's restrictive immigration crackdown and tariffs have likely harmed the labor market by acting as a negative supply shock to the economy.

If weakening employment numbers reflect a real negative shock to the economy, the Fed must choose between an expansionary monetary policy that prevents output from falling or a contractionary policy that stops inflation from rising. It appears the Fed has chosen to loosen policy in response to supply-side conditions to achieve its congressional mandate of not only achieving stable prices, but also maximum employment. While this strategy might work in the short term, the Fed risks undermining price stability by loosening monetary policy.

This expansionary policy harms its goal of maximum employment because a stable labor market requires stable prices to transmit economic information. Additionally, if inflation exceeds its target, the Fed will have to tighten monetary policy, which risks harming the labor market.

Besides the labor market, there are no signs that the US economy is heading towards a recession that would require significant monetary accommodation. GDP grew at a seasonal and inflation-adjusted annual rate of 3.3% in the second quarter, indicating a strong economy with little evidence of the need for monetary stimulus. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's GDPNow forecast projects a robust 3.5 percent growth rate of Real GDP in the third quarter.

The strongest argument against cutting rates further at this time is the risk of exacerbating inflationary pressures. Inflation remains elevated above the Fed's 2% target. Core CPI was 3.1 percent over the last 12 months in August, and the Producer Price Index had its largest monthly increase since June 2022. The core personal consumption expenditures price index (Core PCE), which measures the inflation the Fed targets at 2%, showed that inflation increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.9% in July.

Instead of turning to the Federal Reserve to solve our current labor market problems, the American public should look to President Trump and Congress. For example, President Trump could announce a more predictable trade policy and limit tariffs on goods deemed necessary for national security. President Trump’s tariffs have acted as a negative supply shock to the economy as they increase the relative costs of imported goods. The higher price of imported goods reduces the economy's output, as the increased cost of inputs raises the cost of production. When American consumers and businesses spend more on imported goods, they also have less money to spend on other parts of the economy, resulting in lower overall output. A 2019 paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives finds that the tariffs Trump implemented in his first term, “were almost completely passed through into US domestic prices in 2018,” hurting American consumers the most. Moreover, reversing immigration policies that reduced the U.S. workforce could ease labor market strains while boosting economic growth and helping contain inflation.