Columbia—even before the world knew it by that name—has a history defined by a certain revolutionary spirit to which no other university in the country can lay a claim. Chaos, controversy, and upheaval have always been the name of the game here. Now, we enter a moment where the very definition of the word “university” is under review. Yet even this has precedent. Fear has understandably driven many to retreat from the political, and others to embrace it in new and extreme forms. Our message to you is as revolutionary as ever: reject the fear that compels us to silence ourselves and those around us.
In the course of leading this collection of truly brilliant people, I have realized that the moral arc of the universe does not naturally bend toward justice—it has to be bent toward justice. As we face the daunting task of speaking up for our right to speak up, it is in our persistence as students, against adversarial administrations and the atrocities that shape the contours of history, that we will achieve the justice and joy to which we know every person on this Earth is entitled.
Curating this magazine to meet the moment was no easy task. Our staff has covered practically every angle on every issue that looms over our lives as students and humans. In these pages, Simon Panfilio makes the case for bureaucrats amid the Trump administration’s war on the “deep state.” Eva Atkins traces crackdowns on Palestinian activists from the LA 8 to Columbia’s own Mahmoud Khalil. Lola Reinwarth warns us of the dangers of neglect for those populations that exist on the margins, politically and literally. We found one constant in their work: a commitment to our common humanity despite and even because of these forces of upheaval. As a publication that relies on both the principle and practice of free speech, our mission of providing a space for divergent opinion remains undeterred. We will not censor, and we will not yield. Against the aligned forces that would rather us stay silent, it has become our moral imperative not to shut up.
Historically, “Columbia” is another word for the American ideal. In both senses of that word, we must now test our commitment to the values we espouse. We ask that all of you join us in critical engagement with these ideas, not as mere ideas, but as expressions of the country and the world that we hope to build with you.
With resolve,
Adam Kinder, Editor-in-Chief
HUMANIZING THE
YBY SIMON PANFILIO ILLUSTRATED BY SOPHIE KAMDAR
ou have been brainwashed to hate bureaucrats. One of the central motifs in American political discourse is that “bureaucracy” brings to mind tedious paperwork, red tape, frustrated desk clerks, and pesky regulations. Everybody loves to groan about unnecessary bureaucracy, and every sitcom has a punchline about the DMV. The implicitly negative connotation of “bureaucracy” is everywhere in our society, universal enough to make it into a children’s movie like Zootopia. The manifestations of this bad rap range from harmless to downright dangerous. In particular, the right-wing has portrayed the bureaucracy as a nefarious shadow regime advancing an ulterior agenda suggested to be a threat to the American people.
“Deep state” rhetoric is rooted in the implication and societally accepted idea that bureaucrats are faceless, impersonal, and in some way unresponsive to the needs and wants of the general public. There are many, many problems with “deep state” rhetoric, but perhaps its greatest fallacy is the idea that the bureaucracy is a cohesive ideological entity. In reality,
the civil service is not an amorphous blob, a monolith, or a cabal of mindless soldiers propping up an ideological regime, but a collection of individuals. Just like any other group, civil servants’ priority is to provide for themselves and their families and to find fulfillment in their work.
I aim to push back on the anti-worker rhetoric that springs out of the negative societal depiction of bureaucracy, and instead to visualize the bureaucracy as a group of people that are particularly vulnerable to political whims. We don’t tend to think about bureaucrats as workers, but when politicians talk about streamlining the government and trimming down the bureaucracy, they’re talking about potentially firing hundreds of thousands of people. People, with ambitions, fears, consciences, allegiances, families to feed, bills to pay, and, for now, a very important job to do. A politically motivated disruption to these hundreds of thousands of lives would be a massive shock to both the American labor force and the fabric of our economy and society.
In more ways than one, the livelihoods of the millions of American workers employed in the federal bureaucracy are subject to the whims and stunts of a small group of political elites. Since the Reagan Era, it has been popular to decry government as too big, as both Republicans and Democrats have called for a slimming of the federal government. Political scientist John DiIulio argues the opposite in his book Bring Back the Bureaucrats that incompetence and gridlock in the federal bureaucracy comes not from the government being too big, but from it being too small—the size of the federal civil service has lagged far behind both population growth and economic growth, saddling
a set amount of workers with an increasingly untenable amount of duties. Not only are lamentations about the size of the bureaucratic state missing the point, DiIulio argues, but they ignore huge consequences for playing political games with federal employment. And with Donald J. Trump on his way back into the White House, the threats facing the labor force of bureaucrats are as relevant now as they ever have been.
Currently, the federal government employs almost 2.3 million people, almost five times the population of Wyoming. The threats facing these 2.3 million people are exemplified by the now-infamous Project 2025, a comprehensive policy blueprint drawn up by an all-star team of Trump staffers and conservative think tank veterans (many of whom have been already awarded top positions in the incoming administration). There is a staggering amount that can and should be said about Project 2025 —which was written explicitly to provide a second Trump administration with a ready-made blueprint to implement a radical, socially conservative, and Christian nationalist agenda—but in this column, I will focus specifically on the two-pronged threat it poses to the federal workforce in the form of mass layoffs and the politicization of the bureaucracy. The former has received a fair amount of mainstream attention in the 2024 election, but the latter much less so.
Here’s a crash course on the federal workforce. There are two major categories of federal employment: the competitive service and the excepted service. Roughly 70% of federal employees belong to the competitive service, which fits the classical definition of the meritocratic civil service system. Hiring is qualification-based, verified through exams, and strictly adheres to a federal hiring code. The remaining 30% of federal em-
ployees belong to the excepted service, which more closely follows a private sector hiring model, with looser hiring guidelines that vary between different agencies. This split system gives the federal bureaucracy the “best of both worlds”. The competitive service can build up the quality of its talent and retain institutional knowledge required for efficient administrative services, while the excepted service can respond to fluid political situations with flexible hiring and rotating expertise.
The debate over the extent to which the bureaucracy should be politicized has raged throughout American history. Through most of the 1800s, the federal bureaucracy was a quagmire of patronage appointments, with corruption and incompetence running rampant as incumbent presidents’ political supporters were rewarded with jobs (and then chased out of town when another administration took over). Beginning in the late 1800s, a wave of civil service reforms made the bureaucracy more apolitical and meritocratic, exemplified by the competitive service, with political protections for employees so that the government could do quality work without being subject to games of politics. The current system relies on a balance two competing but equally important principles: first, the idea that the government should be insulated from political impulses that go against the common interest, and second, the idea that whoever is elected to lead the country needs flexibility and political discretion to be able to implement the policies they were elected to pursue.
Donald Trump’s re-election threatens to upset this balance. During his first term, Trump issued an executive order creating Schedule F, a new category of jobs in the excepted service. Positions classified under Schedule F would be stripped of civil service
protections, meaning that Schedule F employees were subject to at-will hiring and firing on political grounds. Trump’s goal was to reclassify more than 50,000 policy-related positions into Schedule F in order to give himself absolute power over these positions and their occupants. However, the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic brought this restructuring to a halt, and when Joe Biden took office in early 2021, he issued his own executive order eliminating Schedule F. However, Project 2025 contains plans to revive Schedule F in order to increase the politicization of the bureaucracy, and now President-elect Trump is in position to finish what he started in his first term.
I return now to the two prongs of Project 2025’s designs on bu-
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In particular, the right-wing has portrayed the bureaucracy as a nefarious shadow regime advancing an ulterior agenda suggested to be a threat to the American people.
reaucratic politicization: mass layoffs and the removal of political protections. According to Project 2025, the Trump administration would carry out mass layoffs at the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Justice, and Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In total, these departments and agencies employ a combined 447,000 people. Even more government agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs (which employs over 486,000 people), would be privatized, while still others would be dismantled in a piecemeal fashion. In other words, almost a million people stand to lose their jobs as a result of these layoffs.
Project 2025 would also place
several independent government bodies under intense political discretion. Agencies like the Federal Reserve, the Postal Service, Amtrak, NASA, the National Labor Relations Board, the FTC, the FCC, the SEC, and the Federal Election Commission are meant to be independent from the shifting currents of political administrations. They are not represented by Senate-confirmed cabinet secretaries, and they are not subject to the authority of the Executive Office of the President. These agencies are supposed to be able to go about their work without worrying about political blowback from the executive branch, but putting them under political discretion would inhibit (if not unilaterally undo) the work of hundreds of thousands of civil servants. Many of these agencies are somewhat small, but the Postal Service alone employs over 640,000 people. That’s a staggering amount of people to be effectively put under a political muzzle, notwithstanding the fact that they are responsible for circulating crucial information, packages, and ballots throughout the country. In case there was any question about Trump’s intentions with the “independence” of these agencies, another provision of Project 2025 is the creation of a loyalty-based personnel database, in which prospective employees must complete a questionnaire to demonstrate their compatibility with the Trump agenda and their personal fealty to the president. The vast expansion of Schedule F, the removal of political protections for federal em-
ployees, and the implementation of a loyalty test all point towards a mass politicization of the federal bureaucracy under Trump. This would be nothing short of an ideological purge.
The labor perspective is crucial here, as with Trump’s re-election, two million Americans are at risk of losing their jobs, their access to health benefits, and their pensions. As noted by the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union for civilian employees, Project 2025 would replace federal pay scales with a system that incentivizes following presidential orders and sharply reduces retirement benefits, including Social Security payments. Trump’s website also states that upon Trump taking office, “up to 100,000 government positions could be moved out of Washington.” All of this amounts to a major upheaval in the lives of even those federal employees whose departments are not gutted or politicized.
Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025 due to its political unpopularity, but he has appointed its authors and contributors to head the Office of Management and Budget, the FCC, the CIA, and more.
And the threat of bureaucratic politicization existed prior to the creation of Project 2025. We know that in his first term, Trump already tried to reclassify tens of thousands of jobs into Schedule F so that he could hire political loyalists and fire anybody who challenged his agenda. Meanwhile, in 2022, Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida), one
of the leaders of the Senate’s conservative wing, proposed the Public Service Reform Act, which would eliminate all job protections and allow the president to hire and fire all 2 million federal employees. Trump’s policy platform promises to reissue Schedule F for the purposes of “restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats” immediately upon taking office. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both far-right conspiracy theorists and wealthy patrons of Trump’s campaign, were tapped to lead a new government commission aimed at purging what they call the “unelected and unconstitutional Federal bureaucracy.” Trump and his allies have made it abundantly clear that they have their eyes on a political purge of the federal government, and millions of Americans’ livelihoods are at stake. Trump’s re-election portends a return to the age of blatant political patronage, an Andrew Jackson for the 21st century. This is not only a direct threat to the government’s ability to do apolitical work aimed at providing the best quality to its constituents, but also an existential threat to the livelihoods of more than two million Americans who have already been consistently demonized as members of an evil “deep state.” The ramifications of this type of bureaucratic politicization on the American workforce are themselves deep, and with Trump returning to office in January, they are growing more and more plausible.
Edited by: Jonathan Pollak, Arturo Samano, Adam Kinder.
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Simon Panfi lio (CC ’25) is a columnist majoring in political science and minoring in history. He is from Denver, Colorado, and is interested in American elections, the American presidency, and the politics of bureaucracy and infrastructure.
CONGRESS, PASS THE PORK PLEASE
BY DELANEY DERMODY
ILLUSTRATED BY BEATRIX HOLSTINE
In 2006, Representative Bob Ney (R-Ohio) was found guilty in one of the largest congressional scandals for accepting bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for earmark funding directed towards
Abramoff’s clients. One form of these bribes was free meals from Abramoff’s restaurant Signatures, which he was later forced to sell after it was discovered that he gave free meals to several other congressional members. For context, Congress determines the annual federal budget through twelve ap-
to different federal agencies. Hard earmarks, which are legally binding line items in these bills, allow members of Congress to direct federal spending towards constituent projects in their home district or state. The Ney-Abramoff earmark scandal and others resulted in the 2011 earmark moratorium. propriations bills, each allocating funds
While the 2021 renewal of hard earmarks after the decade-long moratorium was enforced with
stricter rules and supervision, the previous schmoozing at Abramoff’s Signatures continues down the street at the Capital Grille, another restaurant where Republican PACs spent more than $762,000 in the 2024 election cycle. Lobbyists regularly socialize here with Republican members and often host political fundraisers, donating to a member’s reelection campaign out of personal funds that reflect the support of one’s firm. These events may evade the congressional gift rules, created in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, by allowing lobbyists to discuss their clients’ earmark projects with members of Congress while subtly gifting them something in return. Even with reforms, such restaurants remain the preeminent symbols of enduring earmark corruption.
Despite the role that money continues to play in congressional relations with lobbyists, has the improved earmark process corrected the system that allowed such an extreme scandal to occur nearly two decades ago? Although earmarks can be beneficial for both the constituents that receive project fund-
ing from the appropriations process and for the members whose reelection optics are improved by assisting their constituencies, the current process is unsustainable for all parties involved and problematized by the third-party role that lobbying and consulting firms play. By further reforming the operation through cutting out the middleman, the value of earmarks could be retained in a more ethical way.
There is disagreement as to when earmarks were first introduced, but some believe they date as far back as 1789 when George Washington signed a bill that appropriated funding for a lighthouse in Virginia. Regardless, they only became more regularized in the 1980s and ‘90s. Informally known as pork-barrel spending, in which legislators use federal funds to “take home the bacon” to their constituents, hard earmarks are now known as “congressionally directed spending” in the Senate and “community project funding” in the House of Representatives.
When Newt Gingrich (R-GA), the “granddad-
dy of earmarks,” became speaker in 1995, he turned the spending mechanisms into political currency—leveraging these projects to garner votes for an appropriations bill or aid re-election campaigns. Despite efforts to introduce reforms to the process in fiscal years (FY) 2008-10, scandals like the one with Representative Ney and a general misuse of government spending occurred. This is evident from the $29 billion worth of earmarks in FY 2006 alone. The 2011 ban, supported by both President Obama and Speaker Boehner, was a direct response to this abuse and aligned with the Tea Party movement’s goals at the time.
Earmark funding returned to Congress with new rules in 2021 after years of members from both sides of the aisle proposing their restoration and touting their necessity. Since their return, the selection of which members’ projects actually receive funding has become more competitive. As each appropriations bill works its way
through its respective subcommittee, then committee, floor, and joint committee–in that order–the number of earmark projects included (if allowed to be included in that bill at all) narrows, and often the amount of money allocated to each project decreases. Now, projects are capped at 1 percent of total discretionary spending, and representatives can only request a maximum of 15 projects for their district (although senators have no such limit). Additionally, required disclosures ensure that members must certify that they have no financial stake or other interest in the requested projects they submit. Importantly, for-profit organizations are ineligible to receive project funding. While these rules have further regulated the congressionally directed spending process, it is still an imperfect operation.
When the 2011 earmark moratorium was lifted in 2021, the Senate Republican Conference maintained its ban on the procedure. Within the rules of their conference, Senate Republicans cannot technically request project funding for their constituents. This rule is nonbinding, however, and many do so anyway. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, won the most earmarks for her home state in FY24, funding 231 projects totaling $576 million. She isn’t alone—despite half the House Republican conference opting out of earmarks in FY22, compared to only five House Democrats, Republican members requested over $20 million more than Democrats at the individual level. Republican members who request earmarks acknowledge that it would be a disadvantage if they didn’t do so, causing many to benefit from the spending measures despite espousing anti-earmark sentiments.
Another significant player in the earmark game is lobbyists. Despite the volatility of the process, many
lobbying firms have made securing earmarks for their clients a central service since their 2021 return. There is a potential quid pro quo element to the earmark process, given the tertiary relationship of lobbying firms to both constituents requesting earmark projects and members who attempt to get these projects funded. Part of what can make this relationship transactional is inconspicuous fundraising for members of Congress by lobbying firms themselves, such as what occurs at D.C. restaurants. Although these negotiations go rather unspoken publicly, a firm will often fundraise for a member if they have one or several clients in the member’s district or state who may benefit from the submission of an earmark project. This action is completely legal within the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), but one can clearly see how a lobbying firm throwing a fundraiser for a member of Congress could influence that member to deal kindly with the firm’s clients.
Recent research by Huq, Hassan, and Houston proves the correlation between lobbying firms’ political contributions to members of Congress and their subsequent receipt of earmarks. These authors found that firm-affiliated political action committee (PAC) contributions to members of Congress “increase the probability of the legislator writing an earmark benefiting the firm, with an average return of 1090%.” This is a significant return on investment for both the firms and their clients, which explains why firms have embraced the earmark process. There is an incentive, then, for firms to make contributions to members if doing so means that their clients will pay them more, thus creating a quid pro quo relationship between members and lobbying firms. This relationship between lobbyists and members of Congress reduces the ability for all parties to compete equally in the
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Although earmarks can be beneficial for both the constituents that receive project funding from the appropriations process and for the members whose reelection optics are improved by assisting their constituencies, the current process is unsustainable for all parties involved and problematized by the third-party role that lobbying and consulting firms play.
process—certain constituent organizations get a leg up with members because of their lobbying influence.
The Republican Party’s opposition to earmarks could be disastrous for the lobbying firms whose revenue now significantly depends on securing earmarks for clients. With complete Republican control of Congress beginning in January 2025, it is unclear what could happen to these funding measures, and thus to the services that such firms provide. The business of securing earmarks for clients has already been highly volatile for lobbying firms. In April, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole barred nonprofits from receiving project funding under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Economic Development Initiative (EDI) grant program. The restriction left firms scrambling since they had already lobbied members to include nonprofit clients’ projects in the EDI. This, of course, resulted in client pushback and a shift in lobbying priorities on behalf of these clients. Even if earmarks remain part of the appropriations process, frequent rule modifications undermine their efficacy, as well as the ability of firms to secure earmark funding for their clients.
The question that remains from the uncertain circumstances of the earmark process is whether funding these projects is justified. Funding towards specific projects can and has supported vital community interests, creating jobs and targeting specific problems. Earmarks often fund in-
frastructure improvements, crucial new equipment for hospitals, and improvements for local emergency services, among other necessary advancements. Oftentimes, earmark funding is directed toward projects that may find difficulty obtaining funding elsewhere. And now that earmark funding is restricted against for-profit organizations, it seems as though this benefit would be exponentially multiplied as money is supposedly flowing to in-need nonprofit organizations.
In reality, however, excessive government funding continues to waste taxpayer dollars under earmarks, meaning that this supposed benefit is lessened as much funding is directed to superfluous projects without much oversight. For instance, earmarks often benefit the most powerful legislators, frequently those on the Appropriations Committee like Senator Collins, who have significant power over the bills—the projects she wins funding for are not necessarily the most essential. Furthermore, the 2024 Congressional Pig Book Summary, a report aimed at combating government funding waste by analyzing the year’s funded earmark projects, highlights the excesses of FY24’s budgetary spending. The report gave its “You Cannot Be Serious Award” to both of New York’s senators for directing $1.75 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an institution worth $5 billion in 2023. These examples illustrate how taxpayer funds often go towards projects not in dire need of government funding, underscoring the necessity
of further reform.
Though line-item spending can be beneficial for funding constituent projects, the use of lobbying firms to accomplish this goal corrupts the earmark process, tipping the funding scales towards organizations and congressional members with more resources and away from those that are perhaps more in need. The involvement of lobbyists and their money turns the earmark process into a market, as money (fundraising) is exchanged for favors (earmark projects for clients). This market is unsustainable, however, for the firms themselves. Earmarks are ever-evolving, and with the partisan views on their existence and implementation, it is nonsensical that firms rely heavily on them within their portfolio of client services. Is there a way to reform congressionally directed spending, or community project funding, even further? The third-party role of lobbying is a central corrupting element of the current process. Improving this could mean cutting out the middleman entirely. By making the earmark process more direct, from constituent to member, the benefits of the procedure could be kept intact. Constituents and members both profit, without wasting excess cash on the lobbyist between them. This effort would take significant reform and yes, lobbying, in its own right, but the results of such an attempt could be tremendous. It is possible to prevent “bringing home the bacon” from being a corruptive, complicated, capitalist process.
Delaney Dermody (BC ’25) is a staff writer from Seattle, Washington. She studies political science and religion, and is interested in immigration policy, congressional reform, and democratic initiatives and engagement. She can be reached at dad2223@barnard.edu.
and Adam Kinder. Scan the QR code on the right for the full article (with citations)
COURT TERM
TIMELESS TENURE: THE CASE AGAINST SUPREME COURT TERM LIMITS
BY QUINN MORRIS ILLUSTRATED BY BEATRIX HOLSTINE
The Supreme Court is facing a legitimacy crisis of its own making. The 2020 Senate confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett forged a six-justice conservative majority on the Court. Since then, it has bent the law to its will. In just four years, the Court has eliminated the constitutional right to obtain an abortion, invalidated race-conscious admissions programs, hobbled the administrative state, and blessed the presidency with absolute immunity for official acts. Additionally, reports have revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas enjoyed luxury vacations on
the dime of billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow, and Justice Samuel Alito flew flags associated with the January 6 insurrection. Accordingly, the Court’s approval rating has sunk to a measly 44%.
In response, several politicians have pushed for Court reform, most notably former President Joe
Biden, whose reform plan calls for the enactment of 18-year term limits for sitting justices. Such reform, however, will fundamentally alter, and surely mangle, our constitutional system. The Framers of the Constitution designed the Supreme Court to transcend the ordinary oscillations of the political process. Lacking any support in constitutional text, structure, or history, term limits would distort this foundational principle. Far from fixing a Court in peril, term limits will disrupt the law and further embroil the Court in partisan politics.
THE JUDICIARY’S CONSTITUTIONAL DESIGN
Article III of the Constitution states that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” The sole constitutional limit on the tenure of federal judges is the requirement of “good Behaviour.” This clause emphasizes the character of the judge rather than the length of tenure, reflecting the Framers’ focus on the impartial administration of law. Although conspicuous, constitutional context confirms that this is a feature, not a flaw, of the judiciary. Indeed, Article I, which establishes the structure of Congress, explicitly limits the terms of representatives and senators to two and six years, respectively. Moreover, Article II mandates that a president be elected every four years. While the elected branches are subject to term limits, federal courts are not. This structural distinction distances federal judges from the ebb and flow of public opinion, underscoring their independence.
History, too, favors independence over accountability. Alexander Hamilton considered independence central to preserving individual liberty and judicial integrity. “Periodical appointments,” Hamilton argued, would “be fatal to their necessary independence.” Accordingly, The Framers enshrined judicial indepen-
dence by exempting federal judges from term limits. Taken together, the text, structure, and history of the Constitution evince that independence is at the heart of the judiciary; term limits would jeopardize that insulation.
The textual authority of term limits is equally as faulty. Supporters of term limits rely on two constitutional provisions to support congressional authorization. First, Article III, Section 2 subjects the Court’s appellate jurisdiction to the “Exceptions, and … Regulations as the Congress shall make.” This clause, coupled with Congress’s authority in Article I, Section 8 “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” to carry out its enumerated powers, the argument goes, provides extensive power to Congress to enact 18-year term limits. That is wrong twice over. First, the plain text of the exception in Article III, Section 2, is silent on judicial
tenure. Further, its context disavows alleged authority for term limits. Section 2 deals exclusively with the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, confining the “judicial power” to “Cases” and “Controversies,” and establishing the Court’s original and appellate jurisdiction. Only then does the Exception and Regulations Clause appear. Article III, Section 2, therefore reads most naturally as Congress’s ability to place exceptions and regulations on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, not on the institution of the Supreme Court.
The Necessary and Proper Clause argument is no more persuasive. The Court affords Congress broad deference under this clause, but does not allow Congress to “undermine the structure of government established by the Constitution.” Because the enactment of term limits would do just that, they cannot be rooted in the Necessary and Proper Clause.
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Taken together, the text, structure, and history of the Constitution evince that independence is at the heart of the judiciary; term limits would jeopardize that insulation.
THE DISRUPTION OF THE LAW
Supporters of term limits argue that, under such a regime, the Court’s ideas, energy, and understandings will not stagnate. Sitting justices will no longer serve for decades and the public will not be at the will of a specific coalition of like-minded justices. No longer would the Court be entitled to remain blissfully ignorant as society evolves. Yet the rapid confirmations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett between 2017 and 2020 have provided the necessary votes to overrule precedent and usher in sea changes in the law. The very Court that the public so strongly disparages stands as the best example of how frequent turnover opens the floodgates for continuous change, upheaval, and disruption in the law. Thus, a regime of term limits would only incur more jolts to the law.
Besides, this argument misconceives the role of the Court. Since the Court’s ruling in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, it has been the judiciary’s sole duty “to say what the law is,” not to make popular decisions. That is the function of the people’s elected officials. To be sure, the legitimacy of the Court is partially derived from public faith that the Court is acting impartially. But the desire to enact term limits to keep the Court up-to-date with public sentiment is misplaced.
At face value, term limits ensure the promise of renewal to the American people by preventing the nation from being confined for decades by the archaic views of unelected judges. Certainly, changes in the composition of the Court have been to the benefit of all Americans. In 1954, the Court rectified its egregiously wrong holding in Plessy v. Ferguson and unanimously decreed that racial segregation finds no refuge in our constitutional system. Changes in the Court’s membership, however, have cut the other way as well. The replacement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett moved the
Court markedly to the right. Since then, the Court has moved the law to fit what it understands to be the Constitution’s original meaning. And it has taken the Court only four years to go this far.
There is no doubt that term limits would refresh the Court. The central question is whether such a change is necessary. The field of law is intended to be stable and develop gradually over time. The doctrine of stare decisis, which admonishes judges to stand by previous decisions, achieves that by preventing frequent doctrinal shifts in the law. The Court has described stare decisis as contributing to the perceived legitimacy of the judiciary because it dispels notions of individual impulse. 18-year term limits would harm this bedrock principle, primarily by increasing the probability that precedents will be overruled, inviting disruption in the law.
TURNING THE POLITICAL TEMPERATURE DOWN
It is no secret that the confirmation process has devolved into political theatre. Former President Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court lamented that the confirmation process has devolved into “multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns.” However, term limits are an improper remedy for this disease. Indeed, Supreme Court nominations have been embroiled in politics since the founding. The nomination of a Supreme Court justice is a momentous occasion, making heightened scrutiny predictable. And while the unpredictability of Supreme Court vacancies contributes to their attention, it is not certain that a mere uptick in the frequency of appointments would lower the controversy surrounding them. The link between term limits and decreased polarization of the Court is thus shaky at best.
Some scholars have suggested revisions to the nomination process such as a non-partisan nomination
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The very Court that the public so strongly disparages stands as the best example of how frequent turnover opens the floodgates for continuous change, upheaval, and disruption in the law.
commission or requiring a supermajority to approve judicial—especially Supreme Court—nominees. These solutions are far more sound and cautious. Such changes are tailored to the polarization surrounding the confirmation process and will not mutate the Supreme Court.
If anything, term limits would enhance the politicization of the Court. Presidents are entirely dependent on a vacancy arising during their term. A regime of term limits would grant every President at least two appointments. This would fuel the erroneous view that the justices are puppets of the President who appointed them and serve exclusively to actualize their policy agenda.
What is more, the elections of state judges further signal increased partisanship. Over 30 states elect local and state supreme court justices, 87% of whom will face voters
at some point during their tenure. The contrast between state and federal judges represents a trade-off between judicial accountability and independence. Although state-level judges are closer to the people, researchers have found higher levels of impartiality and poorer opinion writing. In fact, a liberal justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court refused to dissent in death penalty cases for fear of adverse electoral outcomes.
In 2024, at an oral argument in Glossip v. Oklahoma, Justice Elena Kagan highlighted the disjointed writing in an opinion by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. The election of state judges strongly suggests that independence should carry more weight than accountability, further cautioning against the enactment of term limits.
The Court, now controlled by a firm conservative majority, has re-
modeled the law to its outlook. Most prominently, the nation is now a patchwork of abortion rights, with 13 states completely outlawing abortion and 12 others enacting restrictive bans on the procedure. Although the constitutional right to obtain an abortion stood for half a century, its demise was straightforward, as articulated by the dissenting justices in Dobbs: “because the composition of th[e] Court has changed.”
The enactment of term limits for justices would only invite more disruption. In addition to disfiguring the judiciary’s structure, they would ensnare the Court in political histrionics. Justice Stephen Breyer once remarked, “[i]t is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” All those who enjoy the law’s protection rely on its stability. There is no reason to revoke such a bedrock principle.
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Quinn Morris (CC ’27) is a staff writer from Lexington, Kentucky. His interests include judicial politics and constitutional law.
Edited by: Evangeline Cortez, Noura Angulo, Jesse Levine, and Max Hermosillo.
IT’S THE DEBT, STUPID
BY JOSH GROYSBERG ILLUSTRATED BY BEATRIX HOLSTINE
“It’s the economy, stupid,” famously quipped by political advisor Jim Carville during Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, became a simple yet decisive slogan that helped secure Clinton’s victory. Thirty years later, however, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have missed the economic elephant in the room. Moreover, voters have failed to call them out for it. The US national debt has risen to $35 trillion USD, with almost a third of that amount being added in the last four years. This dramatic rise stems from the revenue shortfall linked to the 2017 Tax Cuts, emergency spending during the pandemic, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Interest payments on the national debt exceed one trillion dollars: a figure greater than America’s total annual military expenditure. Even more staggeringly, the debt is currently 122% of GDP, a level not seen since World War II. Despite these stark figures, both Dem-
ocratic and Republican presidential candidates remained complacent during their campaigns by proposing policies that would only add trillions more to the debt. By doing so, they continue a dangerous trend with a negative long-term economic health of the nation.
Indeed, both the Trump and Harris campaigns pitched fiscal policies that would add to the national debt. Both campaigns called for increased spending in the absence of viable mechanisms to raise the funds for that spending. Donald Trump, for his part, has proposed a major corporate tax rate reduction, as well as for an elimination of taxation on tips and social security benefits. To offset these reductions, Trump proposed raising tariffs on China imports by up to 60%. That rate has more than doubled since his election. While this measure is likely to raise revenues for the US government, it risks escalating to a trade war and inflat-
ing prices for American consumers. Higher prices for consumers may undermine the revenue collected from the tariffs. Such a policy therefore fails to address the issue of the mounting debt entirely while only compounding existing problems for Americans. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, proposed expanding the child credit to $6,000 for newborn children. She has also come out in favor of providing $25,000 to first time home-buyers over the course of four years. To fund these initiatives, Harris proposed introducing a variety of taxes on long-term capital gains, as well as raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. While those plans appear fiscally sound on paper, they fall flat in their application. Although Harris’s plans would have raised more revenue, they offered no solution to rising government spending, a key element of reducing the debt to GDP ratio. Wall Street Journal calculations estimate that both platforms
trillion, and Harris’s to add roughly $4.2 trillion.
Regrettably, it seems that the concept of “fiscal responsibility,” long held as an important political maxim, has essentially disappeared from partisan discourse. In a recent interview conducted by the author for this article, Professor Waseem Noor, a lecturer in economics at Columbia University, claims that debt ignorance exists mostly because both parties have been responsible for adding to it. That notion is supported by recent economic data: in the past decade, both the Trump and Biden administrations have contributed trillions to national debt ($4.8 and $2.2, respectively). Because of that reality, blaming the opposition for debt increases has become near-impossible for either major party. It is therefore the responsibility of the voter to force parties to address the issue by demanding accountability. By doing so, politicians would be pushed to act to slow the growth of the national debt, avoiding potential worst-case scenarios.
Noor also points out that stopping the accumulation of debt is counterproductive electorally, since adding to it is essentially borrowing from future generations to cover present-day expenditures. Because a high proportion of today’s decision-makers have little reason to prioritize the economic well-being of future generations, the incentive for partisan action on fiscal responsibility is not overwhelmingly large. As a result, younger voters must push for their own future themselves. If politicians are forced to care about appealing to their demographic, they will have to campaign on reducing the debt so that young adults will not have to handle potential future economic crises that may arise because they continued to neglect it.
The reality is that an accelerating national debt will impact all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. A significant consequence could be higher interest rates with
$1.7 avoided a end,
payments that would reach $1.7 trillion annually by 2034, especially if confidence in the US’s ability to repay its debt declines. Higher interest rates mean higher cost of borrowing, leading to the average consumer facing more expensive loans. Even governments would have to borrow more to fulfill their payments. A likely repercussion of this dangerous fiscal cycle is the printing of money to pay down that debt, which could result in runaway inflation, weakening the dollar worldwide. Such a circumstance must be avoided to protect the economic wellbeing of the nation. Americans, subsequently, must demand their representatives and candidates to take a stance on curbing the growth of the debt.
To that end, a more productive outcome exists. If the US remains an innovative and productive powerhouse, confidence in US economic strength can remain stable and enable the US to maintain a high amount of debt relative to GDP—as has been the case this entire century—for the foreseeable future. That outcome, importantly, is less dependent on mitigative actions from the government. However, even in that scenario, kicking the can down the road and expecting the US economy’s resilience and productivity to be its saving grace is ultimately unsustainable, since the US will face challenges to its established dominance on the world stage in the coming decades. These challenges are likely to come in the form of renewed economic competition and a restructuring in global political alliances that may shift the center of power away from the US. A loss in US economic and geopolitical exceptionalism would enable debt confidence (a lender’s belief in the borrower to repay their loan) to slip and lead to higher interest rates. Due to the uncertainty of the future, slowing down the growth of the debt is absolutely imperative if the US wants to maintain its status in the international system.
If the US government keeps failing
to address the accelerating national debt, voters must do more to hold
elected officials accountable. Notably, a report from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation found that 91% of American voters wanted Trump and Harris to discuss plans to address the $35 trillion dollar budget. However, despite the universality of the issue, its salience is low. In an era of hyper-partisanship, candidates have prioritized mobilizing voters over presenting a fiscal policy engineered
to reduce the debt. Sadly, it is considered more pragmatic for candidates to focus on divisive social issues. An issue of broad interest for Americans, such as addressing the national debt, is not enough to motivate voters to head to the polls, and therefore gets tossed to the wayside.
Admittedly, most available solutions are all exceedingly unpopular. One possible measure is tax hikes, but they are clearly unwanted. In fact, 38% of US adults were dissatisfied with how much they were pay-
ing in taxes in 2023, a five percent increase from only two years earlier. Another alternative is cutting fiscal spending, which is similarly undesirable: the vast majority of Americans oppose any cuts to social security and Medicare, for instance.
However, irrespective of the challenges they face in doing so, America’s youth must take action by bringing the debt back into the political spotlight. More broadly, the United States must avoid a fiscal crisis by slowing its debt growth trajectory
and avoid higher borrowing costs. Despite its disastrous economic implications, the issue has lost political relevance. Younger voters must recognize that they will ultimately foot the bill. If voters concentrate on the future of the country, the negative impacts of the accelerating national debt might gain a foothold in the American consciousness. By adopting that approach and slowing the growth of the debt, younger generations will set themselves up to inherit a fiscally healthy nation.
Josh Groysberg (CC ’25) is a staff writer from Boston, Massachusetts. Josh studies economics-political science together with the business concentration. He can be reached at joshua. groysberg@columbia.edu.
Edited by: Owen Bruderly, Brock Lichthardt, and Jesse Levine. Scan the QR code on the right for the full article (with citations)
TRUMP,
THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
BY ISHAAN BARRETT ILLUSTRATED BY BEATRIX HOLSTINE
To most Trump-supporting Republicans, my Safari browsing history seems perfectly unsuspicious. My many visits to the White House and Project 2025 webpages might well conceal my liberal political inclinations and the fact that I watched absolutely none of the 2025 Inauguration. But in truth, I spent most of my time alternating between those sites trying to understand America’s new, perilous trajectory. Examining the primary text of President Trump’s Executive Orders while trying to situate
them within the architecture of Project 2025 is a daunting task because each mandate is dense, stylistically mimicking formal legislation. They are carefully planned, provisioned, and executed to mimic the work of Congress, minus the hallmark consensus-building and parliamentary voting procedures therein. Trump’s sweeping anti-DEIJ, anti-immigration, and overtly anti-LGBTQ executive orders outline a startling, sinister reality of American governance concentrated almost exclusively in the White House. In this manner, several
ironies, contradictions, and peculiarities emerge that are worthy of note.
The executive orders coming out of the White House are like none seen in Trump’s previous term. They are carefully constructed and effectively mimic formal policy that you might see out of the House or Senate. In that way, it is not difficult to see how Trump’s perspective on the White House has changed since he was last in office four years ago. It makes sense, perhaps, that given Trump’s new affinity for “Government Efficiency”—evidenced well
in his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—he would seek to subvert the legislative branch by imbuing his executive office with a flavor of “proper policy.” Hesitant readers should look to the executive orders mandating a hiring freeze, eliminating birthright citizenship, repealing previous Biden-era protections, and attacking immigration as further evidence of Trump’s wave of new “executive legislations.” Trump’s overreach, underpinned by his new efficiency agenda, ironically creates more inefficiencies than shortcuts. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s attempts to stretch the powers of the executive branch might well break the functioning of his new administration. In response to the dozens of new mandates from the White House, states, district courts, and corporations are pushing back in a substantial show of force. Attorneys general from 22 different states filed suit against the Trump administration in response to his executive order revoking birthright citizenship. A federal judge temporarily blocked the same executive order, citing its overt unconstitutionality. In total, the pushback amounted to a total of six lawsuits backed by expectant mothers and activist organizations which will be heard in District Court in a matter of weeks. Other executive orders by the Trump administration seeking to accelerate deportations are also facing mounting legal challenges across numerous states. Even legal scholars and litigators are preparing to defend sanctuary cities and city government personnel against possible federal prosecution for protecting undocumented immigrants. Major companies like Apple, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs are doubling down on diversity practices despite Trump’s attacks on DEI programs throughout the federal government. In aggregate, the immediate pushback against Trump’s executive agenda is unsurprising: the radical changes he has put forth are incompatible with certain institu-
tionalized ideologies—like diversity and citizenship—that endure outside of, and often despite, partisan polarization.
The most dramatic of Trump’s new measures came on January 28 when the White House announced a freeze on all federal funding programs. Trillions of dollars in funding to small businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions, social welfare programs, and other public assistance programs ceased, despite the vague information that accompanied the executive order. Only a few hours later, Federal Judge Loren Ali Khan of Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the order citing blatant violations of the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act that governs the executive branch’s rule-making powers. Coupled with the millions of dollars of payouts that the Trump Administration is offering for federal employees to resign, it is simply impossible—even for the most heartened Trump affiliate— to categorize his actions under the guise of “efficiency.” These attacks against the operations of the federal government grew from rapid-fire executive decisions to sweeping cuts to fundamental government operations. Their increasing severity catalyzes an era of unprecedented peril in the nation, one characterized by political and social uncertainty. Most
significantly, however, it undermines the credibility of the Trump administration as it aims to implement strict cutbacks over the coming weeks.
In his quest to preserve the “essential” elements of the federal government and rid bureaucratic offices of any “wasteful” programs, Trump is entering a dangerous new territory that defies the logic established in his first week in office. Eliminating DEI government programs, attacking sanctuary cities, cutting down birthright citizenship, and slashing federal funding are questionable attempts at government efficiency. They disguise a more startling reality where, as Trump chips away at federal programs and officials, the quest for efficiency will give way to complete immobility. Birthright citizenship was the first domino; Trump overextended his executive powers by ignoring obvious constitutional guardrails, namely the Fourteenth Amendment. His attacks on federal DEI programs are deterring major companies from engaging with Trump’s economic agenda and inspiring fear among smaller companies who hesitate to fall in line. President Trump’s early executive orders are ideologically bound to essentialism, or the paring down of US involvement in programs and initiatives deemed invaluable and excessive to the new administration. Regardless of whether Trump’s
It makes sense, perhaps, that given Trump’s new affinity for “Government Efficiency”—evidenced well in his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—he would seek to subvert the legislative branch by imbuing his executive office with a flavor of “proper policy.
new orders go unchallenged, they establish an early identity for his new federal administration characterized by volatility, isolationism, and anti-pluralism.
Beyond a chaotic first week in office, a staggering irony looms above Trump’s new administration. The President is following the Project 2025 playbook and ascribing to the type of conservatism it stands for without writing a single page. Authored by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 sells itself as a tool to make the “White House more friendly to the right” and realize “a vision of conservative success.” People familiar with Trump’s unsophisticated rhetoric will find it hard to place these platitudes within even his most abrasive tirades against the left. I strongly doubt that Trump has read more than a small handful of the 887 pages of the Project 2025 Playbook (available for free online). Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation maintain a death grip on Trump’s new adminis-
tration because of the carefully deliberated policy solutions outlined within. It simultaneously influences and is affected by Trump’s continuing political trajectory, proving critical in the early days of his second term. The Trump we knew in his first term is, without a doubt, substantially different from the Trump of today. The difference? The four years he took to negotiate substantial swaths of Project 2025 into his platform while claiming his ignorance of it all the same. On the contrary, political experts have already drawn explicit parallels between Trump’s new executive orders and Project 2025. They have also highlighted the numerous positions—CIA director, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Federal Communications Commission to name a few—occupied now by Project 2025 authors and contributors alike. How, then, are we to interpret the first weeks of Trump’s second term? Is there a single word that can describe the drastic changes to which the
nation is bearing witness? Perhaps: gluttony. Trump is becoming insatiable as he returns to his position in the Oval Office. Desperate to deliver on his blind allegiance to Project 2025, his government efficiency agenda, and the promises of his campaign, Trump is rolling out policies that are ill-founded at best and grossly authoritarian at worst. He is consuming every non-essential federal program in sight, laying waste to American constitutional mandates, and pushing his executive powers right up against their breaking points. The quasi-dictator we thought we knew has transformed into the swelling insect from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. After the next four years, our new president might never be able to leave the White House. Not because he wants to stay or is unwilling to go. But because we will lack the federal personnel to squeeze him through the front doors.
Ishaan Barrett (CC ‘26) is a columnist at CPR and a junior studying urban studies, political science, and Arabic language and culture. He can be reached at i.barrett@columbia.edu.
Edited by: Arturo Samano, Cecily Bush, and Henry Michaelson.
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AND THEN THEY ME CAME FOR
Mahmoud Khalil, the LA 8, and the reat to Free Speech
BY EVA ATKINS
ILLUSTRATED BY SOPHIE KAMDAR
The immigration enforcement agents came in the night, without warning, and arrested the man in front of a member of his family. He was taken to a maximum security prison and detained for three weeks without bond. The government gave the reason for his arrest as the alleged promotion and membership in an armed Palestinian group. The year was 1987, and his name was Michel Shehadeh.
Nearly 40 years later, Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents late at night, from his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His wife watched as he was led to a car and driven away. Khalil was first shuttled to New Jersey before being sent to a detention center in Louisiana, where he remains to-
day. When asked for the reason for his arrest, an ICE agent reportedly told Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, “They were following orders from the State Department to revoke Khalil’s student visa.” When Greer responded that Khalil was a green card holder and, therefore, a Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR), the agent reportedly quipped, “They were revoking that instead.”
Khalil is a recent graduate of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and was active as a student negotiator and spokesman in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment protests at the school last spring. The protestors erected an encampment on the school’s central lawn, demanding that the university divest financially from “corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.” He
was briefly suspended for refusing to leave the encampment, but the suspension was quickly overturned. At the beginning of March 2025, Khalil participated in a protest in Barnard College’s Milstein Library. Photos taken of him at the March protest spread, and some online Zionist groups advocated for his deportation. Less than a week later, he was arrested.
The Trump administration provided the rationale for Khalil’s arrest in public statements; they have not yet issued formal charges. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused Khalil of participating in activities “aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” His arrest came on the back of an executive order issued by Trump in which he promised: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put
you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.”
And the deputy secretary of the DHS claimed that “the Secretary of State can review [Khalil’s] visa process at any point and revoke it.”
The legal basis for the administration to order Khalil’s deportation is unclear, if not dubious. A green card holder is entitled to all of the same protections as a citizen, though they cannot vote or hold certain government jobs. It is rare for someone to lose their status as a green card holder, which occurs most often if the resident commits a crime. Only an immigration judge can give a final order for deportation, and only the Department of Homeland Security can revoke a green card. Yet, White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, claimed the Secretary of State “...reserves the right to revoke the visa of Mahmoud Khalil under the Immigration and Nationality Act” and “has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.” The legislation that Leavitt references does, in fact, allow the Secretary of State to determine a green card holder to be “deportable;” however the case must be tried in immigration court before Khalil’s LPR status is removed.
Just over a month has passed since Khalil’s arrest, and it is unclear when and how his case will be resolved. There is no substantive evidence publicly provided by officials that Khalil promoted or celebrated the illicit actions of Hamas or supported the group in any way. Regardless, the arrest of a lawful permanent resident, a legal status that confers nearly all the same rights as granted to a citizen, has unleashed a flood of concerns about Trump’s brazen challenge to the First Amendment, which does not differentiate between citizens
and noncitizens. Media coverage has elevated the most pressing questions arising from the arrest: Why is Khalil’s protest not protected by the First Amendment? And, can any dissenting opinion be criminalized? These concerns have not been allayed by the admission of an official from the White House who reportedly told The Free Press that Khalil’s arrest was a “blueprint” for the arrest of other students. The shock of the arrest may seem singular to the forceful (and potentially illegal at times) approach of the Trump administration. The Trump administration has mounted many unprecedented legal challenges to US courts in the first two months of his term. Similarly, ICE’s arrest of Khalil has been represented as untested legal waters. However, nearly two decades ago, a strikingly similar case was resolved. In reviewing the history of this case, government officials and the public alike stand to learn a great deal.
In 1987, federal agents arrested seven Palestinians, including Michel Shehadeh, and one Kenyan at their homes in California. All eight were initially detained under the charge of the Immigration and Nationality Services (INS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their alleged affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist armed group under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In the 80s, the PLO was engaged in a war with Israel and the United States gov-
ernment designated the organization and its subsidiaries as terrorist groups. They were charged under an early version of the Immigration and Nationality Act passed during the height of the Cold War, which classified support for “world communism” as a deportable act. The INS quickly realized the futility of basing the government’s case against the so-called “Los Angeles Eight” (LA 8) on McCarthy-era argumentation and dropped the charges against the six non-immigrant visa holders. The charges against the two green card holders, Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, however, were augmented to fit a contemporaneous statute that judged the support of any group involved in “the destruction of property,” a deportable offense. For the next twenty years, Hamide and Shehadeh would be locked in a legal battle across multiple administrations and charged with a garden variety of deportable offenses, each of which pertained to their alleged support of the PFLP.
The most disturbing discovery in the saga of Hamide and Shehadeh’s prosecution occurred outside of the courtroom and has resounding implications for the case against Mahmoud Khalil. Following the initial arrest of the LA 8, one of the lawyers representing the group received an unmarked envelope that contained a secret government memo. The memo was labeled “Alien Terrorists and Undesirables: A Contingency Plan,” and it contained instructions for the mass deportation of Arab im-
migrants from the US as well as a detailed plan for a large detention center to be built in Louisiana, reminiscent of the Japanese internment camps erected during World War II. Not only did the memo propose to summarily strip all lawful residents of a specified nationality of their visas, but it advised the INS to exclude the “general public from the hearings on the basis of national security.” This clause, concealed deep in the 40-page document, alludes to the much greater implications of the arrests of Michel Shehadeh, Khader Hamide, and Mahmoud Khalil. Rather than simply deporting individuals who had broken the law, the memo suggested a plan to detain and deport individuals based purely on their nationality. With the explicit intent to hold proceedings outside of public scrutiny, the detainment of the LA 8 was not only a challenge to the courts but a challenge to the public as well. Once the memo was released to the public, the group responsible for its creation and implementation was disbanded, and the plan was discarded. Yet, it was made clear that the arrest of the LA 8 was related to the Contingency Plan and the dismissal of the fundamental rights of legal residents in the name of national security. As David Cole, one of the lead counsels for Shehadeh and Hamide, said, “[The memo] felt like a kind of blueprint for the case against our clients.” The arrests of Hamide and Shehadeh were intended as the beginning, not the end.
As David Cole said in a 1996 in-
terview about the Hamide/Shehadeh case: “[The INS] saw that if they could deport these individuals on such evidence, they would establish a very effective tool that could be used against disfavored political groups.” The DHS, under Trump’s thumb, sees a similar legal path toward escalated repression. Like the Bush and Reagan administrations, the Trump administration would seek to overstate the distance between citizen and noncitizen, immigrant and natural-born, between Mahmoud Khalil and other political dissidents, until he has established the precedent and authority to wield such power against citizens who may believe they are standing on much firmer legal and political ground. Just as the INS memo confirmed, the Reagan administration was not planning to stop with the LA 8, nor should one expect Trump to remain satisfied with Khalil’s detainment. In the weeks following Khalil’s arrest, a Georgetown University postdoctoral student was detained by ICE, and a Brown University transplant specialist was deported to Lebanon without a hearing on her removal.
The Bush administration took one final swing at the case against Hamide and Shehadeh in 2003, charging them retroactively with violating the post-9/11 Patriot Act in their “material support of a terrorist group.” Finally, in 2007, the men were granted a reprieve when Immigration Judge Bruce Einhorn dismissed the case against them in a searing ruling, writing, “The attenuation of these proceedings is a
festering wound on the body of respondents and an embarrassment to the rule of law.” Einhorn ruled that the government violated the due process of Hamide and Shehadeh by prolonging the proceedings over multiple decades, and the Bush administration did not appeal the decision.
By 2007, six different charges had been brought against Hamide and Shehadeh by three separate administrations. They had been accused of promoting communism, providing material support for terrorism, and membership in a terrorist organization. Their case had been heard in federal court, district court, the Immigration Court, and at the Board of Immigration Appeals. Their long-sought victory cannot be attributed to Judge Einhorn alone. Across all levels of the American legal system, the judges who issued rulings on Hamide and Shehadeh’s case consistently denied the government the authorization to deport them. As a team of lawyers assembles around Mahmoud Khalil and prepares for what will likely be an arduous court battle, the health of the American legal system has never been under greater strain. Only the power of legal institutions, the doggedness of their lawyers, and the scrutiny of the public stood between Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, and the stripping of their rights as legal residents of the United States. The same forces will decide the fate of Khalil and those who will inevitably follow.
Atkins (CC ‘26) is a
Edited by: Th eodore Zaritsky and Adam Kinder.
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Eva
senior editor at the Columbia Political Review and a junior at Columbia College studying political science and Middle Eastern studies.
An interview with
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
on Arrest Warrants, Gaza, and the Pursuit of Justice
On April 17, 2024, Columbia University students outraged by the genocide in Gaza pitched tents on South Lawn, calling for the university’s divestment from companies tied to Israel. Former University President Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD to intervene and dismantle the protest, arresting over 100 students and provoking an even stronger response from the student body. Over the next two weeks, Columbia experienced faculty and student walkouts, a national media firestorm, and a pattern of escalation that culminated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall.
Columbia University’s campus has since become an echo of what it once was. With the student body divided against itself, an administration that seems to perpetually peer over the shoulders of its students, and security measures that have dominated nearly every element of student life on campus, the administration’s fear of free speech has successfully undermined the basic principles of academic liberty. Columbia and the world have seen unprecedented attacks on students’ freedom to speak and, for Palestinians, the basic right to live.
In the wake of these events, continuing to learn about and advocate for Gaza and wider Palestine has become intimidating at best and career-ending at worst. Students across the political spectrum know the fear of retaliation for speaking out and even the intimidation of feeling less-thanequipped to discuss the issue. Yet it remains our moral obligation to persist in holding individuals and institutions accountable for their role in perpetuating this injustice.
To find some guidance in this pursuit of accountability, this article features Dr. Norman Finkelstein, a renowned political scientist whose scholarship has shaped the public discourse on Israel and Palestine for decades. Finkelstein has dedicated his career to evidence-based analysis and the deconstruction of propaganda, earning a reputation for his unwavering commitment to factual accuracy and critical inquiry. He is the author of groundbreaking works such as The Holocaust Industry, Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.
BY HAYA GHAZALE ILLUSTRATED BY SOPHIE KAMDAR
In light of the November 2024 ICC arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, how would you assess the role and significance of international law in cases where its enforcement faces resistance?
Dr. Norman Finkelstein: “Well, that’s always a good question. It’s easy to become cynical and say, well, nothing is going to come of this because we all know that at the end of the day, the U.S. is going to exercise its veto power, either privately, you know, behind the scenes or publicly at the U.N., and bar any action. And there are all sorts of other resources they have. They’ve done this already—threatened that
The transcript below is a excerpt from a full 30-minute interview which can be accessed on the Columbia Political Review Youtube channel.
they won’t let any ICC person visit the United States if they pursue this path of prosecution.
So, I don’t think one should focus on the practical ramifications because I think they’re probably close to zero. What’s important is that all of these court victories, UN resolutions, and ICJ hearings on genocide… what they do is they create weapons… they’re weapons in the ideological struggle. That’s just a fancy way of saying they matter in the court of public opinion.
You will be able to say, for example, that the International Court of Justice, assuming it does—and I think there’s a reasonable probability—decides that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Most recently, Amnesty International… ruled—not ruled, it researched and reached the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. And then you’re able to say, let’s say you go on the program, I’ve been on several times, on Piers Morgan. And now I’ll be able to say, well, you know, this is not a war, this is a genocide. And they said, what do you mean? And Piers Morgan will say, well, it’s disproportionate force. I said, no, no, no, it’s not disproportionate force. It’s genocide, that’s something very different. And if you have any argument about it, well, that’s what Amnesty International said. That’s what the International Court of Justice provisionally ruled, that it was plausibly a genocide.
So these become important weapons in trying to persuade people. Because at the end of the day, barring the fact that practical consequences are almost impossible… What you’re trying to do is two things. There was a great revolutionary, her name was Rosa Luxemburg, turn of the 20th century, one of the heroines of my youth, and she remains one to this day, and she will be one when I go to my grave. She said there are two jobs for radicals. Radicals have only two jobs. Educate and organize. Edu-
cate and organize. That’s your job if you’re a person of the left. Educate and organize. These victories, even though they are paper victories, they’re very valuable victories. They help educate […]
You have respectable organizations which have a long track record of objectivity, conscientiousness, like Amnesty, like Human Rights Watch. You have the International Court of Justice. The most distinguished legal minds in the world are assembled there. The International Criminal Court
is more problematic, in my opinion, but we’ll leave that aside. And so you have very reputable bodies and individuals who are saying it’s a genocide. That persuades public opinion. That has a very big impact on public opinion when you’re able to say that.
And then the second thing is, as I said at the end of the day, it’s two things. Educate and organize. And then you want to get people to do something about it. It’s not enough to persuade them, you want them to act. So politics is about educat-
ing and organizing. And these are valuable weapons to educate. And then, you know, educate is still one step removed from actually getting people to do something…”
Why is the U.S. so steadfast in its support for Israel, even as other countries distance themselves in response to international law and shifting public opinion?
NF: “There are two basic approaches, you might say. One approach says it’s the Israel lobby, and the other approach says it’s U.S. foreign policy interests, that Israel serves U.S. foreign policy interests in the region. I think it’s a combination of both. I think sometimes let’s say we take the current genocide in Gaza.
There’s no question in my mind that President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, they supported Israel because Israel is a main bastion of U.S. power in the region. It’s a projection of U.S. power. And there was a feeling after October 7th that, U.S. power seemed weakened, that this ragtag army called Hamas was able to inflict.
A very serious blow to Israel’s reputation. Remember, up to October 7th, the assumption was Israel had cutting-edge spy technology. Israel was this very formidable military power. And on the 7th, it seemed like, wait, hold on, maybe Israel isn’t militarily invincible. Maybe there is a military option against Israel.
And that was not just a concern of Israel, it was a concern of the U.S. Because Israel’s projection of invincibility serves U.S. interests in the region. It stabilizes the current configuration of power where obviously the U.S. is the dominant force. So they had a role. The U.S. had an interest in stabilizing Israeli power and obviously played a major role, enabled it. I mean, Israel couldn’t have gone on one day, literally one hour without U.S. support…
Radicals have only two jobs. Educate and organize. Educate and organize. That’s your job if you’re a person of the left. Educate and organize. These victories, even though they are paper victories, they’re very valuable victories.
“ ”
Domestically, the Israel lobby also wields significant influence. For instance, at Columbia and other Ivy League universities, unprecedented crackdowns on campus activism followed pressure from billionaire donors like Bill Ackman and Robert Kraft. These individuals, along with others like Sheryl Sandberg, operate independently of the U.S. government, leveraging their wealth and influence to silence dissent and propagate pro-Israel narratives… This isn’t about U.S. foreign policy— it’s the direct result of what I’d call the Jewish supremacist billionaire class exerting their power.”
Is Israel’s goal to just seize more territory?
NF: “No, I don’t think their primary goal is to seize more territory. Israel isn’t focused on land acquisition because annexing territory would bring complications, such as irredentist disputes with Syria or others. Instead, their objective is regional domination—ensuring no neighboring state poses a military threat. This is evident in their actions in Syria, where they’ve destroyed infrastructure and weapons to neutralize any potential challenge… but without seeking to annex land, which would only create additional headaches.”
So what is the end goal here?
The end goal is—look, I think this is the third great turning point in the Arab world. There was ‘48, there was ‘67, and now there’s this: a major political reshuffling of the balance of forces in the region. I think, probably, the most likely next turn that’s going to happen is that Iran’s going to get the bomb.
Because it sees that it’s been cornered and, without a nuclear deterrent, it’s next in line. It’s next in line. So, I’m sure they’re rushing now to get the bomb, to get nuclear weapons.
I have two feelings. One, of course, is every grounds to be despondent, despairing, hopeless. On the other hand, there was a lot of rot in the Arab world, and it’s always better when the rot comes to the surface. So you can clear it
away and start from the beginning again. Start from scratch, learn the lessons.
Learn the lessons, but if it was rotten, the Syrian government was a nightmare. There can’t be any dispute about that. But there was a lot
of rot, so maybe—not maybe—it’s for the better. Where we go from here, I don’t know. But I won’t live to see anything positive.
Court rulings and human rights reports are, beyond tools for public education, written demonstrations of humanity’s collective conscience. Even if it is unlikely that the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant will be enforced, the importance of international law lies in its ideological power. e United States’ unconditional support for Israel is based on the strategic role it plays in advancing American foreign policy objectives, which are in part in uenced by the Israel lobby. According to Finkelstein, Israel, which has historically prioritized capitalizing on regional instability rather than expanding its territory, is nevertheless essential to the maintenance of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Recent developments point to a possible change in Israel’s foreign political objectives. It is unclear whether the fall of the Assad regime in Syria will inspire a new, moderated Israeli grand strategy or a doubling down on military aggression. Since December 2024, it has taken control of areas within the UNDOF bu er zone, including Quneitra and Madinat al Salam, as well as sovereign Syrian territories like Tel Hadar. Israel’s “sphere of in uence” and “zone of control” have stretched far into Syrian territory, casting doubt on the idea that it has no interest in acquiring new land. ese facts call into question its long-term objectives and the possibility of readjusting its regional approach. ough o en dismissed as “complex” by scholars and laymen alike, the two clear and consistent throughlines in this con ict is the su ering of the Palestinians and a persistent lack of accountability for those in icting it. With greater education and the steadfastness of international legal institutions, this is a reality that has, at long last, begun to shi .
Haya Ghazale (CC ‘28) is a staff correspondent at the Columbia Political Review and a freshman at Columbia College, majoring in History and Political Science. Her work focuses on Middle Eastern affairs.
Edited
by: Lena Barday, Soumya Kamada, and Adam Kinder
RUNNING ON RESENTMENT: THE NATIONAL RALLY IN RURAL FRANCE
BY LOLA REINWARTH ILLUSTRATED BY BEATRIX HOLSTINE
The far-right National Rally party (RN) outperformed expectations in France’s June 2024 parliamentary elections, garnering 31.47% of the total votes cast. 29.25% of voters chose the party in the first of two electoral rounds on June 30, while only 8.75% did so in 2017. In seven years, the RN gained the support of nearly a third of the country.
So what was behind this meteoric rise to power? In short, the RN skillfully tapped into rural France’s frustrations and aspirations to expand its voter base by addressing local economic concerns, promoting nationalist policies, and capitalizing on dissatisfaction with traditional political parties. Recent elections have indeed marked a shift, as the rural population voted predominantly
for the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 presidential elections.
For centuries, rural populations have been culturally and politically distinct from urban France. The disdain shown by the upper political classes and urban elites towards them is almost baked into the country’s DNA. Think of the historical period of Ancien Régime, whose social, economic, and political organization placed peasants at the bottom of the class hierarchy. From the 15th century to 1789, French society was organized into a rigid class structure. Peasants, the majority of the population, faced heavy taxation and had few rights compared to the nobility and clergy, who enjoyed privileges and wealth.
This ancient rural-urban divide is
evident in modern political sentiments. 67 percent of individuals living in the countryside feel that their lifestyle and history are not respected by those from outside. Urban issues dominate in the media and in political decisions, sidelining other rural perspectives and reinforcing the belief that they are not given due recognition or consideration. In domestic and foreign affairs, most decision-making power is concentrated in Paris. There is a tendency for these decisions to be made based on the interests of the capital city, neglecting the rest of France. Economically, disparities between regions are worsened when jobs are centralized in Paris, leaving many areas underdeveloped and underserved. The message is: if anyone wishes to have cultural, political,
diplomatic, and economic opportunities, they should make their way to la ville des Lumières!
On top of the Parisian political favoritism is the stark difference in lifestyle due to the centralization of development projects in urban centers, which amounts to an abandonment of the rural populations by the national government. For instance, policies crafted in Paris often prioritize urban development, while rural regions struggle with outdated infrastructure and limited access to essential services. This very difference is at the root of higher inequalities. Political scientist JeanYves Dormagen, who I interviewed last summer, pointed out the example of car use in the countryside. As the public transportation system is underdeveloped and most services
and shops are in bigger towns and cities, individuals find themselves with no choice but to use their cars, whose gas consumption is increasingly pricey. This uneven allocation of resources exacerbates economic inequalities, leaving rural communities with lower incomes and fewer opportunities.
Many rural residents, however, are unwilling to abandon their rural towns for the cities. Initiatives such as promoting local shops by distributing gift vouchers, associative cafés, car-sharing services, and days dedicated to local cultural sites are increasing in countryside towns, but it is still not enough today to prevent growing dissatisfaction and hatred towards the urban elites.
Dormagen warned never to forget how crucial this resentment towards urbanites is if one wants to understand the political trends in rural areas. Dormagen added: “Sociological and cultural factors are undoubtedly crucial. However, the psychological aspects of rural populations’ identity are among the most important reasons why their politi-
cal behavior differs so much from urban ones: they believe their iden-
tity and needs are different from the rest of the French population’s”.
A Harvard Kennedy School study on populism demonstrated that rising economic insecurity and social deprivation fuel popular resentment. In a similar way, the RN claims to be the only party understanding the despair of rural voters, a rapport with voters that enables them to manipulate data and omit crucial information in its public narratives, which often aim to stoke resentment towards the “enemies” of the rural class. A common line of messaging is that if some French citizens are poor, it remains solely because of the ‘lazy immigrants who only came to France to get welfare benefits.’
The RN has understood this dynamic well. They knew that giving rural populations the impression that their voices were finally heard when they had been shut down and ignored for so long was key to reinventing its base.
The party’s appeal to rural voters is an outgrowth of its history as a perennial minority party. The RN mainly built itself in opposition to the other political parties, often by demonizing other leaders and the groups they represented. In the 1980s, the party began to aggressively label its rivals as corrupt and
expanded the party’s attacks to include the European Union, immigration policies, and globalism, depicting opponents as threats to national sovereignty and cultural integrity. These claims sell like hotcakes in rural areas. However, nobody could claim that other political parties have adequately considered France’s rural populations. Political scientist Emiliano Grossman outlined the hardships left-wing parties currently face in addressing rural populations properly and coming up with concrete solutions. According to Grossman, left-wing parties often show a sort of disdain toward rural populations. Having grown up in rural France, I can attest to this sentiment. They somewhat display pity toward us as we reside in neglected regions, where public services and opportunities are diminishing, yet they fail to include us in their political programs. My father often mentions how these parties were more successful in that regard in the 1990s: “Now most of them speak about us with contempt—we are ‘those darn country folks’”.
President Macron and his party
have embraced elitism in the country since the beginning of his term in 2017 when he opposed mass labor movements. Recall the Yellow Vests, the grassroots movement that erupted in late 2018. Originating from widespread discontent among rural and working-class citizens, the protests spotlighted the growing sense of exclusion and frustration with a central government perceived as out of touch with regional concerns. These protests were repressed by the police, sometimes violently. The working class, which makes up a large part of the rural population, has continuously denounced Macron’s –or Jupiter’s, as he is so often referred to – tendency to belittle their needs. While the far-right RN may appeal to rural voters with promises of economic reform, the reality is that its proposed policies could ultimately harm poor rural populations. Economists are deeply concerned that the RN’s economic agenda could exacerbate the national debt, worsening the country’s financial instability. The RN for instance advocates economic protectionism aimed at protecting national industries through stricter customs barriers. While this is presented as a measure to protect
French industry, such a policy could lead to trade retaliation by other European countries, disrupt supply chains and cause international trade to contract, damaging the European economy as a whole. This comes at a time when rural areas are already bearing the brunt of an ongoing economic crisis, making the potential negative impact of these reforms particularly severe for those in the countryside. Lower incomes in rural areas are already characteristic of France’s structural composition. Boosting the local economy and supporting farmers should therefore be seen as a priority – and solutions abound. For instance, reducing dependence on supermarkets, which is part of the decline of small rural towns’ attractiveness due to “commercial areas” being built outside of the towns, could be encouraged through subsidies for local markets and short distribution channels. Despite the probable harm of its economic policy, the RN is able to elicit rural support because these populations are disposed to populist arguments. This vulnerability to right-wing political messaging is
largely a result of the leftist elite’s longstanding neglect of rural areas, which has led to significant disparities in access to cultural and educational resources. This neglect creates a less informed and less politically engaged populace in these regions. Consequently, rural voters are susceptible to the appealing but often divisive messages of right-wing parties, who exploit these gaps to gain political traction and support.
Cultural differences compound the effects of economic inequality in driving wedges between rural and urban voters. Professors R. Inglehart and P. Norris have written about the “cultural backlash” risk – a reaction against progressive cultural change largely centered around cities, which is perceived to be an existential threat to more traditional rural cultures. Politicians may then more easily get their audience to stick to cultural insularity, a state in which they become more isolated from or resistant to outside cultural influences and ideas. RN members and its allies are far from short of creativity to name scapegoats: Arabs (who they often call “Islamists”), LGBTQIA+
communities, immigrants, ecologists, anyone with progressive ideals, and so on. By referring to them as strictly opposed to traditional French values, they succeed in fueling rural hatred towards them.
The RN’s appeal to rural voters is thus based on isolationist sentiments and scapegoating, which lets them divert French voters’ attention from their lack of substantial policy proposals. As it happens, the RN continually revised its political program in June in accordance with the media treatment of its announcements. If one of its policies received too much criticism, the party would choose to rewrite it. If the new version seemed unsatisfactory, they would return to the first version. For instance, the RN wavered like a pendulum on the issue of abolishing taxes for people under 30.
The youth remain determined to fight the rise of the far-right in the country. Notably, 48 percent of voters between 18 and 24 voted for the leftist union, which is especially significant in rural areas, where young
voters are increasingly mobilizing against the RN’s influence. By raising awareness, undertaking initiatives, and mostly by uniting at all costs, the new generation is opening debates on these issues and showing that there is strong resistance to far-right ideologies and a commitment to fostering inclusive, progressive politics even in rural regions.
It is now the time for Macron and his government, for other crucial actors, and for the media to finally get in touch with rural populations. With the RN’s recent success, left-wing parties must reassess their strategies to reconnect with rural voters. Only a fundamental recalibration of political strategies – one that bridges urban-rural divides – can counter this trend. The future of politics in rural France depends on recognizing and addressing the unique challenges and opportunities within these communities. It remains crucial to recognize the countryside as a land of promise by providing rural France with access to better education, better financial solutions, and culture. And maybe then, they will feel like they are part of the conversation.
Lola Reinwarth (Sciences Po - Columbia University ‘27) is a staff writer for the CPR. Enthusiastic about French and Middle Eastern politics, history, and political economy, she finds joy in ballet and hikes, creating art, and hopes to spend her career traveling the world. She can be reached at lnr2127@columbia.edu.
We would like to add that Lola has since withdrawn from Columbia in the wake of threats posed to her financial aid by recent cuts in the university’s federal funding. Despite the setback, she remains determined to share her voice and will continue collaborating with the Columbia Political Review as a Staff Writer Emeritus.
Edited by: Priya Shah, Eva Atkins, Andrew Weaver, and Lukas Roybal.
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THE P EOPLE PARTY P
OWER ARTY ROBLEM
BY JAYIN SIHM ILLUSTRATED BY BEATRIX HOLSTINE
or South Koreans, “martial law” is not just a legal provision but a stark reminder of the nation’s turbulent history of military coups, bloodshed, and repression. The suppression of movements like the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, the Jeju Uprising, and the June 3 Resistance movement demonstrate how martial law has often served as a tool for violently suppressing dissent and consolidating
and crowded regions in the world necessitates the existence of such a provision. Acknowledging this duality, the 1987 revision of the South Korean Constitution included a critical safeguard requiring a simple majority vote in the National Assembly to lift any declaration of martial law—a reflection of lessons learned from the past.
authoritarian control; both Presidents Rhee Syng-man and Park Chung-hee have exploited martial law to extend their rule. Despite its grim history, South Korea’s geopolitical position in one of the most strategically vital, contentious,
This history ensures that even today, the specter of martial law carries not just legal significance but an existential weight for South Koreans, shaping their collective memory and political vigilance. After the declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024, liberal pundit Kim Ou-joon immediately went into hiding as soldiers approached his house and broadcasting company, after re-
ceiving a tip that he was targeted for arrest. Even now, he avoids fully recounting the event, fearful that he may have to escape again if martial law is declared once more.
Democratic Party opposition legislator Park Seon-won’s experience from that same night is equally harrowing. Disregarding his aide’s urgent pleas to evacuate and suppressing his instinct to flee south, he chose instead to head to the National Assembly. Before leaving, he gave his wife money and instructed her to escape separately. Park said, “If we gather and die in the National Assembly, at least we would die in the National Assembly. If we were to split up, all the members of the National Assembly would die anyway.”
For Democratic Party legislator Jung Chung-rae, the event brought back memories of his torture under the military dictatorship and his experience in the democracy movement. He said, “While I was walking [towards the National Assembly], I thought, am I now going towards martial law soldiers, to be arrested and detained? I was thinking about the time in 1988 when I was taken by the Agency for National Security Planning and beaten for 4 hours at an unknown hotel in Euljiro.”
This chaotic and brutal history contextualizes the events of December 3, 2024, when President Yoon Suk-yeol orchestrated a self-coup attempt following unprecedented political defeats, including his party’s loss in the April 2024 National Assembly election. That night, on a televised broadcast, he declared na-
tionwide emergency martial law, the first since the 1979 assassination of former President Park Chung-hee. In his first martial law proclamation, President Yoon’s martial law commander Park An-su called for the “처 단”—a term meaning “punishment” with the implication of death— against anyone defying the decree, which effectively suppressed political activity, critics, and the press. In fact, a draft of this proclamation, only uncovered in subsequent investigations, made specific references to the declarations of martial law during the May 17 coup d’état. In a swift response, opposition Democratic Party leadership convened an emergency plenary session of the National Assembly. Civilians and legislative aides barricaded and blocked the Assembly building to prevent special forces from entering, and by 1 a.m., Yoon’s martial law declaration was thwarted through a unanimous vote by 190 legislators, including 18 legislators from Yoon’s own conservative People Power Party (PPP).
In the aftermath, however, the PPP took steps to shield Yoon from legal repercussions and stall investigations into the events of December 3. After the declaration of emergency martial law, the PPP began to consolidate under the pro-Yoon faction, which became more apparent following the resignation of anti-Yoon party leader Han Dong-hoon, one of the targets on Yoon’s arrest and rumored assassination list. The party boycotted impeachment motions, delayed the appointments of justices to the Constitutional Court, and supported
measures to prevent Yoon’s arrest by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO). While President Yoon and many in his inner circle have now been arrested and face charges of insurrection, the PPP’s actions to obstruct justice and sustain Yoon’s presidency implicate them as co-conspirators in the ongoing insurrection. Therefore, under the Constitution of South Korea and based on historical precedent, the People Power Party’s complicity in and participation in acts of insurrection warrant its disbandment to safeguard democracy during this precarious time.
Unlike many other countries, the Constitution of South Korea explicitly provides grounds for the dissolution of a political party, stating, “If the purposes or activities of a political party are contrary to the fundamental democratic order, the Government may bring an action against it in the Constitutional Court for its dissolution, and the political party shall be dissolved in accordance with the decision of the Constitutional Court.” In other words, any political party that undermines the principles of democracy can be legally disbanded. Therefore, it is crucial to not only assess whether Yoon’s actions during the ongoing martial law crisis constitute insurrection but also examine whether the PPP was complicit.
The Constitution of South Korea stipulates specific conditions under which martial law may be imposed, which is when it is “required to cope with a military necessity or to main-
mobilization of the military forces in time of war, armed conflict or similar national emergency.” However, the situation preceding Yoon’s declaration on December 3 clearly met none of these conditions; South Korea was not in active war, armed conflict, or national emergency at the time. Instead, Yoon justified the imposition of emergency martial law by claiming it was necessary to eliminate “pro-North Korean anti-state forces” within the National Assembly, who “attempted to paralyze the nation’s judicial administration system through legislative dictatorship and overthrow the liberal democracy system.” This rationale blatantly contravened the constitutional requirement for declaring martial law and directly sought to suspend the functioning of the National Assembly.
Under South Korean criminal law, the charge of insurrection is defined as “a person who creates violence for the purpose of usurping the national territory or subverting the Constitution” and is established if one interferes with the function of constitutional institutions such as the National Assembly. Yoon’s attempt to suspend the National Assembly’s operations and his deployment of armed special forces to its premises fulfill this definition. Moreover, his orders included the authorization of lethal force in the National Assembly and kidnapping directives targeting National Assembly members, exacerbating the gravity of his actions. These acts meet the Supreme Court of Korea’s broad interpretation of “violence,” encompassing any form of assault, intimidation, exercise of force, or threats of harm that instill terror.
Unfortunately, precedent for such charges against the president is well established in South Korea. In the trials of former Presidents Chun Doohwan and Roh Tae-woo for their roles in the May 17th coup d’état, both were convicted on the charges
of insurrection in 1996. In their appeal, the Supreme Court in this case held that “acts that render it impossible for constitutional institutions to exercise its power or seize control of the government through violence, rather than through the democratic procedures prescribed by the Constitution, cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. Therefore, such acts of military rebellion and insurrection are subject to punishment.” Furthermore, it affirmed that while the judiciary’s authority to assess the legitimacy of martial law declarations is limited, the act of declaring or expanding martial law constitutes a criminal offense if done with the
While I was walking [towards the National Assembly], I thought, am I now going towards martial law soldiers, to be arrested and detained?
intent to undermine or disrupt the Constitution. This ruling not only set a legal precedent for addressing future coup d’état attempts but underscored that interfering with the institutions established by the Constitution constituted insurrection, even if the coup was successful.
In addition to the actions taken on the night of December 3—which alone constitute the criminal offense of insurrection—there is further evidence of egregious misconduct by Yoon: the alleged false-flag plot to attack Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) installations and
Cheongju International Airport to incite war with North Korea, suspected preparations for the torture of National Election Commission employees, and Yoon’s resistance to legal summons and his initial arrest attempt. With President Yoon now facing the charge of leading an insurrection and a potential death sentence, a critical question emerges: Should his party, the People Power Party, be dissolved for its continued support of his unconstitutional actions?
The PPP’s complicity extends beyond passive support for Yoon, as party members actively obstructed efforts to uphold democratic processes. During the events of December 3, then PPP Floor Leader Choo Kyung-ho actively worked to obstruct legislative efforts to overturn martial law. He summoned PPP lawmakers to party headquarters, preventing them from attending the National Assembly vote. Approximately 60 pro-Yoon lawmakers complied, while only 18 PPP members, led by then-leader Han Dong-hoon, defied these instructions and voted to annul martial law. Later that night, he attempted to delay the plenary session of the National Assembly, even as armed special forces breached the building. Phone records reveal that Choo repeatedly requested delays under the pretense of insufficient attendance, despite the urgency of the situation. Han, who later downplayed the severity of Choo’s actions, even pressed him to join the opposition at the time—a request Choo ultimately did not accept. Choo’s deliberate attempts to obstruct the democratic process led to being named as a conspirator to the insurrection during the second successful impeachment motion against Yoon. In addition, he is currently under investigation by the National Office of Investigation for his role in the insurrection. The PPP’s complicity did not end with the annulment of martial law. In
the aftermath, the party has worked tirelessly to shield President Yoon from accountability. They sought to identify and punish the 12 members who voted for Yoon’s second impeachment motion, have labeled Yoon’s initial arrest attempt as illegal, and actively hindered efforts to investigate the insurrection. The PPP continues to shield him, even going so far as to call for the punishment of lawmakers who voted in favor of his impeachment if the current impeachment motion is rejected by the Constitutional Court. By suggesting that lawmakers in a democratic society cannot exercise their constitutional authority, the party rejects the very principles of democratic governance, not only undermining its credibility but also aligning itself with the ongoing insurrection.
The dissolution of political parties has notable precedent in recent South Korean history. In 2014, the Constitutional Court controversially disbanded the minor left-wing Unified Progressive Party (UPP), on the grounds it sought to overthrow the “fundamental democratic order.”
The decision followed allegations that a UPP National Assembly member had led a meeting, attended by other party members, where participants discussed the possibility of attacking South Korean infrastructure in the event that escalating tensions with North Korea led to war.
The Unified Progressive Party’s actions were confined to internal discussions within a limited faction of the party, centered on a hypothetical scenario with no tangible plans or viable means to carry out an insurrection. In contrast, the events of
democracy. As such, its dissolution becomes both a constitutional and moral imperative. While some PPP members initially appeared blindsided by Yoon’s actions—voting to overturn martial law and then-leader Han Dong-hoon being targeted for arrest—subsequent events have demonstrated the party’s growing complicity; insurrection is not a singular event but a continuum of actions aimed at subverting constitutional order and democracy.
December 3 involved the commander-in-chief of the armed forces— President Yoon—mobilizing special forces to attack constitutional institutions—the National Assembly and
the National Election Commission. By all accounts, the scale and severity of this insurrection eclipse the circumstances that led to the Unified Progressive Party’s dissolution.
In its 2014 ruling, the Constitutional Court established a critical standard, saying, “Actions undertaken in the capacity of an influential politician belonging to a political party and closely related to the party may be considered activities of that party.” It further emphasized that the judgment should consider whether the political party authorized or encouraged such activities and effectively endorsed them as party actions by actively defending them afterward. Applying this standard to the PPP leaves little doubt about their culpability.
A political party that plots or participates in an insurrection is not merely guilty of political misconduct: it becomes an existential threat to
Edited by: Lukas Roybal and Adam Kinder.
The PPP’s actions during and after the December 3 insurrection constitute a direct violation of South Korea’s democratic principles and has tangible consequences, emboldening violence by Yoon’s supporters. In an alarming escalation, after President Yoon’s detention was extended due to fears of evidence destruction, Yoon’s supporters stormed the Seoul Western District Court on January 19, injuring journalists and police officers while attempting to target the presiding judge who approved Yoon’s formal arrest. Such blatant intimidation is a direct assault on the independent judicial process, and the continued existence of the PPP only fosters an environment that tolerates violence against democratic institutions.
The People Power Party has not only failed to uphold its responsibilities but has actively participated in subverting the constitutional order. To safeguard South Korea’s democracy, the next government must petition the Constitutional Court to dissolve the People Power Party. The Constitution demands action, and history will judge whether South Korea will rise to meet this moment.
and history.
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Jayin Sihm (CC ‘26) is a managing editor at CPR studying philosophy
A RELIGION WITHOUT
GOD
BY EVAN SANDERS ILLUSTRATED BY SOPHIE KAMDAR
We find ourselves in a strange and difficult age. With the decline of mass politics in the last century, a whole new host of political ideologies has emerged in response. One of the most prominent and emblematically new ideologies on the scene is Effective Altruism (EA): an ostensibly bold, new tendency popular among many Silicon Valley tech moguls. Contrary to the words of one of its pole-bearers, Peter Singer, Effective Altruism is not “an advance in ethical behavior as well as in the practical application of our ability to reason.” Instead, it is an old idea given new strength by the modern technologies of language and production. Specifically, there are profound similarities between Effective Altruism and Calvinism, the Protestant sect that gave rise to the characteristic Protestant work ethic that powered the transition into the modern age, rendering the core beliefs nothing new.
The principles of Calvinism were a crucial stepping stone to the development of capitalism and the market-based economy that Effective Altruists so passionately embrace today. Medieval society was based upon a socially reinforced religious order, and therefore the rise of markets needed a religious justification to persist within Feudal society. Enter Calvinism, where religious relations became increasingly market-oriented: a fundamentally competitive relationship of all against all. As a result, formerly immoral actions like the Highland Clearances—the forced eviction of inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands, which was supported and aided ideologically by many Calvinists–and the spoliation of church property became justifiable.
In a contemporary secular world increasingly dominated by the same market forces, the key tenets of Calvinism are sharpened and raised to new heights, despite prevailing multiple centuries apart. Arguably, the
continuum between Calvinism and EA is a strong belief in moral stewardship, the practice of making ethical decisions and acting on behalf of others rather than pursuing personal interests. In practice, however, Calvinists and EAs alike use this principle to justify what would otherwise be considered immoral: the hoarding of money and resources. For the Calvinists, who existed in a state of active persecution, usury, the lending of money at excessively high rates, was considered a sin under Catholicism. To circumvent this belief, one of the most prominent beliefs among Calvinists was that money should be used to honor God and that therefore, wealthy people were simply those his light shone brightest on. This focus on honoring God is at first difficult to square with EA’s characteristic ideological commitments to rational world government; however, the parallel is simply obscured by centuries of technological growth.
Thus, the link between Effective Altruism and Calvinism’s view of money is not as stringent as it may seem. Will MacAskill, one of the forerunners of the EA movement says, “...innovators only collect 2 percent of the value they generate; that is, for every dollar an innovative company makes in profit, society has benefited by fifty dollars.” According to MacAskill’s analysis, by becoming an innovative entrepreneur, you are, on average, producing benefits to society that far exceed your paycheck. For Calvinists, embracing the free market was made acceptable with an interpretation of religious doctrine; for the Effective Altruists, pursuing wealth if the pursuit is coupled with philanthropic efforts. In either case, money is simply a tool to fulfill moral obligations–but for Effective Altruism, this is reflected in a twenty-first-century context. Sam Bankman-Fried, the criminal trader behind the FTX freefall, represents this tenant of Effective Altruism par
excellence, justifying a meretricious avarice to make as much money as possible with the nebulous promise of giving it all away.
Furthermore, the similarities between EA and Calvinism are apparent in the way both ideologies view posterity. Calvinism sees a long-term plan for humanity as part of God’s divine providence, guiding humans toward perfection. Similarly, standard EA dictum cherishes what they deem as “long-termism,” which purports that, “For the purposes of evaluating actions, we can in the first instance often simply ignore all the effects contained in the first 100 (or even 1000) years, focusing primarily on the further-future effects. Short-run effects act as little more than tie-breakers.” According to Effective Altruists, they are justified in preserving their wealth and guiding humanity’s development because they’ve clearly shown themselves to be the most responsible in using those resources. Aside from the ob-
vious moral angle, this almost messianic view of technology, specifically its precise management by a few market-qualified individuals, is not unlike Calvinist views of inheritance and divine providence.
The parallel is additionally reflected in another aspect of long-termism: the belief in the societal benefits of having children, which manifests in a duty to reproduce as much as possible. This usually takes the form of appeals to progress, urgent calls for the sake of those who would be born: as MacAskill says, “Think about how much worse the world would be if Benjamin Lay, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman had never existed, or if Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, or Isaac Newton had never been born.” However, in practice, this means the maintenance of EA bloodlines, fortunes, and influence on the world. Who else could afford to have a dozen children? The answer is, once again, the elect: those who have succeeded in the market.
This is best embodied in a man like Elon Musk, another outspoken orator of EA, who obsesses over specious fears of a declining global birth rate and supposed impending mass extinction as a result.
While the link between Effective Altruism and Calvinism may seem alien to someone living beyond the comparatively heroic age of early modern Europe, where Protestant merchants waged war on the backward religious order of Medieval times, the two have strikingly similar characteristics. This is obfuscated by dramatic shifts caused by the economically and politically mobilizing breaks and flows throughout the centuries, spanning from the Protestant Reformation to today. While Effective Altruism is commonly accepted as novel, the truth is laid bare in the overwhelming world-historical similarities in the actual moral, economic, and technological views between this second-growth Calvinism and its predecessor.
“ ”
Evan Sanders (CC ’28) is a staff writer studying economics-philosophy with an interest in political economy and the development of capitalism.
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This is obfuscated by dramatic shifts caused by the economically and politically mobilizing breaks and flows throughout the centuries, spanning from the Protestant Reformation to today.
ART AS COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY TOILET PAPER
BY YUNUS AKDAL ILLUSTRATED BY SOPHIE KAMDAR
It’s September 1st, and I’m in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). David Wojnarowicz’s Fire welcomes me into the sixth story gallery, and I think to myself whether there could ever exist a more overt critique of capitalism. Discrete natural symbolisms, the Ouroboros circling wanted fugitive advertisements, and an all-time classic: red-white commercial stickers. The entire “conflicted artist” bundle. Later, I encounter Toba Khendoori’s Doors, an enormous piece depicting what appears to be an abstract rural motel—a landscape of doors, mostly identical to one another. Just upstairs, an off-puttingly similar Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. The only difference between these two was the bigger crowd at Warhol’s sermon. There in the same room is Wolf Vostell’s Lipstick Bomber. The point became clear eventually. MoMA is a fort of liberation against the status quo, built by critics addressing issues such as rampant consumerism, the pressures of standardization, and
various forms of societal oppression. Contemporary art is among many fields whose practitioners and audiences heavily lean toward the political left. And I can understand why. I felt a temporal zeal for revolutionary spirit, tightening the room that I shared with Wojnarowicz’s painting. The aesthetics of discontent and revolution are profoundly attractive—perhaps too attractive for their own good. It becomes harder to engage with revolutionary art as such when one is reminded of the structural stagnation facing our economic framework. Though it is likely that our artists would not be content with a revolution a fundamental change of our relations to property—bound solely by MoMA’s ticket booths, there remains a clear gap between the sentiments that lie inside and outside the walls of art galleries. In examining this contradiction, one obvious question presents itself: How can there be an unusual interest in revolutionary art and yet, no revolution? How can the excitement for
progress paint so many paintings but no political banners?
ON THE PRODUCTION OF ART
The everlasting bond between artisthood and revolution has a prolonged history. Walter Benjamin addresses this early in the 20th century, as written in Pierre Naville’s famous 1927 pamphlet The Revolution and the Intellectuals. Both argue that although art had been an aesthetic and moral tool of the ruling class for much of written history, the ruling class’s hostility toward radical intellectual freedom began pushing the artist bourgeoisie to the left in Europe, especially as they abandoned classical aesthetics. This process was exacerbated by the turn of political events at the time, notably France’s war against Morocco which saw tremendous criticism by the journal La Révolution Surréaliste.
It is a common topic of debate within leftist circles—as is almost every phenomenon, existent or not—
what a revolutionary art movement or revolutionary art looks like. For Benjamin, it’s on the MoMA’s fifth floor, the Debra and Leon Black Gallery. It is Giorgio de Chirico, Leonora Carrington, and René Magritte:
“Surrealism has come ever closer to the Communist answer. And that means pessimism all along the line. Absolutely. Mistrust in the fate of literature, mistrust in the fate of freedom, mistrust in the fate of European humanity, but three times mistrust in all reconciliation: between classes, between nations, between individuals. And unlimited trust only in I.G.
Farben and the peaceful perfection of the air force.”
Precisely, the complete eradication of morality in relation to the sphere of politics. The great revolution in the medium of arts is to snatch away the card of morality from the hands of the ruling bourgeoisie, to look at the system and laugh at its illegitimate self-justification. This is the noble task to which many contemporary artists hold themselves. Benjamin concludes his essay by reminding the reader that while revolution is prepared in contemplation, it is not sparked by that contemplation.
It is then clear that artists cannot be burdened with the entire guilt of lack of a political revolution, because the artist’s primal concern is instead the aesthetic revolution.
Leon Trotsky is a lot more skeptical of art’s strength to cause an aesthetic revolution, let alone a political one. The central claim in Art and Politics in Our Epoch is that “art, which is the most complex part of culture, the most sensitive and at the same time the least protected, suffers most from the decline and decay of bourgeois society.” Modern artistic movements become subjects of the crisis
Art, which is the most complex part of culture, the most sensitive and at the same time the least protected, suffers most from the decline and decay of bourgeois society. ”
of the bourgeoisie and are unable to complete their development. This is to say that their conventions limit them from being able to actualise their potential as an aesthetic form of expression. As this irresolution exists due to structural dynamics, the resolution of revolutionary art to its final form is impossible through art. This speaks to Trotsky’s larger thesis in Literature and Revolution, which is that revolutionary-proletarian art is only possible in the broader context of revolutionary property relations. Therefore, just as Benjamin points out, the meaningless and petty calls for “proletarian art” that would organize the masses into action misses the larger point.
Trotsky characterizes all art prior to the revolution as “pre-revolutionary” and holds them susceptible to counter-revolutionary sentiments. The most dangerous product of pre-revolutionary art, as he accentuates, is melancholy. This is because melancholy, in its mystification—its display of capitalist reality as a natural inevitability—of the societal problems surrounding the individual, prescribes a sense of bourgeois reconciliation with suffering as a solution to those problems. In other words, in the melancholic pre-revolutionary art, the oppressed becomes identified with its oppression. This is a problem by contradiction, simply because the only self-identifier for the Marxist proletariat is that it despises its identifier in relation to the system. It is also a problem in the functional sense because it leads the individual to a form of pacifism and withdrawal from society, distancing them from the revolution.
This is exactly what Benjamin writes at the end of his most famous essay, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Fascism encourages the proletariat to express its grievances, its noble self-sacrifice to the system, weaving party banners made of its sweat and blood-stained uniforms. However, this aesthetic emancipation comes at the expense of any real transformation of the property relations that give cause to such grievances. Instead, the proletariat embraces its oppression and identifies with it while the bourgeoisie remain at their material position, theatrically “representing” the masses. Thus, the status quo is adorned, not dismantled. Fascism mystifies the revolution and reincarnates it in the aesthetic realm.
It is debatable whether the art in MoMA falls into the trap of romanticization of suffering. For the most part, it is not as apparent as it was in Nomadland, the Oscar-winning movie that became an opium-induced nightmare for Marxist aestheticians because of this very problem. It is, however, not a feasible argument to generalize this criticism to all art. Could there be an alternative analysis—an analysis of our engagement with art as opposed to its production—that could unveil certain truths that interest us?
ON THE CONSUMPTION OF ART
An interesting comparison which would further our understanding of art’s function in our society is the comparison between art exhibitions and “Liberated Zones” in public pro-
tests. Columbia University students are particularly familiar with these, but by no means are they unique to our campus. Numerous examples have appeared throughout the 21st century: in Greece’s 2011 anti-austerity protests, and more recently, during the Black Lives Matter movement. These “Liberated Zones” are geographical areas that are socially and politically occupied by the people in the name of liberation.
Slavoj Žižek gives examples of “occupied zones” from the Occupy Wall Street Movement, arguing that unless they are part of a larger political project that brings about systematic change, the movement may fall into the same mystification trap whereby the oppressed identifies with its oppression. “Class-struggle essentialism,” a form of false consciousness, in the absence of a feasible structural alternative, as he coined the term, is the real danger behind such “Liberated Zones.”
Is this not precisely the manner in which we exercise our artistic tendencies in our contemporary system? We attend our “Liberated Zones” and art exhibitions to reflect upon our experience of exploitation within the system, only after completing our exhaustive exploitation within the system. You know, after paying our full tuition fee or attending our underpaid nine-to-five jobs? And instead of heightening and exacerbating our rage against the system, these circles function as an exploitation-free safe zone of pacification. We reward ourselves with aesthetic entitlement, call each other honorary comrades, and take pride in our gathering before dispersing shortly after. Thus, we
end up using these art exhibitions as toilets where we shit out our revolutionary anger so that what’s left in us is a mere passive sadness that needs no expression in the medium of Realpolitik.
And in this formal dynamic by which we engage with art, we can observe a fascinating phenomenon. The process of mystification is not within the production of art, but within its consumption. This is to say that even if the art itself avoids the sin of mystification, we experience the mystification as though it pertains to us in our engagement.
The object of analysis at stake here is the “rating systems” of art, most predominant in its acoustic spheres. Mainstream music critique sites such as RateYourMusic and Pitchfork use rating systems that subjugate the quality of a work of art to a number between 0 and 10. More famously, we may find the same concept in IMDB. Although the idea of a 0–10 rating placed next to the artist’s name in MoMA sounds degenerate and extremely distant, this is not far off from how we personally engage with its collections. We often find ourselves asking whether an art piece is “good,” and for the reasons why it could and couldn’t qualify as “good.”
The idea of a 0–10 rating system as it pertains to the objective value of art is a dialectical product of the personalization of art. Such “objective” criticisms cannot exist unrelated to their dialectical opposite, subjective criticisms of art. Is it through observing artistic discourse through the lens
of personal preference and against the lens of technical preference that such rating systems retain their very existence. The reproduction of 0–10 rating systems is a result of us asking ourselves what art piece speaks to us on a personal level, what our “favorite” album is, which songs are in our top 10 list, and more.
Hence, the true parallels between Benjamin and Trotsky appear in our dialogue. This discourse over the personalization and depersonalization of art results in its mystification. To engage with art through this discourse is to be blind to the non-totality of art and the contradictions it carries in its relation to the wider system. As Benjamin’s surrealists snatch the cards of morality from the hands of the bourgeoisie and rip them apart, we the people collect and glue the pieces together, to pretend that they were made for us all along. Benjamin never wanted those cards in the proletarian hands because he knew the exact problem that would emerge: the aestheticization of politics. This is art as anti-politics.
ON THE DOMESTICATION OF ART
the painting—the overtness of it was too much. The further I looked into it, the emptier the canvas became. Why was anything on it? The painting was a parody of itself, of artmaking, and of art consumption. Whether it did this intentionally or unintentionally, I do not care; it doesn’t matter. It was the death of political art.
All of this points to one inescapable conclusion: the domestication of revolutionary art. Art is, perhaps more so than ever, no longer a tool of revolution because the way in which we engage with art is a source of mystification. What, then? Is our alternative creation a sort of depersonalized Stalinist social realism, whereby the individual artistic integrity is diminished for the sake of popular accessibility? No! Isn’t this already the aesthetic of conservative art?
For now, we must turn all the paintings in MoMA against the walls. What we need is a good old-fashioned Montaignian “gazing inwards,” a complete transformation of our relation to art itself. Instead of questioning the quality of art, we must question its possibility. How can such an expression of individuality emerge in our status quo in the first place? As Trotsky points out, it is ambiguous whether we will reach our aesthetic ambitions without political transformation. Perhaps a starting point could be to stop asking ourselves how there can be an unusual interest in revolutionary art and yet, no revolution.
Before leaving the museum, I decide to return to Wojnarowicz’s painting to explore why it was making me uncomfortable. After I spend a good deal of time staring at it, it comes to me. This confusion, a sort of resentment I had for art itself. From the oblique geometry, to the arbitrary allegory, to the not-quite-pop-art style, the predictable unpredictableness of Yunus Akdal (GS ’26) is a columninst at CPR and a political science major and critical theory enthusiast. Contact if you disagree at ya2545@columbia. edu.
Edited by: Cecily Bush, Henry Michaelson, and Adam Kinder. Scan the QR code on the right for the full article (with citations)
FROM THE ARAB SPRING TO THE FALL OF
ASSAD: THE BIRTH OF A FREE SYRIA
In the final weeks of 2024, the Syrian rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Syria’s capital of Damascus and formally overthrew one of the world’s most notorious authoritarian dictatorships: the Assad regime. Hafez Assad initially seized control of the country in 1971, but his family’s authority was eventually challenged during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings against his highly unpopular son, Bashar Assad. An initially heavy crackdown on demonstrators and civilians evolved into the second most deadly war and one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century. Yet, until the eve of this year, Assad maintained power over the devastated Arab Republic.
The eventual collapse of the Assad regime heavily impacted the region, as key players, Russia, Turkey, Israel, and Iran, had to quickly reasses their diplomatic and military roles, both within the context of the persistent Syrian Civil War and the region as a whole. Russia and Iran had been providing assistance that enabled the Assad regime to maintain control over most of Syria, while Israel had been bombing Iran-linked militias, particularly Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim political party and militant group considered a terrorist organization by many countries. Turkey’s geopolitical placement in Syria’s northwest corner and its military support for HTS against both the regime and autonomous Syrian Kurdish forces further inflamed tensions.
Throughout the war, Syrian civilians were the foremost sufferers of the conflict, falling victim to both wartime atrocities and international sanctions such as the U.S. Caesar Act, which disproportionately impacted average citizens more than it deterred the Assad regime. HTS was able to take advantage of the public’s disdain for Assad and the distraction of Russia and Iran by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to launch an offensive that ultimately toppled the regime. Now, the revolutionaries, led by Ahmad Shara’a, face the task of building state institutions and establishing themselves as the legitimate governors of a liberated Syria.
This change within the Syrian government has far-reaching consequences for countries across the globe, but it is especially relevant to the interests of Russia, Israel, Turkey, and Iran. As Syria develops its new governance, these powers must find ways to mitigate their losses or maximize their gains in a Middle East reshaped by popular upheaval and devastating conflict.
IN A SYRIA WITHOUT ASSAD, RUSSIA COMES TO THE TABLE
BY THEODORE GRIFFIN, CC ‘27
Russia maintained a complex and highly antagonistic role in the Syrian civil war prior to the collapse of the Syrian regime in December 2024. Russia began as a strong military and diplomatic lifeline for Assad but, after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was logistically strained and thus took a more passive approach to the Syrian conflict.
In September of 2015, Russia started an operation in Syria to support President Assad by focusing pressure on Islamic State (IS) opposition groups and jihadist factions. The combination of Russian airstrikes and Iranian ground troops was crucial in shifting the conflict in favor of the Syrian government. This included air attacks on rebel-controlled regions such as Aleppo, Idlib, and Eastern Ghouta, which utilized weaponry such as precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles to which the Syrian government would have had limited access to without Moscow’s presence. Russian special forces likewise played a role in key military campaigns by aiding in the retaking of Palmyra and Aleppo in 2016. In addition, private military contractors, namely the Wagner Group, were utilized in crucial battles and tasked with protecting oil fields and other security nodes.
rected towards its own conflict with Ukraine, resulting in an overall decrease in its involvement in Syria. With the loss of Russian backing for the Syrian army, it had neither the resources nor the morale to fend off any prospective attacks. At the same time, an increase in Turkish aid to rebel factions, especially HTS, further tilted the scales against Assad. These elements combined to produce a stunning rebel offensive in the final days of November 2024, resulting in the fall of major cities such as Aleppo and Hama and, finally, the takeover of Damascus on December 8. Following his ouster, Assad sought refuge in Moscow, where he and his family were given asylum, marking the formal end of his rule in Syria.
Furthermore, Russia used its status as a member of the United Nations Security Council to protect Syria from global sanctions and military actions by consistently voting against resolutions targeting Assad’s regime. Since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, Russia vetoed 17 Security Council resolutions on Syria, shielding the Assad regime from its human rights abuses and chemical weapon use. Aside from its direct involvement, Russia offered Syria military supplies including advanced air defense systems, tanks, fighter jets, and helicopters to bolster its military strength. In return, Russia gained access to Syria’s oil and gas reserves through agreements that focused on areas liberated from IS. Additionally, Russian companies secured deals for reconstructive efforts in Syria, such as revamping energy infrastructure and ports. These moves established Russia as the primary supplier of arms to Syria and boosted its economic influence in the Middle East.
In 2022, Russia’s attention and resources were redi-
In the following months, Moscow pursued negotiations with the new Syrian government to secure its military sites, such as the Khmeimim air base and Tartus naval base, Russia’s only presence in the Mediterranean Sea. As part of Russia’s efforts to maintain influence in Syria, it offered substantial investment in infrastructure and energy projects, as well as discussions regarding debt relief and reparations for war damage, demonstrating Russia’s commitment to sustaining its existing position in the region post-regime change. Given the precarity of the new government’s position, it is unclear whether it will accept Moscow’s offers, even if they carry material benefits for the Syrian people.
Russia’s involvement in Syria transitioned from being a military supporter of the Assad government to engaging with the challenges of a new era following the end of Assad’s rule. Since December 8, it has emerged as one of the most significant strategic losers of the Syrian revolution.
REVOLUTION RUINED THE RESISTANCE: IRAN’S LOSING HAND AFTER THE FALL OF ASSAD
BY VALERIE RAHMAN YUM, BC ‘28
Dating back to the Iran-Iraq War, Tehran was the chief supporter of the Assad regime, using Syria’s convenient geographic position between the Iranian north and the Mediterranean coast to transport weapons to its proxy forces, namely Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in countering Israeli dominance. As part of its embrace of the Houthis and various Iraqi Shia militias, Iran has formed a so-called “Axis of Resistance” meant to counter the overwhelming military and economic power of American, Israeli, and Western-aligned Arab forces in the region. By using the Assad regime in this grand strategy, Tehran has gotten its hands dirty by inextricably linking itself to the Assad regime’s atrocities, including both bombing and using chemical weapons on civilians. As the HTSled government grapples with transitional justice and the social consequences of over half a million wartime casualties, this association will prove especially detrimental to its efforts to rebuild arms supply networks and its influence in the region at large.
Though it continues in its policy of regional antagonism, Iran’s geopolitical position after December 2024 is weaker than anytime in recent memory. Its occasional proxy exchanges with Israel are now limited in effect by the logistical and political decapitation of Hezbollah and Hamas, along with the continued bombardment of the Houthis in Yemen. Tehran may signal some dovish overtures to the HTS-led government in the near future, but how those signals will be received is still in question. The Syrian people will certainly remember the degree to which the Islamic Republic and its proxies were complicit, if not directly responsible, for the atrocities committed by the Assad regime. As a result, Iran must be wary that its politics and reputation will be intertwined with that of Assad’s Syria for decades to come, or at the very least, for now.
Throughout the years, Iran actively assisted in the construction of Bashar al-Assad’s political and economic infrastructure. Over time, it became one of the most dominant forces of foreign influence in Syrian affairs. As evidence of the deep relationship Iran had with the Assad regime, one spokesperson reported that 4,000 Iranian citizens left Syria after Assad’s overthrow—on an Iranian state-run and heavily sanctioned airline, no less. Furthermore, Iran has not expressed any form of regret for the tens of billions of dollars spent in propping up Assad, instead justifying its economic and military investments as efforts for the cause of promoting its national interests.
Nevertheless, the loss in Assad’s fall is practically undeniable: With its channels disrupted and Assad now residing in Moscow, Iran has quietly resorted to using maritime routes to replace the land corridor it once enjoyed for proxy arms shipments through Syrian territory. The IRGC has abandoned all of its military installations after years of operational freedom. The Axis of Resistance may be breaking.
TURKEY’S ETHNIC CLEANSING, DISGUISED AS COUNTERTERRORISM
BY NATHAN SHURTS, CC ‘28
Turkey’s stake in the Syrian civil war is incredibly significant, sharing its southern border with Syria and receiving over 3 million refugees from its conflict, in turn straining the Turkish economy and infrastructure. In 2011, Turkey’s government under President Erdogan supported the Arab Spring protests against Syria’s Assad government, backing the rebel group HTS, formerly the Al-Nusra Front, in fighting the Islamic State. However, Turkey became far more concerned with the growing strength of Kurds in Syria—an ethnic group spanning Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq—as it dealt with ongoing tension with the Kurdish Workers’ Party in Turkey.
With the US supporting the Syrian-Kurdish entity known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the civil war, Turkey has grown increasingly concerned that the Kurds may cut a deal with the West for autonomy, like Iraqi Kurds did after the Gulf War. However, when Turkey first invaded Syria in 2016, launching Operation Euphrates Shield against the Islamic State, it did so with tentative American support. Despite this, tensions continued between the two countries as Turkey sought to wipe out the Kurdish entity, which some condemned as ethnic cleansing. In 2018, Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch, employing drones in the area to clear Kurdish militia out of Afrin Canton along the border. This operation chiefly aimed to deter US support for Kurdish forces and push back the terrorist threats they represented.
In 2019, following Operation Olive Branch, President Trump pulled US troops out of Syria and left the US-backed Kurdish forces open to attack. In response, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring, which engaged the northern border of Syria with its “Syrian National Army,” a group trained and funded by Turkey’s intelligence agencies. This offensive partially decoupled Turkey from the U.S. and EU, formerly its allies, due to its implicit threat to Israel and allegations of Kurdish ethnic cleansing. The move also earned formal EU condemnation, UN threats of response, and trade embargos from allies.
After the Assad regime was toppled on December
8, 2024, Turkey remained at war with the SDF, which it considers an extension of its domestic Kurdish elements, and continues using air and drone strikes in Syria, often killing civilians and protestors. As Turkey continues trying to gain a foothold in Syria and negotiate the return of its refugees, it is clear that Turkey wants to limit Kurdish influence in the region even as it negotiates with the Kurds domestically.
Turkey, like Israel, has emerged as a significant winner since the explosion of regional tensions after October 7. The domestic implications have already yielded significant results: in February, the leader of the Kurdish Worker’s Party, Abdullah Öcalan, called for the dissolution of his organization in exchange for peaceful coexistence with the Turkish people and the state. Moreover, the SDF recently accepted a deal with the new Syrian government to integrate its armed forces into the national military in exchange for constitutional rights and representation.
Still, now that the HTS has set up an interim Syrian government, Turkey has a major stake in ensuring that its new leaders don’t succumb to their histories of Islamic extremism. If they do, that would risk reigniting the civil war and restarting foreign aid to the SDF and the Kurdish non-state actors that Turkey has been fighting for years. Meanwhile, Turkey’s ongoing tensions with Israel and Iran have undermined its ability to mediate the ongoing proxy war in Gaza and Lebanon. This wider regional conflict threatens to deteriorate into another all-out war as Israel contemplates striking Iran’s nuclear facilities to prevent them from developing weapons. Such a strike would exacerbate conflict and force Iran to respond drastically, inciting a larger regional conflict.
If Turkey wants to maintain its advantageous position in the region and its presence in Syria, it will need to use its influence to maintain stability and peace in the new regime. Otherwise, Turkey risks allowing the Middle East to explode into full-scale war.
ISRAEL’S NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR
BY GRETA HERMAN, BC ‘26
Israel’s involvement in the Syrian civil war began in 2013, when Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hezbollah and the Assad regime. The conflict—which is technically still ongoing despite Bashar Assad’s exile—initially presented a complex and varied set of potential responses for Israeli military intelligence. Israel quickly coordinated with the Military Operations Center (MOC), a CIA-led initiative that sent Syrian rebel groups funding and weaponry. This intervention failed as Israel and the United States, along with other international actors, unevenly funded a variety of rebel proxies whose competing ideologies and material objectives more or less aligned with those of their sponsor countries. Instead of a united front against the Syrian government, MOC produced sets of quarreling insurgent elements that fought each other as often as they did Assadist forces.
In 2014, military intervention continued to fail as Israeli and the MOC stationed troops alongside the doomed “Southern Front” Syrian rebel group. Security tactics such as the development of the MOC point towards the greater failures of economic and military efforts to intervene, suggesting Israel has to change its approach to the Syrian civil war. The lack of cohesion between Israel and its Western allies suggests an inability to protect national security interests despite overt military intervention.
Given its self-proclaimed status as the only democratic nation in the Middle East, Israel primarily depends on its relationship with the U.S. to fund its military, including aid towards Syrian rebel groups. However, Israel also sought out authoritarian states, specifically Russia, to protect the nation’s “buffer zone” in the Golan Heights from the Assad regime and their allies, particularly Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Golan serves as a key region of defense against the IRGC and Iranian proxies during the Israeli response to the October 7 attacks. Specifically, in 2018, Moscow assured Israel that their troops would prevent IRGC weapons or militia from being closer than 70 to 80 kilometers from the Golan. At the same time, though, Putin told the Assad regime that Russia would provide them with a “security umbrella.” Russia’s duplicity begs the question of why Is-
rael would rely on assurances from an actor that consistently supported an overt enemy of its national security interests.
Despite this potential misstep, Israel continues to depend on its relationship with the United States and asserts that efforts to counter the IRGC, primarily funded by American aid, have effectively mitigated that threat. At the same time, Israel has consistently navigated a balancing act between non-intervention and attacking jihadist groups that it believes threaten its existence, with some characterizing its inaction during the most intense battles of the Syrian civil war as a “lost opportunity.”
The fall of Assad in December, combined with its aggressive strategic dominance in Lebanon and Gaza, rendered Israel by far the greatest strategic winner of the Syrian civil war. Still, it remains suspicious of the new Syrian government, whose leadership was formerly affiliated with the very jihadist groups that Israel views as an existential security threat. As a result, the Israeli Defense Forces reported “striking over 350 strategic targets, including air bases, weapon depots, chemical weapons sites, and naval vessels, across multiple locations in Syria, such as Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia, and Palmyra,” effectively obliterating 70 to 80 percent of Syria’s military capabilities while seizing control over the whole of the Golan Heights.
Despite this aggression, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that “we have no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Syria, but we certainly do intend to do what is necessary to ensure our security.” It remains to be seen how the new Syrian government will react after its forces have been rebuilt. Overall, between its war in Gaza, and its incursions into Lebanon and Syria, Assad’s fall means the initial aims of its CIA-accompanied proxy warfare efforts during the early phases of the civil war have finally come to fruition just a decade later.
CONCLUSION
Syria’s new life marks a turning point for its citizens and the surrounding region. For over five decades, tens of millions of Syrian civilians have been tormented by the Assad regime, and now, with a new governing authority, some feel as though they have been offered a sense of hope, with many refugees and exiles expressing excitement to finally return to their homeland.
The shifting of the Syrian government presents countries with new decisions to make about their ties to the new administration. Countries like Turkey and Israel now have the opportunity to form fresh connections with the new and ostensibly moderate Syrian government, but they must account for the controversial and fragmented nature of groups like HTS. Both nations can be expected to enjoy their share of the Syrian civil war’s spoils, even if they express reservations about the instability of new state institutions. Israel will almost certainly maintain its hold on the Golan Heights, while Turkey will consolidate its political power over Kurdish groups, either through mutual reconciliation or renewed attacks on Kurdish nationalism.
At the same time, nations who had closer ties to the Assad regime, such as Russia and Iran, must adjust their foreign policies to account for the collapse of their former ally. Russia has chosen the path of negotiation, while Iran has looked elsewhere to rebuild its IRGC forces and its Axis of Resistance. Overpowering diplomacy may lead such countries to find themselves in an undesirable position with excessive association to the unstable government and could undermine their influence in Syria, and by proxy, the Middle East.
In conclusion, Syria’s future remains unstable and unclear. As a state, its success will be influenced not only by the responses of regional actors to this delicate transition, but also by those of the Syrian people to the opportunity to rebuild their nation after emerging from some of the darkest depths of authoritarian atrocity seen in this century.
This roundtable was edited by Maytal Chelst, Jamie Kim, Claire Thornhill, Alex Vilarin, and Adam Kinder.
. Illustrations by Beatrix Holstine
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