The Trump Effect

[Dr. Old Bill]

I'm really loath to talk politics on forums etc., but in light of Trump's largely unexpected victory, I think it's perfectly relevant to ask: what does this mean for us as applicants? And what does it mean for us as future English scholars?

These questions are only partially related, of course. The first one addresses whether or not a Trump presidency will have programs pre-emptively reducing the number of applicants they accept in anticipation of major cutbacks to education. There are thousands of similar concerns people will be raising in the coming days and weeks, but since this one affects us directly, I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

My second question is broader, and speaks to the fact (and it really is a fact) that this election was primarily won by the sheer number of white Americans with limited education coming out to vote. In a very real way, Trump's win was about appealing to the masses who have either had limited access to, or a pronounced disdain for higher education. It's impossible to know what is going to happen over the next four years, but how do we persist in the face of a majority that undervalues education?

I recognize that these questions are both speculative and political, but they're also legitimate. I won't claim to be non-partisan, but I hope that regardless of political persuasion, discussion in this thread will at least be civil and slightly academic. I'm guessing most of us are really hurting right now, but we might as well start giving some serious thought to how this is going to affect us in the near- and long-term.

[cloudyword]

Thank you @Wyatt's Terps for bringing up this topic. A couple of hours ago I asked a similar question here: 

Out of ignorance and anxiety, I was constantly checking if someone would offer some insight, especially when the following Trump scenario might make foreigners' situation dire. I was guessing it might take a few days for people to cool down and provide some strategic thoughts/analytical warnings for the aftermath. 

The election sensibility is also one of the reasons that holds me back from emailing my recommenders or contacting POIs since the timing is a bit tricky right now. I don't even want to risk asking my recommenders what Trump's presidency would mean to my application and my pursuit of higher education in the States.  

Edited November 9, 2016 by cloudyword
typo

[biyutefulphlower]

This is also something I've been worrying over since last night...I'm very curious to see what people have to say.

Edited November 9, 2016 by biyutefulphlower

[Neist]

As someone who lives in a state might very well be affected significantly by his proposed actions, I'm nervously twiddling my thumbs.

I don't think I have the clarity of thought to comment in regards to the future meaningfully, but I'll be sure to revisit this thread. I'm glad that someone posted it (was a little curious if anyone would).

[whodathunk]

Let me try to answer bit by bit.

"I'm really loath to talk politics on forums etc., but in light of Trump's largely unexpected victory, I think it's perfectly relevant to ask: what does this mean for us as applicants? And what does it mean for us as future English scholars?"

 

To be honest? I don't see how much has changed or will change in terms of net effect on your PhD. The creeping effect of neoliberalism into academic departments and the general decay in funding for the humanities occurred long before Trump and will continue (I'm assuming that any PhD applicant knows about this, but if you want an incredibly current and incisive #hottake, read Newfield's The Great Mistake particularly chapter 3, or even Helen Small's The Value of the Humanities which gives a good map of the various happenings and their value-based implications). However, I'd urge any applicant to consider how protected you'll be compared to others: academic institutions are culturally and financially elevated, mostly white, and fairly wealthy. They are not going to be Trump's first, second, or even third pick for pillaging. 

"These questions are only partially related, of course. The first one addresses whether or not a Trump presidency will have programs pre-emptively reducing the number of applicants they accept in anticipation of major cutbacks to education. There are thousands of similar concerns people will be raising in the coming days and weeks, but since this one affects us directly, I'm curious to hear your thoughts."

 

Yeah so again see above--I think this betrays a fundamental naivety as the "major cutbacks to education" you anticipate have been going on in the USA *for decades* and are mainly enacted on a state level. Read Guillory, Guess, Wendy Brown, etc. This backdates Trump. A lot. And while any funding cuts to the public school system may have implications for public universities, I fail to see the uniqueness, i.e. Republican governors will gradually defund anyway.

My second question is broader, and speaks to the fact (and it really is a fact) that this election was primarily won by the sheer number of white Americans with limited education coming out to vote. In a very real way, Trump's win was about appealing to the masses who have either had limited access to, or a pronounced disdain for higher education. It's impossible to know what is going to happen over the next four years, but how do we persist in the face of a majority that undervalues education?

tldr: the majority already undervalued education! (See above!)

Also I've been seeing this everywhere: framing Trump's victory as a class issue (e.g. access to education = more likely to vote for Clinton.) This isn't really the case--66% of white women voted Trump; a majority of men with and without college degrees voted Trump; women with college degrees voted Clinton but only by a margin of about 5%. It seems you're eliding the bigger issue here: whiteness. Trump won because he mobilised the white vote, not the uneducated vote, though the latter is part of the former, if you get what I'm saying. 

 

As for what changes in the academy, I would hope that it's a call to action, to activism and a revitalized strain of critical theory for the modern age. Who knows though. Just my two cents.

[Caien]

I cannot speak to the issues for domestic applicants, but I can tell you that as an international, while I do not think I will no longer apply (I'm too far gone at this point), I'm considerably less enthusiastic than I was yesterday about the prospect of spending 5-6 years minimum in the US. As far as how this affects US academic overall, I would expect a decrease in international applicants over the next 2-3 application cycles and thus, fewer international students in cohorts.

Have any educational institutions put out statements? After the Brexit vote many of the UK institutions did so, though they couldn't reassure us much beyond, 'you will not be immediately deported. We are very sorry this has happened.'

[TakeruK]

I'm an international student at a US school now. We are a campus with over 40% international students. There are many events today and later in the week to discuss/debrief the implications of this. I am on the postdoc job market this year and this certainly affects my decisions.

[ExponentialDecay]

As another international in the US, I'm not that worried, for two reasons: first, the "immigration" of generalized political rhetoric rarely targets international students as its main demographic, and second, frankly, how much worse can it get?

The shitshow that is H1B has been around long before this election, and may I note, Obama never lifted the post-crisis cap either. Extrainstitutional funding and research opportunities for internationals have always been extremely, extremely limited - I doubt Trump will take away that one single international NSF grant, and if he does, it won't have any effect on the average F1 doctoral student. The American immigration system has been broken for a long time, and as the result, the hot-ticket issue from the domestic side isn't even H1B abuse, but decades of undocumented migration. It's been hard to be an international student in the US for at least a decade, and the reasons it will get harder will have more to do with the behavior of the academic job market and the economy overall than with Trump.

If there is one thing I'm worried about, it's the humanities disciplines. But, as whodathunk points out, we've been worried about those for a long, long time.

Edited November 9, 2016 by ExponentialDecay

[TakeruK]

As I wrote a bit about in another thread, I don't think there is a lot of reason for me to worry about my own individual future as an academic. I don't think Trump has a lot of issues on international student status (to him, we are "legal"). I also don't think I will be personally targeted by Trump's policies. The reasons that this outcome affects my decision is my unwillingness to live in a country that seems to be so much more out of alignment with my personal beliefs and my inability to do anything about it since I'm not a citizen. If this was happening in my own country, although it's fun to joke about moving elsewhere, I would definitely stay and do what I can to change things. And that's partially why I would want to leave the US after my degree---Canada is having an election in ~3 years and I don't want Canada to go this way either. I want to be back to do something about it.

[PoliticalOrder]

3 hours ago, whodathunk said:

Also I've been seeing this everywhere: framing Trump's victory as a class issue (e.g. access to education = more likely to vote for Clinton.) This isn't really the case--66% of white women voted Trump; a majority of men with and without college degrees voted Trump; women with college degrees voted Clinton but only by a margin of about 5%. It seems you're eliding the bigger issue here: whiteness. Trump won because he mobilised the white vote, not the uneducated vote, though the latter is part of the former, if you get what I'm saying.

You got part of this true, but not the latter.

No matter how many media outlets, candidates, and people have tried to paint this from an ethnicity/racism/sexism perspective, this election really wasn't won or lost on any of these demographics or aspects.

Looking at the preliminary demographics, Trump actually received higher voting percentages from blacks and minorities than Romney did. Furthermore, as you pointed out, Clinton's advantage among voters with a degree was actually extremely marginal.

The election was won and lost in the rust belt. Clinton was not able to draw sufficient voter turnout and received a significant drop-off than Obama did even in 2012 when it wasn't a large win by any means. The four states in the rust belt (Ohio, PA, Wisconsin, Michigan) all turned red when they had previously been blue for a number of years in presidential elections. Trump was able to mobilize voters that are disillusioned from trade deals, unemployment, poor economy, ect. while Clinton lost ground. It was really as simple as that.

-------

I don't think there is going to be any major repercussions. Although I think the poster that predicted lower numbers of applications from international students could be correct, hard to say though.

F-1 visas will not be going anywhere and that is the primary demographic that we are talking about here. Nor do I see any legislation directly at universities that would be significantly detrimental to internationals. It would also be hard to make legislation that impacts private universities, which doesn't really effect things - public universities in the US have had lower international student percentages (esp. graduate students) for a while now.

[Caien]

42 minutes ago, PoliticalOrder said:

I don't think there is going to be any major repercussions. Although I think the poster that predicted lower numbers of applications from international students could be correct, hard to say though.

F-1 visas will not be going anywhere and that is the primary demographic that we are talking about here. Nor do I see any legislation directly at universities that would be significantly detrimental to internationals. It would also be hard to make legislation that impacts private universities, which doesn't really effect things - public universities in the US have had lower international student percentages (esp. graduate students) for a while now.

As you say, practical matters are unlikely to change for international, it is a matter of people wanting to live in a country under a Trump presidency. The time spent in a PhD program is not confined to a University campus, we will be living in these communities and if quality of life in the US begins to drop significantly, particularly for immigrants, it will make for a difficult few years. In the months following the Brexit vote there has been a dramatic increase in the UK in physical and verbal abuse of both immigrants and UK citizens who are not white Anglo-Saxon, which is unfortunately a dramatic intensification of a trend across Europe. I'm comforted somewhat by the fact (and correct me if this is false hope) that most of my programs are in states that voted Clinton, but although I've intended to leave Ireland since my teens as career prospects here are limited, our boring, predictable, rock-solid centre-left democracy is beginning to look more and more attractive.

[kurayamino]

All I'll say is... Ben Carson is being considered as Secretary of Education, which may not at first affect the humanities as much as it does the sciences, but I think we could potentially see less funding at public and state universities. Private universities will likely be able to withstand the political fallout better with their higher percentage of private donors... but I do think it may begin to become a little harder to find research funding or postdocs in the next four years. Additionally, as educators-in-training, it will affect our ability to teach and where we are able to do so because Trump openly supports for-profit education.

This is all not to mention the way it affects my students at a large public university with a high minority population--all of whom were devastated and, understandably, found it hard to focus.

[Cheshire_Cat]

On 11/9/2016 at 3:40 PM, Caien said:

As you say, practical matters are unlikely to change for international, it is a matter of people wanting to live in a country under a Trump presidency. The time spent in a PhD program is not confined to a University campus, we will be living in these communities and if quality of life in the US begins to drop significantly, particularly for immigrants, it will make for a difficult few years. In the months following the Brexit vote there has been a dramatic increase in the UK in physical and verbal abuse of both immigrants and UK citizens who are not white Anglo-Saxon, which is unfortunately a dramatic intensification of a trend across Europe. I'm comforted somewhat by the fact (and correct me if this is false hope) that most of my programs are in states that voted Clinton, but although I've intended to leave Ireland since my teens as career prospects here are limited, our boring, predictable, rock-solid centre-left democracy is beginning to look more and more attractive.

Eh, Americans find Irish accents sexy.  You should be fine.  

I do fear for my Muslim friends a little.  However, the majority of people I know who voted for Trump did so for other reasons, and would be the first to stand against abuse.  The media wants to give it this one cohesive "Half of Americans are xenophobic racists" explanation, but there are so many issues that they failed to address which left Americans wanting something different than the establishment.  

I also think people give the president too much credit for the quality of life in America.  The decisions made at the city and state level are a lot more likely to effect your actual life than the president it.

[AnimeChic101!]

The majority of the programs I was going to apply to were in the midwest and south. I have friends in those areas who are currently facing hostility that they have never experienced before as east-coast transplants. I am removing those programs from my list because I am not sure of my safety in those areas. If the k**n is going to be doing marches in those cities and outwardly presenting their hate, then I, as a black woman, can not safely venture into those spaces. I am attending an international conference in the upcoming months and a few of my fellow panelists (2 of which were Muslim women) have decided that it is safer for them to not travel from their countries to the conference (which is in the south). 

 

This is what is happening. It is scary. At least this helped me slash down my list quite a bit. 

Edited November 12, 2016 by BlackRosePhD

[WildeThing]

Not intended to persuade anyone but I live in the Northeast in a county that voted heavily for Clinton and some students here have reported harrassment by Confederate flag-toting individuals. 

As an Americanist I had considered dropping Toronto from my list but am defnitely rethinking that. Also gonna favor northeast and big city schools even more than I intended to.

[Bumblebea]

I think that @whodathunk has hit it on the head.

A Trump presidency certainly isn't going to make things *better* for academia. That's for sure. But academia's problems run so deep, and have been around for the last several decades, that I sincerely believe that his election will have little to no effect in the short term. That is to say: we've already been crowded onto a lifeboat in freezing cold water. No one is coming for us. Before, we had some hope that we could be rescued. Now we know we are truly on our own. 

Having said that, I'm not sure what the long-term effects could be on academia. It certainly isn't reassuring that we now have a president who openly shows disdain for ideas and intellectual pursuits. More frightening are the people he's surrounding himself with. Tbh, that's my deeper concern. 

And my most immediate concern is one that you all have already touched on: our authority in the classroom. Many students--many, many students--already despise what we stand for or what they perceive us to stand for: diversity, humanistic inquiry, critical thinking (especially as that critical thinking relates to American culture and ideology), and heightened reflexivity. We strive to make people question what they know to be true, and we've already been made vulnerable for voicing unpopular concerns--or, even more frightening, for actually daring to teach writers who aren't white and straight and able-bodied and male. African-American professors have been fired for making their white students uncomfortable. I don't think that Trump and his cronies are going to shut down universities or fire all liberal profs. But I DO think his election will further embolden certain students to be more aggressive and bullying in our classrooms--toward both us and other students--and on their evaluations (which, for those of us who don't have tenure or TT jobs, is somewhat troubling). And then there's needing to worry about our safety, possibly. Already a group of students at Texas State University have circulated fliers saying that they are going to "tar & feather VIGILANTE SQUADS and go arrest & torture those deviant university leaders spouting off all this Diversity Garbage." (http://www.kvue.com/news/local/hays-county/texas-state-police-investigating-trump-vigilante-fliers/350690961)

A few students sat in my classroom this week wearing "Make America Great Again" hats. I'm a white woman, and I'm nervous. I can't imagine what it is like right now to be a professor or grad student of color or of Muslim/Jewish affiliation or LGBT.    

[eternallyephemeral]

2 hours ago, WildeThing said:

Not intended to persuade anyone but I live in the Northeast in a county that voted heavily for Clinton and some students here have reported harrassment by Confederate flag-toting individuals. 

As an Americanist I had considered dropping Toronto from my list but am defnitely rethinking that. Also gonna favor northeast and big city schools even more than I intended to.

I'm biased (as an alumna), but I'd encourage you to consider Toronto! I don't think you'll find it hard to adjust, and there are strong ties between Toronto and the US that make going back and forth easier than you may think. Not that the rest of Canada isn't connected, of course.

 

Back on topic, the direct effects of the new term on academia concerns me less than the indirect effects of climate change, a general climate of fear, and individual acts by Trump supporters on university campuses, because now they have a new example of the most powerful kind. Even in Canada, people have been grabbing pussies and running around with confederate flags. Part of that is wanting to copy the US in everything they do, but it's a giant, pervasive sign to go ahead and act on baser instincts people may have been keeping in for the past few years.

[Bumblebea]

13 minutes ago, eternallyephemeral said:

 Even in Canada, people have been grabbing pussies and running around with confederate flags. Part of that is wanting to copy the US in everything they do, but it's a giant, pervasive sign to go ahead and act on baser instincts people may have been keeping in for the past few years.

Yikes. That's remarkably terrible.

As for the question of being an Americanist in Canada--I will say that for the past two or three years, there were a couple of really good jobs at Canadian universities for Americanists. These jobs were very difficult for US citizens to get. I assume that a degree from Toronto would better position you for those jobs. 

[Cheshire_Cat]

IDK where y'all are, but I haven't heard of any substantiated stories of people doing any of these things, and I live in the south, where you would assume they would be more prevalent.  

There is, however, more of a fear of people who are different than you then I have ever seen before.  Blacks look at whites with more suspicion, and whites look at blacks with more suspicion.  But this has been growing for about the past year or two, it isn't new.  And for most of us it just means being extra careful and kind to people who are different, just so that they will know that we don't intend them any harm.

[MathCat]

19 minutes ago, Cheshire_Cat said:

IDK where y'all are, but I haven't heard of any substantiated stories of people doing any of these things, and I live in the south, where you would assume they would be more prevalent.  

There is, however, more of a fear of people who are different than you then I have ever seen before.  Blacks look at whites with more suspicion, and whites look at blacks with more suspicion.  But this has been growing for about the past year or two, it isn't new.  And for most of us it just means being extra careful and kind to people who are different, just so that they will know that we don't intend them any harm.

Numerous hate messages (including swastikas with Hail Trump written) were seen on my campus, both before and after the election, and I live in California. Police are investigating an Islamophobic hate crime at a nearby university as well, and allegedly the assailants spouted pro-Trump messages during the attack.

[Bumblebea]

39 minutes ago, Cheshire_Cat said:

IDK where y'all are, but I haven't heard of any substantiated stories of people doing any of these things, and I live in the south, where you would assume they would be more prevalent.  

There is, however, more of a fear of people who are different than you then I have ever seen before.  Blacks look at whites with more suspicion, and whites look at blacks with more suspicion.  But this has been growing for about the past year or two, it isn't new.  And for most of us it just means being extra careful and kind to people who are different, just so that they will know that we don't intend them any harm.

What? I don't know how you're defining "substantiated," but there have been plenty of reports. Kind of difficult to deny the veracity of the actual fliers and messages people have been circulating on campuses since he's been elected. TRUMP was written on a Muslim prayer room at NYU. Black students at Penn were sent racist pro-lynching messages. What kind of proof are you looking for, exactly? Just because you haven't witnessed this harassment first hand does not mean it isn't happening. 

Getting "suspicious looks" from people doesn't compare. 

[Neist]

I have to agree with the occurrence of hate crimes. I've been on university campuses for 15 years, and the only time I've recalled hate crimes of this extent was immediately following the September 11 attacks. 

I don't have any profound thoughts yet concerning the subject, but I'm worried. I'm a white male, and I'm worried. I can't even imagine how worried I'd be if I were a minority (of any kind). If I were applying to graduate programs, and I didn't already have a family, I'd probably more heavily consider applying to programs outside of the country.  

It's all very worrying, at least concerning gigantic influx of hate crimes. My concerns with Trump are entirely separate matter.

[AP]

I come from a country where this level of political violence (associated with race, class, religion, etc) has been common. I grew up with the us/we divide and I know people who have voted the most demagogic candidate out of fear of the other one. That said, I have my concerns about the future of the US -which I won't expose here- but I think it is of utter importance for us not to reproduce that fear. It is hard, because we live in a time where fear feeds from social media and becomes terror. 

5 hours ago, BlackRosePhD said:

The majority of the programs I was going to apply to were in the midwest and south. I have friends in those areas who are currently facing hostility that they have never experienced before as east-coast transplants. I am removing those programs from my list because I am not sure of my safety in those areas. If the k**n is going to be doing marches in those cities and outwardly presenting their hate, then I, as a black woman, can not safely venture into those spaces. I am attending an international conference in the upcoming months and a few of my fellow panelists (2 of which were Muslim women) have decided that it is safer for them to not travel from their countries to the conference (which is in the south). 

 

This is what is happening. It is scary. At least this helped me slash down my list quite a bit. 

I attend a school in the south. I am not there right now, but I cannot begin to describe my surprise of the results. Although Clinton won in urban counties, like the one where my school is located, it makes me wonder about other counties with small colleges. Students from around the area where I live come to our campus and use the library (I work there, so I know). Your response made me think about me being in the job market in a year. Will I want to apply to certain areas in the country? Will I stand a chance, being an international applicant? Will I find a place where I can discuss my ideas fairly without fear of harassment or counteraction?

I've asked these questions in the past, when I applied for jobs in my home country. I did not apply to several jobs in places where I knew it was going to be rather impossible to work because of my political views or my religion. Let me clarify that because of my background and because of the job market I was in a rare position where I could choose where to apply. This is not the case in the academic job market, and  I aware of that. I think the concern you are showing is very valid and I wish it could have an easy solution. It doesn't. What I would suggest is that you assess the reality of the places where you are applying to the best of your knowledge. Do not depend too much on mass media, but diversify your sources of information. Maybe you can contact alumni, folks that live in the area, etc.

From where I stand right now (physically, away; professionally, almost there), I will not yield to fear. Fear paralyzes us and drives us to make poor decisions. It blurs our thoughts, it shakes our believes, it whispers impossible scenarios very real to us. I'm not saying you shouldn't be scared, because there are very real threats. We cannot control feeling scared, but we can control what we do with it. Our situations are all very different, and I dare to say that I have it relatively 'easy'. It's up to us to rationally assess what is best for each of us, to act accordingly, and to stand by ourselves and our believes. And I'd suppose we don't by fear.

I wish I have more comforting words and I could do more. I feel so powerless right now. I'm sorry.

 

[Cheshire_Cat]

2 hours ago, Bumblebea said:

What? I don't know how you're defining "substantiated," but there have been plenty of reports. Kind of difficult to deny the veracity of the actual fliers and messages people have been circulating on campuses since he's been elected. TRUMP was written on a Muslim prayer room at NYU. Black students at Penn were sent racist pro-lynching messages. What kind of proof are you looking for, exactly? Just because you haven't witnessed this harassment first hand does not mean it isn't happening. 

Getting "suspicious looks" from people doesn't compare. 

The question is, are those coming from actual Trump supporters or not.  There have been quite a few hate crime hoaxes in the past few years.  I'm not saying they aren't equally as scary, but they aren't actual hate crimes.

But, I haven't heard of any harassment from my students or gotten any emails about it happening here.  Furthermore, none of my black or more liberal friends have posted about it happening in this area, although some have reposted about it happening elsewhere.  My point is, several people seem to think the south is brimming with hate crime and racism, but so far it seems to me that it is happening more in the more "enlightened" areas such as California, and we are just sitting here looking at eachother funny.  I'm not saying we don't have our own set of problems with race, but so far they have been more subdued.

[Bumblebea]

3 hours ago, Cheshire_Cat said:

The question is, are those coming from actual Trump supporters or not.  There have been quite a few hate crime hoaxes in the past few years.  I'm not saying they aren't equally as scary, but they aren't actual hate crimes.

 

Um, they're crimes committed against certain minority groups with the intent to intimidate. I'm not sure what you proof you're really looking for. Trump spent all year using inflammatory hate speech against minorities. Is it a surprise that his supporters, whilst celebrating their victory, are doing the same? And when someone writes "Trump" on a Muslim prayer room in an attempt to deface it, just days after the election, I'm going to apply Occam's razor here and assume they're a Trump supporter.  

There was also a hate crime at Wellesley--Clinton's alma mater. Some Trump supporters waved Trump flags and spat on African-American students. http://www.wcvb.com/news/fraternity-ousts-2-students-who-waved-trump-flag-at-wellesley-college/42458568

But yeah, I'm sure they're just hoaxing. Or their actions are being totally misinterpreted. 

Edited November 13, 2016 by Bumblebea