The Past and Present
On Nov. 5, 2024, American citizens stood in line at the polls to cast ballots for senators, representatives, county executives, referenda and the President of the United States. As votes were tallied, Former President Donald J. Trump creeped ahead in the polls, securing a lead in the electoral college. At 5:34 a.m. EST, the Associated Press called Wisconsin for Trump, and with it, the electoral college votes needed to tip him over the majority threshold of 270, winning him the presidency.
Trump began his career as the heir of a wealthy real estate tycoon, but has risen to become the face of today’s Republican Party. Trump is just another step in a pattern of polarization that is relatively new in the grand scheme of things, but has grown to define the modern political age. Even a cursory glance at any one of his social media posts reveals that he is one of the most polarizing candidates and prolific disseminators of misinformation that American politics has seen in a long while. Polarization is in no way a new issue in its entirety, but the past two decades of technological and communications innovations have made it a dominant political strategy.
For centuries, the U.S. has run on a two-party system. Democrats and Republicans have held the floor since 1853, with no real viable third-party option. This splits voters over two candidates, forcing them to choose one. This in and of itself is already a recipe for disaster.
To win an election, candidates aim to maximize votes they receive while minimizing the time, effort and money it takes to obtain them. After all, there are more than 330 million people to reach. It may seem intuitive to take a moderate stance—swaying undecided voters and taking away votes from the other candidate–but swaying voters is much more difficult than expected. It requires a convincing combination of rallies, advertisements and door-knocking.
A far easier strategy is to lean all the way out to the far extremes. By doing so, candidates minimize the chance that targeted voters will still go and cast their ballot for the opposing candidate. In other words, being a more polarized candidate saves candidates valuable campaign resources.
An issue arises, however, when both parties stick to this strategy. By leaving the center of the political spectrum untouched, undecided voters are forced to choose between two unappealing extremes. Despite disagreeing with the ideas of both candidates, they must choose one in order to cast any vote at all. Our two-party system promotes extremism in political candidates, but it also encourages them to incite extremist ideologies in their voters.
Politics isn’t run by people—it’s run by parties. As a politician, you may be the face of your party, but you want to ensure that voters continue to vote for your party even after your departure. If they remain in the center, they could swing either way, so the question is: how can people be moved out of the center and into the wings?
Enter social media. Very few recognized what a powerful tool social media would become when it first arrived. Today, it is one of the most influential social institutions. A brief, simplified history of communication begins with word of mouth that turned into letters that turned into newspapers, horses started carrying letters and newspapers, then cars replaced horses, and eventually we end up in the 21st century where little screens in your hand choose what letters and newspapers you get. And it’s these little screens that changed everything.
Before, everybody had to see the same newspaper. The New York Times published once a day and whatever they printed was the copy everyone bought. But today, social media curates the content you see. These algorithms that social media companies use tend not to show you ideas that you disagree with or that make you uncomfortable. This increases the likelihood of pushing users into echo chambers, which contribute to the spread of misinformation and fake news.
Politicians now had a very easy way to polarize people: feed them perspectives and ideas from only your party, harness misinformation to further polarize them, use the algorithm that maximizes dopamine and minimizes discomfort to keep them there, and we have a simple solution to get people out of the center.
Trump is no stranger to these tactics. The misinformation he has spread has caused irreparable harm to our nation. Trump’s denial of the fair and democratic results of the 2020 election saw an insurrection at the capitol building, with the confederate flag— a symbol of the movement that almost tore our country in two—raised in protest within the walls of the Capitol for the first time in history. Trump is only the latest link in a long chain of events that have furthered the dangerous political climate in America, and he will only continue to dismantle the systems in place that maintain the institutions of our democracy.
The Future
Trump’s first term was notable for its significant oppression of human and immigrant rights. He embraced ideals and rhetoric of white supremacists in his speeches, promoting hatred and violence towards people of color, as well as his political opponents and especially on antidemocratic policies meant to strip minority groups throughout the U.S. of their rights. One such example being his promise to deport millions of immigrants.
There’s no reason to believe his second term will be any different. In fact, one of the core promises Trump made during his 2024 campaign is to deport millions of undocumented and illegal immigrants. Stephen Miller, a Trump adviser and conservative political consultant credited with shaping Trump’s harsh immigration policies, told Fox News on December 8, 2024, that Trump plans to issue a series of executive orders that will seal the border shut and begin the largest deportation operation in American history.
The policies and actions taken by Trump’s government are expected to destroy the legal statuses of 700,000 holders of Temporary Protected Status, 500,000 young adults known as Dreamers and more than 175,000 Ukrainians”, forcing millions of immigrants to flee the country. They will have no choice but to return to their countries of origin or move to an entirely different country, which are likely dangerous for such immigrants and refugees who are often escaping gang violence, war or unstable governments.
To be clear, Trump’s policies are blatantly racist, xenophobic, anti-democratic and violate rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion or any other status. Around 5.2% of Wisconsin’s population is foreign-born (immigrants) and with Trump’s future plans to restrict immigration and even revoke birthright citizenship, over 308,000 immigrants can expect to be at serious risk for deportation. This would be devastating not only for immigrants, but also for the economy.
Nation-wide deportation would cost $46.8 billion in federal taxes, $29.3 billion in state and local taxes and $22.6 billion in Social Security tax payments from lost immigrant labor and tax payments, as noted by Cristobal Ramon, writer for UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil rights organization, and independent expert on U.S. and global migration policy. Such plans will directly impact the lives of Wisconsinites, and possibly Middleton High School students, due to rising food, housing and manufactured goods costs, as a result of labor shortages in substantially immigrant-supported workforces.
Immigrants make up 22 percent of the agricultural workforce, 15 percent of construction jobs and 8 percent of the manufacturing sector. Deporting millions of hard-working migrants achieves nothing but harm to the social environment, economy and livelihoods of other Americans. Especially with the tariffs that Trump has promised, Wisconsinites will be hit hard economically, considering that we import significantly more goods than we export to countries like Canada, China and Mexico.
Trump’s presidency will take away the freedoms and statuses of millions of people, not to mention his promises made to deprive women and other birthing people of their bodily rights. The last Trump administration introduced a torrent of anti-abortion legislation and bills, many of which are still in effect today. Moreover, following the Supreme Court ruling in 2022 denying the constitutional right to an abortion, 17 states have instated laws outlawing abortion mainly in the South and Midwest.
The “your body, my choice” sentiment is shared by many male Trump voters, and with “anti-rights extremists” soon to be installed into government positions, the future of reproductive rights appears bleak. The Center for Reproductive Rights has listed the many different ways that Project 2025, an agenda by a conservative think-tank called Heritage Foundation, plans to strip away rights and medical care, such as ending access to medication for abortion, used in 63 percent of abortions in the U.S, and establishing an abortion surveillance system which will force states to report patients receiving abortion care, as well as generally restricting access to contraceptives, birth control and other reproductive health services. While Trump stated on the campaign trail that he had no part of Project 2025, several of his cabinet picks have associations with the agenda.
We have already experienced Trump’s previous presidency, and the best course of action available right now is to prepare for the next one. Thankfully, there are bastions of liberty like the Center for Reproductive Rights, Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and many of our representatives in Washington that are prepared to fight for our freedoms and prosperity. Despite the reasonable feeling of pessimism prevalent among younger generations right now, it’s important to maintain your hope and spirit, because no matter how much Trump plans to change the nation, he will never be able to change your beliefs.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Cardinal Chronicle. Any content provided by our journalists is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything
