The Performance of Certainty

Diary Entry: November 1, 2016

We are now exactly one week from the election, and the social atmosphere on campus has tightened to a clinical, suffocating consensus. In polite society, and particularly within these academic cloisters, “Trump” is not merely a candidate; he is a moral contagion, a comprehensive social faux pas. To despise him is the non-negotiable price of admission to any public conversation.

This public-facing dogma creates a peculiar tension. The consensus is so loud, so universally performed, that it feels brittle. One hears whispers of the “closet Republican,” a political cryptid rumored to haunt the law school but terrified to speak. Here, in the alleged coliseum of free debate, certain opinions have been deemed heresy, forcing entire ideologies underground. The stigma is absolute.

This collective faith was on full display this morning. I was sitting in Contracts, ostensibly analyzing the finer points of consideration, and glanced at the earnest young man to my left. He was hunched over his notebook, scribbling away. We’d exchanged a few pleasantries, and with the election consuming all the oxygen in the room, I decided to probe.

“What’s your analysis for next week?” I asked.

He straightened up immediately, activated. “It’s a lock. Over,” he said, with the casual finality of a man checking the weather.

His certainty was impenetrable. “I don’t know,” I ventured, playing the skeptic. “It doesn’t feel so black and white out there. What if this campus consensus is just an echo chamber? Trump might actually win.”

He gave me a look of profound, almost medical pity, the kind one reserves for the hopelessly deluded. He leaned in, as if to correct a child. “Look,” he said, his voice dropping to one of patronizing clarification, “I actually studied this stuff as an undergrad at Columbia.” He waved a hand, dismissing any alternate reality. “The only real question is whether the Democrats can take Congress, too.”

The credential was offered as the definitive rebuttal, the silver bullet to put my naive skepticism out of its misery. He didn’t need to argue further; the pedigree had spoken. He just offered a soft, knowing chuckle and shook his head, turning back to his notes as if the conversation itself was a mild embarrassment.