When I sat down to write my “reaction piece” to the results of the presidential election—now a two-month-old headline—I couldn’t find the words.
My thoughts from that day remain stored in the Notes section of my iPhone, abandoned without inspiration or desire to put together a column, let alone a Facebook post or tweet. I went at the story from all angles: the “inflammatory stance” and the “satirical,” the “call-to-action” and the “shameful resignation,” the “time for mourning” and the “time for hope.” But none of these stances felt mine to take; the words already spoken by others had said enough, and I wasn’t in the mood to search for the right words to put out into the world as “my opinion.”
I took time off. I dove back into more comfortable circumstances, positioned in the crosshairs of myself and of myself in the world to figure out where I might stand in the future when it was time to speak up. I enjoyed the rest of my semester at Duke, but remained journalistically silent. I edited the work of others but I did not write. I read and listened, watched and learned. Separated from the call and duties of my own column, I was brought closer to the words and experiences of others, and with that, closer to finding where I might add to the conversation.
What I discovered took even more time to fully process. For as I stepped further away from the commentary platform that this newspaper provides, I realized just how close I’ve always been to understanding and touching the realities of the people who influence my opinion, and just how far away I’ve been from the headline himself: Donald Trump.
Maybe I didn’t hear it from my notorious area code at home or from the confines of an “Ivy-Plus” university. Maybe I didn’t hear it on Career Day from soon-to-be consultant friends or on the day of the Women’s March from soon-to-be-further-alienated groups of people fighting injustices I do not directly know of, many of whom look nothing like me.
But on the day of the inauguration, a President Donald Trump happened and I, a college newspaper editor with an extreme case of writer’s block, could do nothing to stand in its way.
It was too easy to pick apart Donald Trump and sound smart in doing so. Journalists—be they those of traditional news organizations or those who take pleasure in the virtual applause of social media socialites—took (and continue to take) the raw and seductive bait he always finds a way to provide. Spinning the same story with different headlines, over and over again until the Don-man cries “Fake news!” and births a new headline. All the while, readers—who look to both professional journalists and Facebook prophets for reason and resonance—share the concern and exhibit their passion for something to be done, but find themselves helplessly disconnected from impactful dialogue or action. What seems like an opportunity for insight and action is journalistic fool’s gold.
So how to get to Donald Trump? It’s actually quite simple, and a bit selfish: we need to talk more about ourselves.
For my column, “trump and i” to become something effective, I need to reach his sphere of influence only after I’ve reached my own smaller spheres of influence. That is, I must take on the hard work of self-awareness and self-critique before I can juice the lowest-hanging orange fruit. As counter-intuitive as it may be, I need to locate the “and” of “trump and i,” those intersections where my opinion, my experience, my interests and my columns might influence his.
And coming from my notorious zip code, schooled at the Ivy-ish Duke University, those intersections happen to be possible. At a school populated by too many members of the 1 percent, staking out shaky, although well-intended, paths toward political correctness, too often characterized by closed, hushed networks and cliques, yet vitalized and revitalized by the ever-quickening pulse of the interested and interesting student body—who also read and react to the school newspaper—we touch on issues relevant to Donald Trump by just being here.
Trump and I are going to have a talk on our terms this semester. Home-court advantage for the Cameron Crazies—an analogy that would not be lost on a cooler president. Through this platform, we’ll talk about what we know here, and what we want to know here and—when it works—figure out just how we fit into the national headlines of Donald Trump and friends. Meanwhile, I’ll read and listen, watch and learn, with the continued honor of editing the words of over 30 other Chronicle columnists watchdogging our campus and our world.
With the right mindset, it’s possible to have conversations at Duke that get us closer to a collective solution to the issues facing our own community. Who knows? Maybe “trump and i” will actually have some fun. Or it’ll become a shouting match between two loud people with big job titles and small hands, who call each other “fake news” before it all comes crashing down.
Crossing my fingers for the fun.
Jackson Prince is a Trinity sophomore and editorial page editor of The Chronicle. His column, “trump and i” runs on alternate Mondays.
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