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By: Sophie Dillon The following essay was the third-place winner of the Buckley Program’s spring semester essay contest. The topic was “What can we learn from William F. Buckley, Jr. today?”.  Last November, America experienced one of its most surprising elections to date, when Donald Trump edged out a win in a presidential race so close they couldn’t call a winner until three in the morning. Clinton supporters watched in astonished agony as the votes were tallied—what about the polls that had been promising a Hillary presidency for months? What about the reputable news sources who had denounced Trump’s comments as racist and sexist? The morning after the election, many Americans found themselves wondering—How could this have happened? (more…)

By: Bernard Stanford The following essay was the second-place winner of the Buckley Program’s spring semester essay contest. The topic was “What can we learn from William F. Buckley, Jr. today?”.  Yale today has a delicate relationship with the concept of “namesakes.” On a university filled nearly to bursting with names (such that poor Messrs. Sterling, Sheffield, and Strathcona have all been forced to share), the regular students hardly engage with them at all, and when they do, it’s generally to point out that one or other is racist and offensive and must be blotted out. Not one of the hundred-and-twenty-odd freshman residents of Durfee Hall, for example, likely thinks at all about what he or she can learn from the example of Bradford M.C. Durfee, a man who, upon realizing the fort...

By: Zach Young The following essay was the winner of the Buckley Program's spring semester essay contest. The topic was "What can we learn from William F. Buckley, Jr. today?".  “The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.” - William F. Buckley, Jr. Upon exiting the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin purportedly encountered an excited group of citizens, who asked him which form of government the delegates had chosen. “A republic,” Franklin replied curtly, “if you can keep it.” Franklin’s answer inverted an age-old power structure. Rule by elites, he suggested, was to be supplanted with government of, by, and for the people. 230 years later, this experiment has proven successful in the United States and influential abroad. Yet there remai...

The tension between populist and establishment politics has been a recurrent theme in the 2016 election. During the primaries, both Democratic and Republican candidates gained a following by arguing that the mainstream parties’ positions of the last decade do not coherently represent the interests and values of most Americans. After highlighting rising socioeconomic inequality, Bernie Sanders took a firm position against center-left neoliberals and called for the resurgence of radical leftist economic policies. Appealing to existing Tea Party sentiment within the Republican Party, Donald Trump challenged the ideological hegemony of party elites, claiming that free trade and interventionist foreign policy negatively impact everyday Americans. A similar dynamic persists in the general electi...

The 2016 Election has thrown a wrench in the American political party system like no other election of our generation. The election has been the expression of a movement that most threatens the stability of our political landscape: the movement of anti-establishment populism. On the right, a Donald Trump insurgency has exploded the previous Republican coalition between its Wall Street and its Christian conservative wing. On the left, a Bernie Sanders insurgency has severely weakened the grip of the liberal elite over the Progressive wing of the party. Ultimately, Mr. Trump won out and managed to achieve his party’s nomination while Senator Sanders did not, however, the implications of both of these tumultuous primaries are the same. The party system that existed in this country since the l...

“You always seemed so sure / that one day we’d be fighting / in a suburban war”                                  –Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (2010) The 2016 Presidential election has become a prizefight for the ages. Of the many lenses through which the contest has been viewed – a clash between the educated and uneducated, between minorities and whites, the white collar and the blue collar – no framework better captures the true rift at the heart of the body politic than the urban-rural divide. The data tell the story: urban areas rich with demographic diversity foster support for Clinton, whose platform largely plays to the interests of communities well-established in cities—millennials, African-Americans, immigrants, and Hispanics. Polls show Clinton clobbering Trump within city limits b...

After an extremely contentious presidential election in 2016, I believe that significant changes will come to the American political party system, specifically with regards to press coverage of future campaigns, and party politics. More specifically, these changes will reflect the controversial nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican party’s candidate for president. First of all, in the contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the media has occupied a significant role which has been incomparable to that of almost any other election year. Many political scientists credit Trump’s nomination as the Republican party’s general election candidate to the immense amount of free press and media attention he has gained since he first launched his campaign. According to The New York ...

Charles Krauthammer, in a speech to the Buckley Program at Yale on September 28th, 2015, said “The summer of Trump ended, meteorologically speaking, last Monday, and I think we can already see that the decline has begun.” Evidently, the storm has lasted longer than expected. Krauthammer misunderstood that Trump represented something much more than a seasonal fling. He demonstrated that the partisan divide is due for a shakeup. Donald Trump’s primary opponents lambasted him on that grounds that he was not a “true conservative.” The electorate responded resoundingly: “We don’t care!” The Republican base favored Trump’s nationalist message over the Buckleyan conservatives’. Meanwhile, the globalist elite consolidated around the Democratic Party’s nominee. Fears that the 2016 election will des...

This isn't the end. This isn't even the beginning of the end. However, this is the end of the beginning. - Winston Churchill The 2016 Presidential Campaign has been a watershed event for the American political party system.  Democrats fielded two candidates that were starkly different, reflecting a fractured base.  Republicans put forth over a dozen candidates from across the conservative spectrum, ultimately nominating the quintessential “outsider”.  Some speculate that the two party system is nearing the end, given the recent issues across both parties.  However, barriers such as cost, logistics, and the electoral system greatly reduce the likelihood of a truly viable 3rd-party emerging.  The more probabilistic changes include an improved process for candidate vetting and nomination, ...

Below are the 1st prize submissions for our high school and college Firing Line Essay Contest in response to the question: "What Is the Greatest Challenge Facing the U.S. Economy?" Our high school winner was Louisa Bjerke, a 10th grader from Greenwich High School, here are her thoughts Education 2.0 Learning in the Era of Innovation By Louisa Bjerke The greatest challenge to the American economy today is our outdated and stagnant education system that leaves scores of students unprepared for the rapid innovation and incorporation of new technology in the modern workplace. Our country has gone through three industrial revolutions over the past 250 years and today we are standing on the verge of the fourth. Each revolution has represented a significant shift in skill sets required to mak...