BPR Fall 2025 Issue 1

Editor’s Note

Rituals come in many forms—religious ceremonies, national holidays, family celebrations, and daily habits. Rituals unite people, providing a powerful form of shared experience They mold our identity, signifying our membership in a collective. But rituals can also be weaponized to achieve political objectives or perpetuate injustice. Rituals are everchanging—and new rituals can introduce new challenges. In this special feature, we explore how rituals shape politics in ways both small and large.

In Nepal, Chhaupadi, a type of menstrual exile, is a life-threat ening reality for countless girls and women. Attempts to curb the practice by activist groups, international organizations, and the federal government have largely fallen flat—ineffective especially in Nepal’s rural villages. In “Period Power,” Remi Takahashi con tends that effective campaigns against Chhaupadi must consider it as not only a human rights violation, but a ritual—reckoning with its cultural place and significance.

Russia has weaponized the memory of World War II to jus tify silencing dissent and invading Ukraine. In “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” Alice Miller explores how Russia has transformed the collective memory of its fight against facism in WWII into a powerful tool to achieve the government’s political objectives. Through remembrance rituals, Putin links the fascist crimes committed during WWII with the activities of modern dissidents and pro-Western governments.

Standing for the Pledge of Allegiance is a daily ritual for millions of K-12 students in the United States. Does this ritual foster patriotism? Sabine Gladis argues in “One Nation, Under Who?” that reciting The Pledge generates a superficial, rigid form of mandated patriotism. She contends that authentic civic engagement—embodied through the rituals of activism, protest, and community service—offers a better benchmark for patriotism among young Americans. By embracing civic engagement, students can redefine patriotism on their own terms.

The internet has transformed the rituals of dating for Gen Z. In “@pavlov liked your story,” Ashton Higgins discusses the way courtship has been redefined into a series of online rituals: swiping right, liking a story, and commenting on posts. These abstract

the smallest of interactions, emphasizing short-term gratification rather than long-term commitment. According to Higgins, these new rituals exacerbate the youth mental health crisis and make it harder to find love.

Saree runs have proliferated in South Asia—enabling women, who have historically faced cultural barriers to exercise—to live an active lifestyle. However, by centering a garment that has a complex colonial history, and engaging only minimally with a broader vision of women’s rights, their potential has been limited. In “Saree Strides,” Zern Hee Chua explores this new ritual, probing its complex role in advancing women’s empowerment.

As you read through this issue, we hope you reflect on the rituals you participate in. How do they shape your life, your beliefs, and your politics? How can we determine which rituals are worth preserving—and which ones need to be revised? Amina

EXECUTIVE BOARD

EDITORS IN CHIEF

Amina Fayaz

Elliot Smith

CHIEFS OF STAFF

Grace Leclerc

Jordan Lac

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERS

John Lee

Manav Musunuru

MANAGING EDITORS

Ashton Higgins

Mitsuki Jiang

Sofie Zeruto

CHIEF COPY EDITORS

Renee Kuo

Tiffany Eddy

INTERVIEWS DIRECTORS

Ariella Reynolds

Benjamin Stern

DATA DIRECTORS

Nikhil Das

Tiziano Pardo

CREATIVE DIRECTORS

Bath Hernández

Fah Prayottavekit

Natalie Ho

MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR

Solomon (Solly)

Goloboff-Schragger

WEB DIRECTOR

Armaan Patankar

DIVERSITY OFFICER

Michael Shui

BOARD OF ADVISORS

Alexandros Diplas

Allison Meakem

Gabriel Merkel

Hannah Severyns

Mathilda Silbiger

Tiffany Pai

Zander Blitzer

DIVERSITY TEAM

DIVERSITY OFFICER

Michael Shui

DIVERSITY ASSOCIATE

Jiayi Wu

INTERVIEWS BOARD

INTERVIEWS DIRECTORS

Ariella Reynolds

Benjamin Stern

DEPUTY INTERVIEWS

DIRECTORS

Ciara Leonard

Eiffel Sunga

Matthew Kotcher

Charlotte Peterson

INTERVIEWS ASSOCIATES

Aleksandra Pakhomova

Amish Jindal

Anita Sosa

Aurna Mukherjee

Charles Lebwohl

Christina Li

Gabriella Miranda

Jack DiPrimio

Maria Mooraj

Matteo Papadopoulos

Michael Lau

Michele Togbe

Nava Litt

Raghav Ramgopal

Rishabh Rao

Riyana Srihari

Rutva Brahmbhatt

Sarik Gupta

Sofia Segarra Wilber Anteroladata

DATA BOARD

DATA DIRECTORS

Nikhil Das Tiziano Pardo

DATA ASSOCIATES

Aavin Mangalmurti

Amy Qiao

Anna Wong

Brandon Yu

Breanna Villarreal

Fanny Vavrovsky

Ishaan Jain

Jeffrey Gao

Joshua Reed

Reina Jo

Romilly Thomson

Wesley Horn

Zoe Weissman

DATA DESIGNERS

Carys Lam Yeonjai Song

WEB BOARD

WEB DIRECTOR

Armaan Patankar

WEB DEVELOPERS

Hao Wen

Jaideep Naik

Joanne Ding

Nitin Sudarsanam

Shafiul Haque

WEB DESIGNERS

Casey Gao

Hyelim Lee

Zairan Liu

PUZZLE DIRECTOR

Matthew DaSilva

PUZZLE DESIGNERS

Ana Vissicchio

Lucy Bryce

Marissa Scott

COPY EDIT BOARD EDITORIAL BOARD

CHIEF COPY

EDITORS

Renee Kuo

Tiffany Eddy

MANAGING COPY

EDITORS

Nicholas Clampitt

Vivian Chute

COPY EDITORS

Aditya Krishnan

Annika Melwani

Charlotte Peterson

Christina Li

Damiana Harper

Daniel Shin

Eva Dillon

Isabela Perez-Sanchez

Jason Hwang

Kaylee Gilbert

Leah Freedman

Lillian Castrillon

Michaela Hanson

Natalie Tse

Nate Barkow

Rachel Loeb

Rachel Sang

Ryan Choo

Shant Ispendjian

Shiela Phoha

Tanvi Mittal

Vanya Shah

MULTIMEDIA BOARD

MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR

Solomon (Solly)

Goloboff-Schragger

MULTIMEDIA PRODUCERS

Audrey Gmerek

Becky Montes

Chompoonek (Chicha)

Nimitpornsuko

Christina Charie

Clara Baisinger-Rosen

Danielle Deculus

Ella Podurigiel

Ellie Wu

Erin Ozyurek

Josué Morales

Leyad Zavriyev

Lucas Da Silva

Lucy Previn

Lynn Nguyen

Maison Teixeira

Miranda Mason

Nava Litt

Oona O’Brien

Romi Bhatia

Sophie Mueller

Thomas Foley

Xavier Colon

Zarah Hillman

PODCAST DIRECTOR

Caroline Cordts

BUSINESS BOARD

BUSINESS DIRECTORS

John Lee

Manav Musunuru

BUSINESS ASSOCIATES

Arjun Puri

Becky Montes

Elina Coutlakis-Hixson

Jack DiPrimio

Lizzie Duong

Mariana Copeland Celaya

Neve O’Neil

Remi Takahashi

MANAGING EDITORS

Ashton Higgins

Mitsuki Jiang

Sofie Zeruto

SENIOR EDITORS

Aman Vora

Brynn Manke

Julianna Muzyczyszyn

Keyes Sumner

Steve Robinson

Tess Naquet-Radiguet

EDITORS

Allan Wang

Annabel Williams

Ava Rahman

Chris Donnelly

Daphne Dluzniewski

Emily Feil

Fabiana Conway

Faith Li

Gus LaFave

Isabella Xu

Joshua Stearns

Kenneth Kalu

Madeleine Connery

Mateo Navarro

Meruka Vyas

Nicolaas Schmid

Rohan Leveille

Sara Amir

HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM LEAD

Brynn Manke Tess Naquet-Radiguet

CREATIVE BOARD

CREATIVE DIRECTORS

Bath Hernández

Natalie Ho

Fah Prayottavekit

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Jiabao Wu

EDITORIAL DESIGNERS

Anna Wang

Dongha Kwak

Jay Moon

Marie You

Sheeon Chang

Tiffany Tsan

PUBLIC RELATIONS

DESIGNERS

Jordan Kinley

Kyuwon Park

ART DIRECTORS

Angela Xu

Burcu Koleli

Larisa Kachko

Leslie Mateus

COVER ARTIST

Sarah Naidich

STAFF WRITERS

Aaditya Das Narayan

Alexia Lara

Alina Calix-Martinez

Andrea Fuentes

Arjun Puri

Asher Patel

Audrey Gmerek

Ben Hader

Charlie Getman

Chiupong Huang

Christina Charie

David Macario

Emily Pan

Emily Schreiber

Emma Phan

Fanny Vavrovsky

George Weiler

Gui Sequeira

Isabella Collins

Kayla Morrison

Kimaya Balendra

Lauren Kozmor

Lev Kotler-Berkowitz

Matthew MacKay

Mia Reyn

Michaela Hanson

Nainika Sompallie

Nate Barkow

Napintakorn (Pin) Kasemsri

Natalia Baños Delgado

Remi Takahashi

Riya Singh

Sabine Cladis

Siyuan (Michael) Shui

Shane Vandevelde

Shant Ispendjian

Sonya Rashkovan

Will Thomas

Samdol Lhamo Sichoe

Zern Hee Chua

ILLUSTRATORS

Airien Ludin

Amelia Jeoung

Angelina So

Anneke Beth

Awele Chukwumah

Christina Xu

Cora Zeng

Elizabeth Chew

Ellie Lin

Emily Chao

Emily McShane

Haley Maka

Jiwon Lim

Kexin Huang

Kyuwon Park

Lily Engblom-Stryker

LuJia Liao

Lydia Smithey

Mia Cheng

Mot Tuman

Oli Bartsch

Orla Maxwell

Paul Li

Ranran Ma

Rokia Whitehouse

Shay Salmon

Sofia Schreiber

Wanxin Li

York Mgbejume

Live Libertarian Or Die

Free staters are attempting to take over New Hampshire

by Joshua Stearns ’28

, a Political Science concentrator and Editor for BPR illustrations by Haley Maka ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Croydon, New Hampshire—a town of about 800 nestled amongst rolling hills and pristine ponds, where an 18th-century one-room schoolhouse still operates—lies just miles from American playwright Thornton Wilder’s fictional Grover’s Corners. Croydon’s idyllic atmosphere was shattered in 2022, however, when a group of ultra-libertarians, members of the Free State Project (FSP), hijacked the annual town meeting and voted to halve the town’s school budget, a cut which would have effectively abolished in-person education for Croydon students. In an amazing rally of unity, the townspeople fought back. After going on what one school board member described as a “witch-hunt” for Free Staters and calling an unprecedented second annual town meeting, the townspeople overwhelmingly voted to restore the school budget.

Imagine if your neighbors moved to your state with a hidden agenda: to destroy it from the bottom up. It may sound like fiction, but this has been unfolding across New Hampshire for over a decade. Despite less open organizing and increased public awareness of the FSP since the events in Croydon, the project’s threat has grown to unprecedented heights. Now, operating silently through the State Legislature, the movement’s agenda is hidden in complex legislation, allowing its vision to inch ever closer to realization. Alarmingly, few seem to notice.

“Imagine if your neighbors moved to your state with a hidden agenda: to destroy it from the bottom up. It may sound like fiction, but this has been unfolding across New Hampshire for over a decade.”

The FSP was founded in 2001 by Jason Sorens, a doctoral student at Yale who theorized that if a group as small as even 20,000 people dedicated itself to infiltrating and dismantling state government and moved to a low-population state, a paradise of anarcho-capitalism could be born in America. In 2003, New Hampshire, where Independents outnumber both major political parties, was selected by several thousand initial Free Staters as the ideal state because of its size and small-government culture (“Live Free or Die” is the state’s motto). After the selection, many Granite Staters, including then-Governor Craig Benson, welcomed them. By 2023, about 10,000 Free Staters had followed through and migrated to New Hampshire, though more than 20,000 have signed a pledge to move. Free Staters, importantly, do not want to merely pass a slew of budget cuts: Their goal is to extremify the state’s freedom-loving culture, eliminate all government, and establish a “libertopia” where all property is privatized.

You might wonder: How dangerous can a group of just 10,000 ideologues be to a state of 1.4 million? The answer: extremely. The initial plan seemed to be to establish “colonies” of Free Staters in small communities of several hundred, like Croydon, to seize control of local governments. However, after the events in Croydon and previous missteps around the state (for example, Grafton, New Hampshire, was taken over by black bears in large part thanks to the Free Staters’ belief that nobody could stop them from feeding boxes of donuts to local bears), many Granite Staters became wary of the movement. Numerous Free Staters, however, have managed to remain undetected, even in the State House.

A common joke about New Hampshire’s state legislature—the third largest in the Anglophone world—is that whoever wants to

be a legislator can be. This also means that it is ripe for Free Stater infiltration. Since Croydon, the FSP has shifted from a simple, idealistic migratory movement to a state-by-state funnel for national donors to platform libertarian values. While the share of representatives openly identifying as Free Staters when last counted in 2018 was just 17 out of 400, the effort to create a Free Stater-dominated legislature has not waned. In 2024, big oil political action committees like Make Liberty Win and Americans for Prosperity donated over one million dollars to fund at least 130 FSP-aligned New Hampshire House candidates.

Alongside the growth of the FSP-affiliated bloc, the Free State agenda has increasingly appeared in legislation. In the 2025 legislative session, the House-approved budget (later revised in conference with the state Senate) included provisions to slash funding for most state departments, services, and councils. Republican House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-NH), a Free Stater, was behind perhaps the most dangerous provision of the House Budget, which would have imposed a budget cap on school districts. In many cases, legislation championed by Free Staters is not even written by Free Staters but by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a libertarian think tank with financial ties to Project 2025.

Outside of the legislature, Free Staters’ focus now lies on repealing local zoning laws that slow their migration. Sorens authored a 2021 study of land-use regulations, in which he explains the need to amend local zoning ordinances in New Hampshire to increase the availability of affordable housing. He specifically advocates for zoning changes in the Monadnock region to allow a large tract of land to be filled with mobile homes, explaining that the development is needed because it would cause a “substantial

“The FSP is a cancer on New Hampshire’s ideals of personal liberty, as it works insidiously to bend Granite Staters’ lives and freedoms to its will.”

growth in the tax base” to fund local public schools and reverse falling enrollment.

However, if Sorens truly did care about affordable housing for the sake of Granite Staters, he would not argue that it would reverse falling enrollment in local schools while simultaneously orchestrating a movement that works to defund public education. Sorens’s aim is for affordable housing projects, like the one in the Monadnock region, to be filled by Free Staters, many of whom are then encouraged to run for local office.

Free Staters’ hypocrisy does not end there. Sorens defended President Donald Trump’s mass deportations in a recent article, arguing that it is better to over-deport immigrants because some are “terrorist sympathizers” eager to destroy our country than to not deport enough and fail to capture them all. He writes that “terrorist sympathizers… will vote away our freedoms when they get a chance” and that voting away others’ freedoms “is a form of aggression;” thus, “voting is not like free speech—it necessarily affects the rights and interests of others.” Therefore, “you have a duty not to vote if your vote would be incompetent or unjust.”

Based on Sorens’s own logic, by moving to a state with the intent of eliminating public schooling for other people’s children and changing zoning laws to move in more members of their dangerous ideological movement, Free Staters are waging a war of “aggression” on Granite Staters. The Free Staters who carry out this malevolent mission even describe themselves as part of a “mass migration.” On their website, they also offer advice on navigating the process of immigrating to New Hampshire from overseas. Unlike most migrants, though, Free Staters move solely based on their desire to radically change the political nature of their new home. The Free Staters, of course, justify their actions by ignoring this inconsistency. Anyone who criticizes them, they say, is discriminating against them, but they also have a track record of silencing critics with violent threats.

Granite Staters take the issue of personal liberty seriously: New Hampshire is the only state where wearing a seatbelt is not legally mandated. The FSP is a cancer on New Hampshire’s ideals of personal liberty, as it works insidiously to bend Granite Staters’ lives and freedoms to its will. Importantly, Free Staters seem to recognize that what they are doing is deeply unpopular: They operate covertly, waiting for the perfect moment to strike (like an underattended annual town meeting) and implement plans with disastrous consequences. Most Granite Staters seem not to realize the immediacy of the sustained threat posed by the FSP. After Croydon, the gloves are off in the fight for liberty in New Hampshire. Granite Staters should fight like hell to preserve their freedoms.

In Tolls We Trust

NYC’s congestion pricing needs tangible results and community input

by Charlie Getman ’28, an International and Public Affairs concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR

by Carys Lam ’29, an Architecture major at RISD and Data Designer for BPR

When New York City’s congestion pricing plan launched on January 5, 2025, the sky did not fall—but traffic did. After months of political struggle and years of public debate, the policy delivered what its advocates promised: Vehicle entries south of 60th Street have decreased by 11 percent, delays by 25 percent, and revenue generated for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) from the program is set to reach the predicted $500 million this year. Despite this success, just nine months later, 41 percent of New Yorkers think the policy should not remain. In contrast, when London implemented its own congestion pricing plan in 2003, public approval rose to 50–60 percent within months; New York’s rollout seems to be delivering London-style results but not London-style acceptance. In a political culture where trust in government is at an all-time low, congestion pricing will continue to be viewed as an outrageous fine unless it is paired with tangible, near-term improvements in infrastructure and an administrative structure New Yorkers trust.

Here is how congestion pricing works: Most vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street now pay a nine-dollar toll once per day—a policy meant to cut traffic, noise, and emissions while funding transit and infrastructure improvements. But suburban commuters, especially those traveling across state lines, have fueled a major political pushback. New Jersey sued to delay implementation, and the Trump administration even sought to revoke federal approval before the program began.

This policy, while novel for the United States, is not unique on the global stage—cities like London, Stockholm, Singapore, and Milan have

upheld similar programs for decades. With such a wealth of historical precedents, proponents of the New York model should look to their international counterparts for inspiration. Understanding how London moved from skepticism to normalization offers New York a roadmap for turning technical success into political acceptance.

In 2003, then-Mayor Ken Livingstone spearheaded London’s congestion pricing program, staking his political future on a controversial attempt to reduce London’s recordhigh pollution and traffic. Despite low popularity, on February 17, 2003, London began the fivepound (£) charge. At its inception, only 40 percent of Londoners supported the program, and Livingstone’s policy brainchild seemed more like political suicide than infrastructure ingenuity. Within a year, central London saw a 15 percent reduction in traffic and a 30 percent reduction in travel delays. Following its promising rollout, public approval rose 10–20 percentage points, and the program was deemed a success. New York’s story reads similarly—until the ending.

“New York’s congestion pricing implementation was hobbled from the start by fractured governance.”

New York’s congestion pricing implementation was hobbled from the start by fractured governance. The program was authorized by the state legislature in 2019, with a new state Traffic Mobility Review Board setting the tolls and exemptions. The MTA, a public benefit corporation of New York State, built the system itself—gantries, cameras, billing—subject to the board’s sign-off. Because federal funds had been used on some of the roads, the plan also required the US Department of Transportation’s approval before the governor gave the final sign-off. In other words, nearly every level of government touched the plan, except for the municipal government and the New Yorkers who ended up footing the bill. This confusing and stalled rollout gave New Yorkers ample reason to doubt the program’s sincerity.

Although London’s congestion pricing was unpopular at the outset, its implementation felt uniquely honest. The program had a singular champion in Livingstone, who had staked his political career on the risky policy. Notably absent was the federalist nightmare that permeated the New York case. Practically all of the details were handled by Transport for London (TfL), and both Livingstone and TfL conducted an extensive 18-month public consultation process before launching the program. It was undoubtedly easier for Londoners to trust the program when they could point to a singular figure leading the charge, while being comforted by a consultation process that provided the representation that many New Yorkers feel they were not given. While New York also went through the motions of public consultation, it was so poorly received that the state was sued for excluding outer-borough

residents from the conversation. New York’s arguably anti-democratic rollout shows how its approval gap with London stems from a lack of trust.

Trust came not just from how London governed the program but also from how it spent the money. In London, Livingstone ensured that hundreds of new buses hit the streets before the charge even began. Routes were extended, headways shortened, and the improvements were unmistakable: pay the fee, ride a better bus. In New York, every dollar of congestion pricing revenue is legally earmarked to fill a $15 billion hole in the MTA’s capital plan. The resulting funds would finance projects such as subway station accessibility or new electric buses. However, the problem is timing: These projects will take years, leaving New Yorkers feeling like their tolls vanish into budget sheets rather than fund improvements. London’s decision to frontload direct upgrades helped stabilize public support, while New York’s choice to funnel revenue into a capital plan has left the toll louder than the improvements it funds.

“These projects will take years, leaving New Yorkers feeling like their tolls vanish into budget sheets rather than fund improvements.”

New York cannot rewrite its governance structure overnight, nor can it untangle toll revenue from the MTA’s capital plan. It can, however, still make congestion pricing feel less like a bill and more like a bargain. This process needs to center the New York riders who were left out of congestion pricing’s rollout, restoring public confidence. Creating an independent oversight body that includes representation from both individual riders and borough leadership would give the program visible stewards and a localized focus. This oversight body would rebuild trust through annual public hearings that focus on riders from all five boroughs— something the city’s earlier public consultation process failed to do. Public trust could be strengthened by implementing participatory budgeting—something New York already utilizes to allow communities to direct how some of their district’s capital discretionary funds are used. Participatory budgeting would leverage localized expertise to turn an abstract toll into visible neighborhood improvements, countering the fear that state bureaucrats are wasting the revenue generated by congestion pricing. If trust is the price of progress, participatory budgeting is how New York begins to earn it.

Initiating these changes would not erase the toll’s unpopularity, but it would give New Yorkers proof that the toll is both accountable and worth the cost. London’s lesson is clear: Technical success is meaningless without political trust. To endure, congestion pricing must make New Yorkers feel like their tolls buy something real— because it is trust, not traffic, that will decide its future.

“Although London’s congestion pricing was unpopular at the outset, its implementation felt uniquely honest.”

An Interview with Steven Brown Protecting Civil Rights in Rhode Island

Steven Brown has served as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for more than three decades. In today’s political climate—one in which new legal challenges constantly emerge—Brown works to ensure that the promises of civil rights are not just theoretical ideals but also lived realities for the people of Rhode Island.

Ciara Leonard: Now that there is a new understanding of the Civil Rights Act being pushed and enforced under the new administration, when deciding which cases to defend, will the ACLU’s priorities shift moving forward?

Steven Brown: I don’t think it’s so much a shifting of priorities as much as it is focusing on issues now arising under the Trump administration that we haven’t had to deal with before. An example is a lawsuit that we filed against the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Trump administration issued an executive order requiring all federal agencies to not fund any projects that “promote gender ideology.” We then heard from local arts groups

who wanted to apply for grants but were afraid what they were applying for might run afoul of this executive order. In order to even apply for a grant, the artists had to certify they did not “promote gender ideology,” so we filed a lawsuit on their behalf. The NEA quickly got rid of the certification requirement but are still not saying that they won’t judge applications on this gender ideology scale. There’s really no limit right now on how many civil liberties battles we are going to face from the Trump administration, but the issues themselves are not new. It’s just applying basic civil liberties principles to these attempts to roll back civil rights.

CL: With so many organizations now falling under scrutiny, there will be a lot more waiting on decisions to be made. What are the consequences of being in this limbo state?

SB: A goal of many of Trump’s executive orders is to confuse people. That’s true of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) orders, eliminating funding for projects involving DEI without ever really explaining what is covered. We also have this confusion in terms of immigrants—not just undocumented immigrants, but seeing actions taken against people who are lawfully in this country. It’s, to some extent, a scare tactic and an intimidation attempt. And, unfortunately, it’s working to a large extent. When you don’t know what the rules are or even whether the administration itself may break the rules, it puts people in a lot of fear and uncertainty. That’s one of the most troubling aspects of what’s going on right now.

CL: Since Trump has taken office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security agents have been active across Rhode Island. Could you give an overview of the current state of immigration protections in Rhode Island?

SB: Since the first Trump administration, the ACLU has encouraged localities to adopt immigrant protection ordinances. One of the provisions in the model ordinance would prevent local police departments from entering into agreements, known as 287(g) agreements, that specifically authorize collaboration with ICE on immigration raids.

There are also a number of bills pending in the state legislature designed to provide some protections to immigrants. One of the outstanding requests comes from the Immigrant Coalition of Rhode Island, who sent a letter to the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court asking him to prevent ICE agents from arresting people at courthouses. This has an incredibly chilling effect on immigrants wanting to make use of the judicial system, whether they’re parties to a lawsuit or witnesses. There’s a very real sense of danger in making use of the court system if people think ICE agents may be prowling the halls looking for individuals to pick up.

“When you don’t know what the rules are or even whether the administration itself may break the rules, it puts people in a lot of fear and uncertainty.”

CL: Back in January, Providence officials moved to add language to a preexisting ordinance on Providence’s status as a sanctuary city. It was then reported that the passing of the ordinance was delayed by Providence officials to consider whether the amendments could have the opposite effect of their intentions; that is, ICE doubling down on Providence if the city seeks to codify protections for those lacking legal status. Is that a true unintended consequence?

SB: I understand the concern, but I think it would be a mistake to give in to it. The Trump administration is targeting anybody they can, and it would be a mistake to think that if you lie low, nothing will happen. The most important thing that municipalities can do is indicate they’re not going to back down. I mean, states can’t do anything and everything—ICE has certain powers that no state or municipality can reject. But to the extent federal law does not prohibit steps to protect immigrants, states need to fully move forward.

CL: The ACLU is currently pushing for the 364 Day Misdemeanor Bill at the Rhode Island State House. This bill is now in its fifth year of being proposed. What would its passing mean for immigrants in Rhode Island?

SB: The 364 Day Bill deals with a gap in state and federal law. In Rhode Island, a misdemeanor is a crime that carries a sentence of up to one year. Federal immigration law says that if you commit certain crimes, like felonies, that carry a potential sentence of one year or more, you can be subject to automatic deportation. Because federal immigration law talks about one year or more, it captures minor offenses in Rhode Island.

This bill changes the definition of misdemeanor in Rhode Island from a year to 364 days. By making that one-day change, you can protect immigrants from this automatic deportation law under the federal immigration statute. That’s something we and immigrant rights advocates have been pushing for a number of years now, and it’s become so much more important this year in light of what the Trump administration is doing.

CL: These are most definitely trying times. How are you able to keep sustaining a fight for fundamental rights?

SB: This is an administration that is throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. It is draining and exhausting, but there needs to be a consistent and constant response to these really extraordinary efforts to take away civil liberties from a wide variety of individuals and organizations in ways that we think are deeply anathematic to what the Constitution and Bill of Rights are all about.

Girls Just Wanna Have

Funds

Multi-level marketing schemes fuel female far-right conservatism

by Audrey Gmerek ’28, an Economics and International and Public Affairs concentrator and a Staff Writer and Multimedia Photojournalist for BPR illustrations by Shay Salmon ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

That Facebook message may be more than a simple request from an old friend pushing you to try a new skincare product. It could be an entry point into far-right radicalization.

From the outburst of Tupperware parties in the 1960s to the widespread sale of supplements and essential oils on antivaccine Facebook groups in the last decade, multi-level marketing (MLM) has become embedded in American culture. These businesses draw upon American principles of personal entrepreneurship, self-reliance, and upward mobility, operating through a top-down structure that hands the responsibility of sales to individuals while offering incentives to recruit others into the business. By promising to reward their members for selling products and recruiting new distributors, multi-level marketing strategies indoctrinate people into a business model of social networking and female entrepreneurship. However, MLM schemes have faced scrutiny for failing to uphold their promises, leaving many participants misled, in debt, and jobless.

Through both relational and ideological recruitment strategies, MLMs have created a framework for modern conservative womanhood and far-right community building. MLMs and political conservatives have a shared desire to uphold free market capitalism and traditional gender roles. Moreover, despite legal and ethical concerns, MLMs continue to thrive in large part due to protection from conservative politicians. President Donald Trump’s previous Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, whose family owns Amway, one of the largest MLMs in the United States, has leveraged her influence to keep MLMs out of the teeth of the Federal Trade Commission.

By offering an illusion of economic freedom through a “side hustle,” MLMs provide a supposed escape from the paternalism that comes

with a corporate 9 to 5. The flexible work they offer appeals especially to stay-at-home moms, solidifying traditional gender roles despite offering the illusion of empowerment. Additionally, MLMs promote their sales groups as supportive communities where women can socialize, turning sisterhood and friendship into a tool for recruitment. In doing so, MLMs exploit stereotypical feminine characteristics such as approachability and emotional appeal that are believed to make women better recruiters and salespeople.

“Through both relational and ideological recruitment strategies, MLMs have created a framework for modern conservative womanhood and far-right community building.”

Recruitment rarely happens through direct sales pitches but rather through subtle social pressure. “Hey girl!” messages from acquaintances sharing their “life-changing” opportunities flood women’s inboxes.

Offline, pitches frequently take place in familiar, trusted settings such as churches, where people share testimonies about how their business strengthened their relationship with God. This personalization and trust-building can frame MLMs as a community rather than a purely economic venture, making it easier to indoctrinate and recruit others. The sense of intimate community also helps with retention, as women fear losing their friends, not just their income, if they leave.

While the rhetoric of entrepreneurial empowerment may appeal to liberal-leaning feminists, MLMs are often more widespread in religious social circles that have historically upheld more conservative ideals. In American communities that maintain strong traditional roles, such as Mormon and Evangelical circles, MLMs tend to proliferate. Deborah Whitehead, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, stated that “missionary training translates well into direct sales” and that “[Mormon] communities tend

to be tight-knit and close, so when somebody is passionate about a product, it will be easier to go into these circles and sell it.” Similarly, the Christian appeal of MLMs is rooted in the teachings of the Prosperity Gospel, a theological belief that wealth is God’s recognition of faithfulness. The presentation of an MLM as an alternative to corporate paternalism aligns with the anti-establishment conviction that has gained traction within the populist MAGA movement. During the pandemic, anti-vaccine misinformation was used to promote MLM wellness products. Many wellness influencers took to social media to criticize the Biden administration’s “paternalistic” Covid-19 restrictions while promoting certain MLM products, such as Patriot Wellness Boxes, that supposedly offer an alternative to “woke” medicine. By pushing women to engage in political discourse through sales pitches, these

frameworks for MLM recruitment allow for the implicit dissemination of far-right beliefs. Sociologist Gina Marie Longo described the phenomenon as “Pastel QAnon Indoctrination,” where radical ideologies are introduced through a softer, feminine-coded approach.

While not all MLMs push extreme conservatism on participants, they do create close-knit networks of women that can be more easily influenced by such narratives. What begins as a friendly sales pitch or an invitation to a product event could be a pipeline to persuasion, using these extensive social networks to sell QAnon beliefs.

“What begins as a friendly sales pitch or an invitation to a product event could be a pipeline to persuasion, using these extensive social networks to sell QAnon beliefs.”

A Latte in Common

Despite economic pressures, consumerism endures as our national identity

by Tess Naquet-Radiguet ’ 27, a Behavioral Decision Sciences and Political Science concentrator and Senior Editor for BPR

visualization by Carys Lam ’29, an Architecture major at RISD and Data Designer for BPR

Leaves burst into a dizzying array of colors, softly alighting on the ground with each new gust of wind. Rain rivulets stream down a foggy window pane as embers crackle in the enchanting glow of a fireplace. For some, autumn descends in these details, in little drops of joy that stall the impending chill of winter. But for most, fall arrives on one opportune moment in August: the day Starbucks releases the Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL).

Although the PSL might have once been relegated to young white women, it has persisted as a staple of American culture for over two decades and is now beloved across generations. Pumpkin spice products quickly expanded from coffee—to snacks, scented candles, body butter, and deodorant—to such an extent that it is now the seasonal flavor consumers anticipate most. In just three months each year, pumpkin spice products generate over half a billion dollars in revenue, with demand continuing to rise. We pay an average of 7.4 percent (and up to 161 percent) more for pumpkin spice products compared to non-pumpkin alternatives, yet we are not deterred from purchasing these products. The remarkable popularity of this distinctive blend of spices highlights how our shared zeal for little luxuries has turned into something deeper than a simple craving for seasonal products. As a form of consumption largely insulated from political maneuvering and economic volatility, little luxuries transcend social divisions, uniting us under a shared consumer identity. In today’s increasingly pluralistic society—in which traditional sources of national identity such as religion, ethnicity, or class have become less central—these small indulgences have allowed us to cultivate our individual and social identities through their consumption.

Little luxuries empower us to develop a sense of self through our consumer choices, embodying the ethos of individualism that pervades American society. In the midst of economic uncertainty and societal turmoil, maintaining a feeling of control over our decision-making aids our “long-term emotional regulation.” The psychological stability we derive in turn fosters greater self-cohesion. While Millennials and Gen Z are the two generations most likely to partake in the ritual of an autumnal pumpkin spice latte, the tendency to splurge on little luxuries is not new. Recession-driven consumption often trends toward these kinds of products, as cost-prohibitive goods like a car or a house feel increasingly unattainable. The philosopher Herbert Marcuse suggested that people “recognise themselves in their commodities,” and in the absence of these larger identity-defining purchases, routinely buying little luxuries can provide a “manageable form of self-expression.” Being a “person who drinks pumpkin spice lattes” becomes an identity anchor we can hold onto, and as we navigate an increasingly unpredictable world, what harm is there in allowing ourselves that comforting indulgence?

Some might contend that these purchases are financially irresponsible—that it would be wiser to save money to eventually buy a car or a house. This reasoning is naive. The median down payment for a home in 2025 is above $50,000; the average price for used cars hovers around $25,000. Abstaining from pumpkin spice would, on average, save $45 a month for Gen Z and $64 a month for Millennials. Neither of these figures is anywhere near high enough for the savings to compound into an amount that would allow us to invest in capital-intensive goods.

“As a form of consumption largely insulated from political maneuvering and economic volatility, little luxuries transcend social divisions, uniting us under a shared consumer identity.”

Instead of decrying them, we should appreciate how consuming little luxuries has become a prosocial activity that bolsters our sense of communal identity. These goods are mass-produced commercial items marketed across social strata as seasonal necessities. They are neither exclusive nor hard to come by, and therein lies their appeal. Through their accessibility, little luxuries become a relational element around which broader communities can coalesce. Our consumer habits signal group membership, and as fall breezes in, the wafting aroma of pumpkin spice draws hordes of friends to coffee shops, giddy in anticipation of sipping a whimsical seasonal coffee. They savor its warmth, revel in the nostalgia it elicits, and delight in bonding with others who similarly appreciate the little luxury. As we interact with people who share kindred purchasing habits, the practice of consumption itself becomes a unifying force that bolsters our sense of belonging, while the consumer space becomes a third place in which to cultivate connections. It has been shown that “very socially embedded practices and feelings can be the most powerful of all,” and as pumpkin spice continues to promote a culture of taste, we integrate into both our individual and collective identity, we can only benefit from the social cohesion that arises.

While there are certainly legitimate critiques of consumerism, it is worth examining its

aesthetic and moral judgments more closely— judgments that focus on “not how much we consume, but what we consume.” Such critiques frame our penchant for pumpkin spice as a moral defect—an impractical purchase preventing us from engaging in more “upstanding” forms of consumerism. However, such judgment “veers dangerously close, or even into, outright snobbery,” echoing historical “elite disdain” for working-class consumption habits.

If we look beyond these stereotypical views of “little treat culture,” it becomes clear that such indulgences serve an important purpose: They democratize desire beyond mere consumer need, embodying the myth of American equality—a cornerstone of our national identity. No longer are indulgences or a sense of luxury prescribed to the wealthy. Consumers are able to partake in superficial spending on a scale that would not have been possible decades ago, allowing the appeal of little luxuries to straddle socioeconomic strata, captivating most consumers with disposable income. Today, the PSL is available in most coffee shops from September to November and costs an average of $6.50. While one could argue this price point is still extravagant, it is not cost-prohibitive for the average American—who spends over $40 per month on coffee. Given this, a weekly seasonal drink does not seem to be a disproportionate purchase for the average consumer, especially when the PSL fosters a sense

“In just three months each year, pumpkin spice products generate over half a billion dollars in revenue.”

of symbolic belonging—a cultural universality that reflects and sustains the American ideal of equal opportunity.

By transcending socioeconomic divisions, consuming little luxuries becomes an identity broad enough to empower our sense of self, bolster our social cohesion, and sustain our cultural horizon of democracy. It is an identity that stems not from any inherent ideological or value-based characteristic but from our most basic craving for connection and stability. So, if the process of buying little luxuries bolsters these feelings, why deny ourselves that joy? We should instead take comfort in the fact that, despite political contentions, economic uncertainty, and social turmoil, we can continue to turn toward consumerism. And what better way to luxuriate in that reality than with a pumpkin spice latte, sitting back and watching as leaves burst into a dizzying array of colors?

Build, Baby, Build

The abundance movement must build a coalition to achieve its goals

by Ava Rahman ’27, a Political Science and English concentrator and Editor for BPR illustrations by Ellie Lin ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

At a DC conference this September, a coalition of politicians, Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) activists, investors, academics, and 2000s-era policy wonk bloggers-turned Substack writers rallied behind a common cause: the ‘Abundance Agenda.’ The guest list had more than tripled from last year, with a waitlist of over 300, according to an internal email. Featured speakers included Ezra Klein, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, and Nvidia policy director Levi Patterson. Attendees discussed pathways to energy, housing, technology, and finance abundance. They cycled through the Grand Ballroom for lunch and enjoyed Happy Hour on the lawn. There was a sense of momentum, of putting the pedal to the metal and steering toward shared goals. Earlier in the year, Open Philanthropy announced their $120 million Abundance and Growth Fund and House Democrats formed a Build America caucus. But as the event drew to a close, Abundance thinkers were left with the same question facing any burgeoning movement: How do ideas scale across ideological divides, both across the partisan aisle and within the Democratic Party itself? In other words, how big is the tent?

The Abundance Agenda was popularized by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s best-selling book in May 2025, but the grist of these ideas has circled in academia and California’s YIMBY affordable housing movement since the 2008 financial crisis. “Abundits” look under the hood of America’s broken infrastructural system to understand why government—particularly in liberal states—struggles to meet demand for essential public goods ranging from housing to healthcare. Why has California fallen years behind countries like Japan, France, and China in building high-speed rail? Why does it cost twice as much to build multifamily housing in California than in Texas? According to Klein and Thompson, the problem is not a lack of resources or political will—it is the process. In the 1970s, good intentions led to unforeseen consequences when progressive reformers built regulatory and oversight mechanisms to thwart corrupt centralized power. In doing so, they hamstrung the government’s ability to act effectively. Rules and regulations bog down infrastructural advancements in layers of bureaucratic procedure while “vetocracy-style” governance allows local interests to stymie attempts to build more housing, transit, and renewable energy. The Agenda

“The Abundance Agenda is less of a fixed ideology than an emerging policy framework that should harness coalition-building toward greater ends.”

advocates for a robust government that can get out of its own way to achieve its goals, steering innovation and stepping in when markets fail to deliver.

Abundance’s critique of status quo liberal governance has polarized Democratic factions, with left-leaning critics dismissing it as a neoliberal Trojan horse that diverts attention from welfarist programs. However, political infighting is not inevitable. Abundance cannot yet aspire to big-tent politics because parts of its theory are still nebulous. Much of its discourse centers on output and technical process while failing to reconcile larger issues of political division. As a result, the Abundance Agenda is less of a fixed ideology than an emerging policy framework that should harness coalition-building toward greater ends.

Many progressives have already recognized Abundance’s potential. At a rally, then-NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani called for “[delivering] an agenda of abundance that puts the 99 percent over the 1 percent.” On a podcast with Derek Thompson, he acknowledged the importance of an effective and efficient government to manifest affordability and “public excellence.” He interpreted Abundance policies as narrow reforms to state capacity. However, it is unclear whether the left and center have the same understanding of what inefficiency means in the real world. For instance, when discussing the ballooning costs of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Rail Road Project, the two reached an impasse: Mamdani critiqued utility corporations while Thompson pointed to costly union regulations.

“For better or for worse, politics is about coalitions: congressional bargaining, legislative carve-outs, and a process of give and take between political factions.”

A look at several failed infrastructural projects reveals that Abundance’s diagnosis of overzealous regulation aligns with the left’s framing of the “oligarchy problem.” Take the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, former president Joe Biden’s recent effort to fill in gaps of high-speed internet access in rural areas. On the Jon Stewart show, Klein explained what went wrong, rattling off the endless steps of the federal grant applications that resulted in severe delays. “My hair was dark when we started this process,” Stewart joked at the end. The clip went viral, inciting outrage from progressive journalists like Ryan Grimm, as well as Former Deputy Director of the

National Economic Council Bharat Ramamurti, who pointed out that Republican senators and telecom behemoths had worked to enervate key provisions of the bill. Both stories are true. Biden envisioned internet access as a public good and aspired to the top-down efficiency of former president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Program. However, congressional politics and waning trust in government chipped away at federal control of the policy. Leveraging Congress’s overcaution and federal agency disorganization, large telecom companies challenged internet affordability requirements, mapping inaccuracies, and existing bids in an attempt to push out smaller or public competitors.

The resulting delays in implementing BEAD were therefore partly caused and exacerbated by corporate creep. Senate Republicans now condemn BEAD’s overrgulation, but their criticism is a caricature of Abundance. A sounder approach from the Biden administration would have borrowed progressive antitrust tactics, such as common-carrier regulations or a federally administered bidding process, to enable more efficient coordination.

The BEAD example shows that Abundance must contend with political power dynamics. Brown research fellow Marc Dunkelman, who spoke at the recent Abundance conference and published his book Why Nothing Works this year,

expands the reformist agenda into a broader theory of power. More than bureaucratic process, his version of Abundance criticizes the creation of an overcautious government tiptoeing around the interests of various non-government actors: Sometimes the problem is corporations, sometimes it is unions, and sometimes it is local home owners. The greater issue is how interest group politics have captured the production of goods. That does not mean government should bulldoze through the concerns of local populations and usurp union bargaining in the name of efficiency. Rather, a more intentional balance must be found in every government endeavor between catering to local demands and putting boots on the ground to see projects to fruition. As Dunkelman argues, it is about contending with two strands of progressivism: Hamiltonian topdown control and Jeffersonian localized leadership. Through this lens, Abundance need not incite a battle within the left but should promote a thoughtful and interwoven dynamic between centralized and decentralized leadership.

In reality, however, managing these two tendencies requires looking beyond technocratic prescriptions—which nitpick the machinery of policies—to confront political trade-offs. In

California, Governor Gavin Newsom was forced to alter provisions of his Abundance-esque affordable housing bill after union advocates protested its wage requirements in budget hearings. This example reveals a current shortcoming of the Abundance agenda: While it diagnoses the traffic jam of competing interest groups, it does not propose a solution for resolving those cross-coalition rifts. At its worst, some Abundance followers resort to blaming unions as part of the problem. Klein and Thompson avoid this political quagmire by asserting that union interests can coexist with Abundance policies, pointing to how European countries carry out cheaper and faster infrastructural projects with high unionization. But they do not address the crucial gap in this argument: Europe’s political economy is fundamentally different from our own. The welfare state means worker wages do not have to shoulder the burden of healthcare and general high living costs. Competing interests of government, employers, and workers are mediated through tripartite agreements, a centralized decision-making process contrasting collective bargaining in the United States. American unions have adapted to political conditions where lobbying instrumentalizes

self-interest and low union membership fuels a destructive insider-outsider competition between members and non-members over who gets the share of jobs. It does not have to be this way. Progressive thinkers have an opportunity to build on this gap in Abundance theory. Even modest deregulatory reforms require a powerful realignment of interests, revealing the need for deeper remedies to current structural flaws that embolden self-interest at the expense of the common good.

The Abundance Agenda emerges in a fraught political moment as Trump hacks away at the federal government and the Democratic Party finds itself rudderless in the right-drifting tide of the electorate. For better or for worse, politics is about coalitions: congressional bargaining, legislative carve-outs, and a process of give and take between political factions. Klein, Thompson, and Dunkelman’s analysis of late-20th century Progressivism reveals how movements are shaped by unforeseen consequences as ideas adapt to policies, and policies gain a life of their own. Now, Abundance is in its theoretical, public-comment stage. To see the movement’s actualization, we need to put shovels in the ground.

“Rules and regulations bog down infrastructural advancements in layers of bureaucratic procedure while vetocracystyle governance allows local interests to stymie attempts to build more housing, transit, and renewable energy.”

@pavlov liked your story

Digital technology has reshaped Gen Z’s dating rituals

by

Ashton Higgins ’26, an Anthropology concentrator and Managing Magazine Editor for BPR illustration by LuJia Liao ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Pavlov’s process of classical conditioning is pretty simple: If he rang a bell every time he gave his dog a treat, the dog would begin to salivate at just the sound of the bell. Now, imagine that instead of a dog, it is everyone aged 15–30. Instead of ringing a bell, it is tapping a heart-shaped button on an Instagram story. And instead of a treat, it is sex. The routinization of romance on digital interfaces has done away with the ambiguities of inperson flirting. We can now receive a ‘like’ on our Instagram story and suspect that that person is into us. The art of relationship building that comes from learning someone’s personality, tics, and communication style is disappearing in our inept search for clarity via conditioned digital behavior.

This conditioning of digital gestures has generated a new set of romantic rituals: liking Instagram stories or dating app profiles to show interest in someone; texting, commenting on their posts, and sending them reels once you start hooking up; posting with them and deleting dating apps once things are serious. These behaviors have become so standardized among young people that they serve as widely understood signals of intimacy and celebrations of different levels of commitment.

Standardizing our signifiers of romantic interest and relationship status has not eliminated as much ambiguity as we might think. True, it now seems easier to tell if someone likes us, but how many other guys is he matching with? Does her liking my story mean she wants to date or just have sex? It seems obvious when some people are hooking up and some people are dating. But he also commented the same emojis on her post, although he claims they are just friends… Is he hooking up with both of us? She did not post for ‘National Boyfriend Day’ this year—does that mean I can ask her out?

“Abstracted indicators of interest not only oversimplify human interaction but also condition users to read into the smallest of interactions.”

Opening up new modes of interaction and communication also opens up new avenues of confusion. We are grappling with the illusion of a clear and standardized digital semiotic system. What liking a post means to one person might mean something else to another, despite our best attempts to assimilate everyone into a universal romance language.

We cannot reconstruct the Tower of Babel—a sanctuary where everyone speaks the same language—because flaws in human communication are unavoidable. It is impossible to express our complex internal thoughts and feelings perfectly. It is impossible to understand someone else fully. It is even more impossible to attempt either of these goals using abstracted buttons on screens rather than complex human languages, body language, pheromones, touch, and other facets of in-person human communication.

Abstracted indicators of interest not only oversimplify human interaction but also condition users to read into the smallest of interactions. The hyper-analysis of micro-interactions online, such as liking stories,

“How are we meant to emotionally mature into adulthood if we run away from our problems, drowning our anxiety in instant gratification?”

of options while also potentially deluding us into setting expectations for partners that are beyond reason, feeding a rejection mindset that restricts us from ever finding a romantic interest outside the internet.

For some people, digital romance is enough. Texting people on dating apps, getting likes on their posts, and knowing that there are tons of hot people out there is gratifying enough that they do not pursue relationships or sex. However, as much as the internet may satiate some people’s sexual desires, the ongoing mental health crisis points to another cause of less sex among young people: despite hyper-sexuality online, more young people are anxious and depressed than ever before. Some people might have a roster but are too anxious to do anything about it offline. Other people may have had such bad experiences with digital romance that they are swearing off relationships and sex altogether. The mental health crisis and increased isolation will only further preclude Gen Z from finding love.

has led to a dating landscape that traces “connections” across so many incremental stages of commitment that it is difficult to tell what is allowed and when. The complex and ever-changing rules of modern dating, coupled with the oversimplified nature of the digital language tools at our disposal, are bad news for any of our parents hoping to see a wedding or grandchildren anytime soon.

Beyond modes of communication, shorter attention spans may be undermining our ability to foster monogamous relationships. We are less capable of deep introspection; when we sense tension in a relationship, we are more likely to run away from the discomfort and self-soothe by swiping on Tinder or posting a thirst trap to see who it. Instant gratification has conditioned us to expect constant entertainment and dopamine release: If a relationship starts to get tough or boring, we are psychologically conditioned to end it and find pleasure elsewhere. We cultivate “rosters” of romantic interests to turn to at the slightest inconvenience as a defense mechanism against sitting in difficult emotions. We are becoming worse at thinking through our own problems and sticking around through someone else’s. This phenomenon is stunting per sonal development: How are we meant to emotionally mature into adulthood if we run away from our problems, drowning our anxiety in instant gratification?

As a consolation, at least we can expect that young people are gaining more sexual experience than previous generations, right? Wrong. Studies show young people today are having less sex than previous generations. “Rosters” of Tinder and Hinge matches and loyal “story-likers” not only disincentivize commitment to serious rela tionships; they also disincentivize doing anything multiple options can overwhelm and paralyze us from acting on anyone. Having multiple lines of communication open at once means no one ends up texting back in time to actually coordinate a date. And the swarm of hot, algorithm-picked “micro-celebrities” on our feeds increases the illusion

More than anything, streamlining and “simplifying” communication sacrifices the bedrock of intimacy and developing chemistry—the excitement and intrigue inherent to real-world interactions. Going up to the hot guy at the bar in a burst of spontaneity, the serendipity of asking out the pretty girl on the train, not knowing if that person wants to get coffee as a date or just platonically… In the real world, there are no buttons, and we cannot swipe. The only way to find out if someone can be a connection is to engage in a real, face-to-face conversation that, while also ambiguous in some ways, is more informative than we give it credit for. Body language, tone, eye contact, and pheromones all help foster an understanding of intimacy that is inaccessible online. Going through the motions of preset micro-stages of intimacy is inhuman. We should not classically condition ourselves into relationships with the right ding of a notification bell.

Period Power

Fighting menstruation exile in Nepal starts from the ground up

by Remi Takahashi ’28, an International and Public Affairs and Gender and Sexuality Studies concentrator and Staff Writer and Business Associate for BPR

illustration by Airien Ludin ’26, an Illustration master’s student at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

When a girl gets her period in parts of rural Nepal, she is whisked away to a small shed outside of her village and exiled until she stops bleeding. She is quarantined—cut off from her family, denied nutritious foods, and prohibited from bathing or sharing the village’s water. Going to school or any public place is impossible because menstruating girls are considered “impure.” This isolating ritual, known as Chhaupadi, is a monthly reality for countless Nepali girls and women.

In addition to the social exclusion inherent to the practice, it is also responsible for the death or illness of numerous women due to the denial of food and water. These indignities and tragedies have led to a durable pressure campaign from domestic and international activists aimed at banning and penalizing the ritual. Yet, despite legal bans and international campaigns, Chhaupadi persists in many rural communities of Nepal. Why? Lackluster state enforcement, geographic isolation, and the deep cultural resonance of the practice are important—but they only tell a part of the story.

Outlawed rituals such as Chhaupadi persist not only because of cultural entrenchment and weak enforcement but also because the majority of eradication originates from external campaigns and stakeholders that are met with community resistance. Subsequently, most campaigns against Chhaupadi have been misguided, inattentive to local contextualization and

the symbolic and communal value of the ritual. Effective change requires approaches that engage with, rather than erase, the ritual’s social and cultural significance.

The practice of Chhaupadi is rooted in the belief that menstruation is a curse on women from Indra, the Hindu god of weather. While menstrual taboos in Hindu regions are not uncommon, they take different forms. In urban Nepal, for example, menstruating women are restricted from entering sacred and public spaces but are not typically forced into exile. A practice as extreme as Chhaupadi only takes place in specific rural areas of Western Nepal, where social change seems to be relatively slow.

Exposed to the elements and deprived of nutrients, several women are killed each year because of Chhaupadi rituals, and many more are harmed. While many cases go unreported, 16 women and children were reported to have died in 2019 alone due to Chhaupadi from causes such as suffocation, snakebites, and smoke inhalation during their quarantine. After three highly publicized deaths among women and girls practicing Chhaupadi, the Nepali Parliament further strengthened its ban on the ritual by imposing a fine and/or a three-month jail sentence for anyone forcing a woman to follow the custom. Yet these legal efforts have floundered in its aim of eliminating those that practice Chhaupadi, in part because of the deeply

“Effective change requires approaches that engage with, rather than erase, the ritual’s social and cultural significance.”

entrenched menstrual taboos that are associated with the ritual and the communal value it possesses.

Both men and women play a role in continuing Chhaupadi and its rituals. Mothers teach the practice to their daughters, linking generations of women to an inherited tradition of silence and shared suffering. At the same time, male community leaders take on the duty of traditional norms by reinforcing conformity, justifying the practice with ideas of cleansing and family sanctity. Beyond the communal aspects, both women and men continue to pass on these rituals because of their fear of divine retribution or other punishment.

Despite the failure of the legal system to end Chhaupadi, the opposition movement has continued apace. Activist groups, the state, and international organizations have stepped in to pursue the eradication of Chhaupadi as a human rights violation. A well-intended social change campaign led primarily by government officials, district police officials, and nongovernmental organizations began physically destroying menstrual sheds, which are known locally as Chhau goth, in an attempt to render certain villages

“Chhaupadi-free.” However, these efforts often backfired. Birati Rokaya, from a remote village in West Nepal, expressed, “‘The police demolished our chhau goth, only adding to our hardships… when a group of women gets their periods, we stay out in the fields. It’s difficult but we have to observe Chhaupadi anyhow. It is our custom.’” Rather than eliminating this ritual, these interventions have left women even more vulnerable and led villagers to secretly rebuild the shelters soon after their destruction. The efforts to physically destroy the practice of Chhaupadi failed to eradicate its ideology in the minds of its practitioners. It is not enough to destroy the physical vehicles of Chhaupadi; rather, the beliefs that form the roots of the practice must be transformed.

Educational interventions have been used to address the broader menstrual taboos that are foundational to Chhaupadi. However, these efforts have their own flaws. Local communities are reluctant to abandon regressive menstrual practices, and women who have stopped practicing Chhaupadi have faced discrimination and punishment within their communities. The depth of this ingrained tradition is further illustrated by local leaders themselves. Village council member Nirmala Bista, who organizes public awareness campaigns against “harmful practices,” ironically still follows Chhaupadi in Bajhang, Nepal. She says, “‘My father-in-law and mother-in-law fall sick if I don’t practice the tradition.’” Her words highlight a striking paradox—representatives of women and even rights activists are also bound by this ritual and communal pressure due to their spiritual beliefs. Thus, misguided efforts such as demolishing sheds and demystification initiatives by government bodies and international and national organizations fall short of eradication.

“It is not enough to destroy the physical vehicles of Chhaupadi; rather, the beliefs that form the roots of the practice must be transformed.”

These contradictions raise fundamental questions about the effectiveness of interventions designed by outside entities, such as the central government and nongovernmental organizations. Programs that do not account for cultural and religious implications, or the dignity and sovereignty of local people, often fail to take root. While activists emphasize the unhygienic practices and dangers of Chhaupadi, many villagers view these same rituals as essential to maintaining divine order. Campaigns that fail to engage local leaders, mothers, and elders risk being dismissed as outside interference rather than accepted as collective progress. This tension between external intervention and community agency highlights why Chhaupadi eradication efforts have been so flawed. Is it right for external forces to step in and eradicate a communal ritual in the name of human rights and universal law? Or does such action risk becoming another form of cultural domination and misunderstanding cloaked in the Western hegemonic language of human rights?

If we consider Chhaupadi not only as a harmful practice but also as a symbolic ritual, it becomes clear that any effort to end it must provide an alternative source of meaning and cohesion. Rituals, after all, are not easily abandoned: They help communities navigate uncertainty, fear, and identity. For many families, Chhaupadi has served as a ritualized way of managing the anxieties surrounding purity and divine retribution. Simply removing these rituals risks leaving a cultural void—one that communities may instinctively resist. The question, then, is not just how to erase Chhaupadi but also how to nurture new rituals that affirm women’s dignity and are reflective of local traditions rather than imposed by outsiders. Such approaches could include shifting the meaning of the ritual toward empowerment, all while maintaining the independence of these communities.

The question of whether external forces should intervene in practices

Chhaupadi does not have a simple answer. On one hand, the ritual endangers women’s health, safety, and equality, making intervention appear not only justified but also necessary. On the other hand, external resolutions and laws without genuine dialogue risk silencing the voices of the very communities they claim to protect, sparking backlash and stifling discourse. The challenge, then, lies not in choosing between human rights and cultural autonomy but in seeking ways to bridge them with alternatives that carry symbolic meaning and foster change from within.

One Nation, Under Who?

Civic engagement, not rituals, should define patriotism

by Sabine Cladis ’29, a Political Science and English concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR illustration by Emily McShane ’29, a Film, Animation and Video major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Students across the United States engage in mundane forms of patriotism every day. In acts of civic participation—attending protests and marches, registering voters, volunteering at clinics, and building campus coalitions—students demonstrate their dedication to democratic engagement. However, there is a disconnect between student participation in patriotism and the ritualistic performances of patriotism expected of them by their government. Rather than being embraced as fully formed participants in democracy, students are treated as subjects in need of explicit guidance. Of these performances, none is more striking than the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge was designed as a reactionary ritual responding to anti-immigrant sentiment with a nativist assertion of national identity: “One Country! One Language! One Flag!” In the 21st century, the Pledge and other mandated rituals ring hollow and performative; the contrast between government-imposed patriotism and students’ active engagement demonstrates that authentic patriotism emerges from civic participation, not ritual repetition.

Schools have again become sites for nationalistic displays and curriculum restriction, with conservative policies such as the Promoting American Patriotism in Our Schools Act (H.R. 1351) seeking to promote patriotism through ritual mandates. This bill would not only institute the Pledge as mandatory for students and staff alike (minus religious exemptions) but would also shape and restrict school curricula. In other words, this bill would enable the state to dictate the content and form of a mandated nationalist education. This narrowing of classroom discourse enforces a vision of patriotism embodied by conformity rather than expressions of individual liberty and engagement in politics.

Yet, despite these mandates, classrooms remain one of the most poignant spaces to cultivate a deeper, more democratic patriotism. As a study on students’ attitudes toward patriotism in the classroom indicated, “students’ critiques did not exist in parallel or in contradiction to their patriotic commitments. Rather the two were integrated.” Candid

“When students express patriotism through authentic activism, they reclaim its purpose by demonstrating that genuine civic engagement must not be mandated but fostered collaboratively.”

discussions about injustice serve to foster community and encourage the kind of “critical democratic patriotism” that students themselves advocate for in and out of the classroom. Honest and critical teaching and learning enable accountability, productive discourse, and authentic national commitments. In contrast, the restrictive and ritualistic policies that the Trump administration intends to pursue polarize individuals and suppress the democratic principles fought for by the original patriots.

Recent civic engagement—most notably the widely covered proPalestinian student protests across college campuses—embodies student-driven, authentic patriotism. These expressions are labeled by the Trump administration as uniformly violent, destructive, and antiAmerican. However, peaceful demonstrations have a long history in

the United States. Take, for instance, the student protests against the Vietnam War during the Cold War era. At Kent State University, the Ohio National Guard was deployed, fully armed, and killed four students. This harsh response against student speech echoes the current government crackdown on domestic and international students protesting for peace in the Middle East. The insistence on quashing criticism and public outcry exposes a national hypocrisy: in an effort to preserve a placid image of democracy, the state suppresses the expression of democratic principles.

The contrast between student engagement and mandated rituals highlights the waning significance of the Pledge in modern life. This ritual no longer carries the weight its architects intended—what was meant to cultivate national devotion has become performative, a recitation that feels empty and persists only due to precedent. For positive American patriotism to hold sincere meaning, it must diverge from compulsion and rote repetition. This is not to say that all rituals that manifest in the form of patriotic traditions are ineffective, but when rituals are co-opted and manipulated by the state—imposed as instruments of control and indoctrination within the education system for ideological purposes—they become meaningless and even

destructive to the very patriotic and democratic principles they are marketed as instilling. What was designed to inspire civic virtue has now morphed into a mandate that fosters resentment and a distorted understanding of patriotism as unquestioning compliance. When students express patriotism through authentic activism, they reclaim its purpose by demonstrating that genuine civic engagement must not be mandated but fostered collaboratively.

The Pledge, historically envisioned as an exclusionary nationbuilding oath, now reveals a fundamental tension: policymakers cling to patriotic ritual as students increasingly reject it. Politicians must change how they understand patriotism among young Americans. Patriotism cannot exist as mandated by the state and enforced through policy. Instead, to encourage civic pride among young people, we must trade ritualistic rigidity for dynamic inclusion and active participation within our communities. In rejecting this rigidity, young people— who are so often dismissed as apathetic—demonstrate their ability to redefine patriotism on their own terms and leave behind a legacy of participation rather than performance.

Don’t Rain on My Parade

Russia weaponizes remembrance to justify its imperial aggression

by

Alice Miller ’28, a Political Science concentrator

illustrations by Lily Engblom-Stryker ’26

Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Every May 9, millions of Russians flood the streets with photos of the family members they lost in World War II. Victory Day, celebrated annually since 1995, is a powerful and recurring image in modern Russia. From a very early age, kids are taught about the struggles their grandparents had to overcome for them to have a peaceful sky over their heads. The scale of sacrifice that every Russian family had to make during the Great Patriotic War causes a deep personal resonance toward the annual event. The origins of this celebration are genuine; it is meant to be a somber day of mourning and remembrance, but in the last few years, it has become a militaristic, propagandistic spectacle. The Kremlin has transformed the collective memory of World War II from a unifying historical trauma into a potent ideological weapon to justify aggression, consolidate power, and silence dissent both at home and abroad.

The Soviet Union’s human cost of victory in World War II was about 24 million lives. Despite a national emphasis on the importance of this history and Russian triumph over fascism, Russian society is disinterested in acquiring nuanced historical knowledge. Surveys conducted by the Levada Center show that Russians of all ages consider movies and doc umentaries as reliable sources of information. According to these surveys, few Russians know basic facts about the war, such as its causes, the number of human losses, dates of main battles, and state participants. The modern public perception of World War II and fascism is not born of factual and histori cal understanding but rather is a product of state propaganda perpetuated through media and the film industry. Value systems for the entire post-So viet generation were partially shaped by the media, includ ing films, print, and new media. Now these value systems can be reshaped by the movie indus try, which is controlled by the Russian government.

Collective memory is the shared pool of memories, knowledge, and narratives that bind a nation together, shaping its identity and values. Russians remember being the victors over fascism. The Kremlin’s main goal is to persuade the Russian population into thinking that this victory gives Russia a perpetual excuse for any sins it may commit. The Russian government uses this special pass to legitimize its political authority, justify current policy decisions, and create “in-groups” and “out-groups.”

“The Kremlin has transformed the collective memory of World War II from a unifying historical trauma into a potent ideological weapon to justify aggression, consolidate power, and silence dissent both at home and abroad.”

The Russian government claims the country is surrounded by enemies and must fight to defend Russia’s sovereignty, thereby protecting its “traditional values.”

“History is being rewritten, and the ultimate cost of this weaponized memory is measured not just in distorted history books but in the lives lost in Ukraine and the freedoms suppressed within Russia.”

The first step of Russian propaganda was to create a “fascist” enemy within the country. During protests in 2013–2015, the main one being the Bolotnaya Square protests, the regime labeled protesters as “fascists” and “national traitors,” drawing a direct parallel to Nazi collaborators, specifically the Russian Liberation Army (the Vlasov army) that fought under German command during World War II. This activates deep-seated cultural fears of the fascist threat to undermine the protests’ legitimacy and moral standing. The Russian media has established a strong correlation between fascist war crimes committed during World War II and the activities of modern anti-Kremlin protesters, thus trying to manipulate the Russian collective memory.

Name-calling is the oldest trick in the dictator’s handbook, and the Russian government uses it frequently. While the Kremlin associates Putin with victory and the Soviet legacy, Ukrainian protesters are depicted as the descendants of the Nazi regime. Knowing how much gravity the words “Nazi” and “fascist” hold in the eyes of an average Russian citizen, Russian propaganda uses these terms as a blanket, emotional label to villainise the entire Ukrainian state and resistance. The Russian government has launched a pro-regime propaganda machine which began with biased news that presented the Ukrainian political resistance as the initiative of neofascist groups. Pro-government media has created a bridge between Nazi history and the modern Ukrainian situation and attempted to falsely portray Ukraine as planning military action against ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The Kremlin is distorting the ideology

to revive imperialist Soviet nostalgia and to justify the country’s current authoritarianism. The main goal is to make Russians believe they need to liberate grand Soviet cities, such as Kyiv, that were lost in the dissolution of the USSR to make their country powerful again. Statements on Russian state television are just one example of how this is achieved. When the German government agreed to supply tanks to Ukraine, it did not take long before Russia accused Germany of supporting “a war planned in advance” and attempting to keep Russia weak.

Education also serves as a powerful tool for creating Russia’s nationalist sentiment. In August 2023, Vladimir Medinsky proposed a new, mandatory Russian history textbook for high school students. Use of the books began in the fall of 2025 and represents the pinnacle of the Russian government’s attempts to reshape the country’s collective memory of World War II and use Nazi allegations as a political tool. The textbook includes sections on the Russian military “providing peace” in 2014, when Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The book also frames the 2014 Maidan revolution as a “fascist coup” and presents the 2022 full-scale invasion as a necessary and heroic “Special Military Operation” for denazification. Ukraine is repeatedly labelled as a “Nazi state.” This creates a single, unchallengeable historical narrative for a new generation of Russians to internalize, ensuring the long-term stability of the regime’s ideology. After the start of the war in Ukraine, a new subject—“conversations about important things”—was introduced in Russian schools. This subject is aimed at teaching patriotism to Russian kids and telling them about the

values that they as Russians should support, particularly how a person that loves one’s country is meant to be ready to “bear arms in its defence” in dangerous times. From the first grade in school, children are taught that Russia is the only country that stood up against fascism, and the war in Ukraine is portrayed as the continuation of that war against “fascism.”

The Kremlin has systematically transformed a sacred, unifying memory into a divisive tool for authoritarian consolidation and imperial aggression. This process corrupts genuine historical understanding and grief, replacing it with a shallow, militaristic patriotism. Populist parties and regimes resort to a wide range of different means, including antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia, in their efforts to strengthen national identities. They use the politics of memory as a means of sowing division rather than promoting integration. History is being rewritten, and the ultimate cost of this weaponized memory is measured not just in distorted history books but in the lives lost in Ukraine and the freedoms suppressed within Russia.

“The Russian media has established a strong correlation between fascist war crimes committed during World War II and the activities of modern anti-Kremlin protesters.

Saree Strides

by Zern Hee Chua ’29, an Economics and International and Public Affairs concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR

illustrations by Rokia Whitehouse ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Saree runs make a difference, but their impact on women’s rights can go further

Never has the fatigued asphalt of India’s highways seen such liberating exhibitions of color. Contingents of saree-clad women hit the roads in their sports shoes, their ebullient expressions belying personal histories of long-calcified dreams and atrophied fervor. Their strides, now ever so decisive, seem to send a resounding message: They are not just housewives interested in fitness. They are feminist compatriots united against enduring bastions of patriarchy.

The saree is a single, unstitched piece of fabric that is worn as a traditional garment by women in many South Asian countries. Lamentably, patriarchal notions of the saree “being a confinement” or representing “the Angel in the [House]” are abiding. Hence, to organizers and commentators of saree runs—recreational races in India in which women run in their sarees—the tradition is more than a fitness endeavor. The sight of women running in a saree is, in a way, an implicit display of resistance to stereotypes that circumscribe women to the household. At the very least, that was what organizers of saree-running clubs like The Saree Run had envisioned the spectacle would do—“break stereotypes with hundreds of inspiring women.”

While these events can be seen as a masterstroke of feminism in an otherwise stiflingly patriarchal society, it can also be argued that they remain a movement very much muted in comparison to other sartorial revolutions. Neither view is entirely accurate. Rather, saree runs fall in the middle of the presupposed binary: While they are an imposing spectacle, they remain but a budding attempt to dismantle gender stereotypes and institutional barriers. The movement could have leveraged its momentum to more explicitly exhort specific institutional changes.

A critical view may see the use of the traditional saree in this context as hardly revolutionary, rendering the run a mild contribution to India’s gender equality movement by promoting modesty. Today’s saree harks back to Victorian standards of modesty. Precolonial Indian women’s wear

came in exceptionally diverse forms, such as the lehenga choli (a traditional outfit comprising a cropped blouse, a long skirt, and at times, a drape) and the Bengali saree (which is draped over the body to cover a woman’s chest without innerwear). The British deemed much of women’s wear then to be overly revealing and indecorous; upper-class women hence began incorporating elements of European garments, like the English blouse and petticoat, into the saree. Women also began pleating their saree in the middle and draping the pallu—the loose end of a saree—over their chests. Thus, the imperialist roots of the still-modest modern saree symbolically undermine any emancipatory undertones of the saree runs.

Another critical view challenges the use of the saree in these runs as revolutionary at all, claiming they pale in comparison to other movements in feminist fashion. Alongside their fellow couturiers of the Roaring Twenties, Paul Poiret and Gabrielle Chanel famously jettisoned the corset in their designs, with Chanel later spearheading the social acceptance of trousers as everyday women’s wear. From Chanel’s trousers craze to other examples like the Suffragettes’ “white marches” and Japan’s burgeoning “genderless kei” trend, many epochal movements in feminist fashion share the following feature: the evolution of garments and sartorial codes themselves. Measured against this benchmark, India’s saree runs would appear relatively insipid.

While saree runs are unlike conventional movements in feminist fashion, which tend to discard garments rooted in oppressive or restrictive histories, their feminist message shines through the action of doing what is traditionally not meant for saree-clad women in a saree. Moreover, while the saree is a remnant of colonial influence, it has also been a symbol of resistance and empowerment. It has long been used to strengthen causes that esteemed women in India have tirelessly advanced. Sarojini Naidu, a staunch advocate of the Swadeshi self-sufficiency movement, accentuated her stance in political circles by showing up in khadi sarees, which are handspun and handwoven. India’s first Health Minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, frequently presented herself in humble saree that rejected the pretension of colonialism and monarchy, which befitted her role as a civil servant. Admittedly, the saree may not have been frequently used to amplify feminist causes specifically, but it has been irrefutably emblematic of Indian feminism, considering the centrality of (saree-clad) women in leading many historical and contemporary movements, including the saree run. Given this, does the empowerment of the saree run still appear muted?

Ultimately, the saree run has been neither entirely inconsequential nor astoundingly impactful; it would be injudicious to evaluate it on such a binary. While they have been optically and viscerally impressive, attempts by organizers to break down institutionalized patriarchy through saree runs remain woefully wanting.

What would be more precise is this: The saree run could have leveraged its momentum to more directly demand much-needed institutional reforms rather than remain a spectacle with regrettably vague exhortations for gender equality. Referencing the earlier call to “break stereotypes with hundreds of inspiring women,” saree-run pages on social media platforms abound with such indistinct calls to action. Considering how

“The sight of women running in a saree is, in a way, an implicit display of resistance to stereotypes that circumscribe women to the household.”

“The backdrop of gender inequality in India has not vanished since. What better time is there to pick up the pace than now?”

saree runs have persisted for nearly a decade, gathering thousands of participants in most instances, these cookie-cutter phrases of advocacy only betray the latency of the changemaking potential that saree runs have accrued over time.

Given their voiced goals of dismantling gender stereotypes, saree run groups could have fought for several institutional changes. Today, they still can. In addition to the criminalization of marital rape, formal grievance redress processes for sexual harassment victims and less judicial bureaucracy would be sensible remedies in the face of India’s protracted rape epidemic. There is also the deeper issue of a climate of impunity that political heavyweights live under, which may spur sexual misconduct and assault within professional spheres. For instance, the wrestling community in India was beyond stunned when a Delhi court struck off a sexual harassment case filed against former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, whom prolific national wrestlers desperately sought to have the courts indict for two years. Further, given the troubling issue of still-pending criminal charges under his belt, India’s legal and judicial apparatus evidently needs fixing. There are plentiful injustices that saree runs could have been explicit about opposing.

Tempting as it may be to view the saree run as a feminist watershed in India—or, in the case of the critics, the dull cousin of other sartorial campaigns—a balanced judgment ought to be made: No one can deny the traction that saree runs have gained over the last decade, but the movement could have achieved more. Regardless, the backdrop of gender inequality in India has not vanished since. What better time is there to pick up the pace than now?

Built to Break

Northern Ireland’s devolved government must move beyond identity politics

by Isabella Collins ’26, an International and Public Affairs and East Asian Studies concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR

illustrations by Mot Tuman ’26, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Most democracies treat government shutdowns as a crisis. The United States watches with anxiety as congressional budget deadlines approach, fearful of a shutdown. The EU sighed in relief in 2020 when Belgium re-established a coalition after more than 650 days without a functioning government. However, in Northern Ireland, government collapse is routine. Since 1999, Stormont, the seat of Northern Ireland’s devolved Assembly and Executive, has been suspended six times—sometimes for days, sometimes for years. The Northern Irish Executive has been absent for more than 40 percent of its existence. During these periods, no laws are passed, reforms stall, and accountability disappears. The system must be restructured to ensure democracy triumphs over identity politics.

The instability of the Northern Irish government stems from a convoluted history. The Troubles, beginning in the 1960s and lasting through the 1990s, were a period of violent conflict between Protestant unionists, who sought to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic nationalists, who aimed for reunification with the Republic of Ireland. Bombings and assassinations became a grim part of daily life, resulting in over 3,500 deaths between 1969 and 2001. The Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 sought to end the bloodshed by establishing institutions grounded in shared governance, disarmament, human rights protections, and cross-community consent in legislation. One of its cornerstones was a devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, allowing the nation a

degree of self-governance from Westminster. The Assembly and Executive were designed to ensure power-sharing between the region’s divided identities. The Executive is led by a First Minister and Deputy First Minister, one unionist and one nationalist, who share equal authority and must act jointly on all major decisions. If one resigned, both offices would collapse. This measure guaranteed collaboration, but it also planted fragility at the heart of the system.

Identity politics are similarly embedded in the Assembly. From the moment members take their seats, the Good Friday Agreement mandates that Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) have to designate themselves as “unionist,” “nationalist,” or “other.” The Assembly has 90 members in total, and many key votes require support from both unionist and nationalist blocs. The Good Friday Agreement’s Petition of Concern was designed to stop either community from using its majority to pass laws that might discriminate against the other. It was meant to be a safeguard for minorities: If 30 members sign it, a bill can only pass with support from both blocs. In practice, it became a political tool, often used to block reforms rather than protect communities. Between 2011 and 2016, it was used 115 times, often to hinder policies such as same-sex marriage or welfare reforms. Moreover, the legislative core symbiotically binds the opposing leaders together, meaning if one resigns, the other is forced out, therefore collapsing the Executive. In a system polarized between the Sinn Féin party’s push for Irish unity

“To build a system that can withstand political tension, Northern Ireland must reshape how power is shared and how the government endures during crises.”

and the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) defense of the Union, walking away is a viable political strategy to push through the party’s agenda because collapsing the Executive allows parties to block legislation or stall reforms they oppose.

Thus began a cyclical pattern of government collapses due to political disagreements.

In January 2017, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister after the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, accusing DUP First Minister Arlene Foster of refusing to take responsibility. His resignation toppled Foster and left Northern Ireland without ministers for three years, meaning no new laws could be passed on health, education, planning, or social welfare. Civil servants continued public service but ultimately had no power to push through substantive reform.

The Court of Appeal’s 2018 Buick case made that clear: It found that a senior civil servant had acted unlawfully by approving a waste incinerator project without a minister in place to sign off on it. The ruling showed that without political leaders, civil servants could handle daily administration but could not make significant decisions or push for real reform. Brexit further weaponized identity politics in Northern Ireland. In February 2022, DUP First Minister Paul Givan resigned to protest the Northern Ireland Protocol, which created customs checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Unionists saw these “Irish Sea borders” as undermining Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom by separating it from the rest of the UK market, while nationalists viewed them as a practical way to preserve trade and avoid a hard land border with the Republic of Ireland. The dispute showed how questions of trade quickly turned into questions of identity. Givan’s resignation forced Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill from office and collapsed the Executive once again. Stormont only returned in January 2024 after the Safeguarding the Union deal adjusted trade rules to ease unionist concerns.

These collapses carry immense social costs. When the Executive shut down in 2017, health reform ground to a halt. By the time ministers returned three years later, delays for hospital treatment, specialist appointments, and diagnostic tests had become the worst within the United Kingdom. Data from December 2022 show 51 percent of patients in Northern Ireland

had been waiting for more than 52 weeks for assessment or treatment, compared to 5.4 percent in England. The slowdown in social progress also repeated during the 2022–2024 government shutdown. With no government in place to set budgets or direct resources, the Education Authority warned in June 2025 that 164 children with special education needs might not have a seat in school in September without urgent intervention. These examples show that Stormont’s shutdowns do not just stall politics; they also stall the provision of public goods and essential services in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland could learn from other countries that handle government disagreements without full shutdowns. Belgium’s more than 650 days without a government were supported by caretaker ministers who kept budgets and services afloat. Northern Ireland has no such safety net. A collapse in Northern Ireland means no ministers, no laws, and no accountability. Reform is imperative to preventing dysfunction from becoming the norm during political disagreements. To build a system that can withstand political tension, Northern Ireland must reshape how power is shared and how the government endures during crises.

The first step is to end the resignation rule: When one leader quits, the Executive should not fall. Instead, a caretaker First Minister should remain in place to keep the government running until a replacement is chosen. This would stop political walkouts from bringing the entire system to a standstill. The second is to ease the identity rules that force every MLA to register as “unionist,” “nationalist,” or “other.”

Reducing the weight of these designations in key votes would make it harder for mechanisms like the Petition of Concern to be used as partisan vetoes. This would encourage cooperation based on policy rather than identity. Finally, Northern Ireland needs safeguards to keep the government running during a deadlock. Automatic mediation could require parties to restart talks, while caretaker ministers would keep public services operating until a new Executive is formed. These measures would prevent everyday governance from freezing during political disputes and help restore public trust in Stormont’s ability to deliver.

None of these reforms would erase Northern Ireland’s sectarian division, but they would stop those divisions from collapsing the entire government and allow social reforms and progress to continue, even if religious and nationalist arguments get caught in a stalemate. While the Good Friday Agreement ended the conflict, the task now is to build institutions that can endure. Without changing these political institutions, Northern Ireland will remain locked in cycles of peace without progress.

No Kings in Providence

by

On Saturday, October 18, the steps of the Rhode Island State House were flooded with thousands of protesters from across Rhode Island, uniting with the rest of the country for the national ‘No Kings’ protest. The crowd demanded that the Trump administration protect civil liberties and democracy. Rhode Island protesters made it clear that they would not stand by silently as the administration tests the limits of democracy.

Protesters make their message clear on the steps of the Rhode Island State House.

A man dressed as Abraham Lincoln holds an American flag marked with “4 sale.”

The crowd faces towards the State House.

An older man holds a sign depicting President Donald Trump with a crown and a red slash over his face during the protest.

A group of friends rest in the grass near the State House during the protest, holding signs signaling their solidarity with the ‘No Kings’ movement.

A protester dressed as a nun looks back at the crowd.

A couple stands near the steps to the State House, voicing their opposition to President Trump’s attacks on democracy.

Protesters face the State House, featuring a man dressed in an inflatable Pikachu costume.

Femme Fatale

Giorgia Meloni weaponizes femininity to advance the far-right

by Christina Charie, an MPA student and Staff Writer for BPR illustrations by Cora Zeng ’27, an Illustration major

at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

Giorgia Meloni, an unlikely contender to become Italy’s first female prime minister, assumed office on October 22, 2022, with ringlet curls and a bold pink lip. Far-right counterparts, like the former Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki, took to X to congratulate Meloni not long after the election victory. With her distinctive and gentle feminine aesthetic, no one would assume that Meloni would be allied with someone who faced accusations of being a Holocaust denier after comments made at a conference in 2018. Yet in 1996, Meloni herself was quoted on French television claiming that “Mussolini was a good politician.” She hides her controversial fascist roots now that she is an established politician, using her pastel blouses, dramatic eye makeup, and bold jewelry as tools to weaponize her feminine appearance to seem more progressive in her politics. Despite breaking a major glass ceiling for women in Italian politics, a fact which Meloni herself has addressed before the Italian Parliament, she cannot be considered a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, she employs feminist rhetoric and appeals to certain left-wing social causes to serve her broader far-right populist political agenda, a tactic that has been coined by sociologist Sara Farris as “femonationalism.” This framework explains why Meloni encourages policies that increase work-life balance for Italian mothers while simultaneously supporting racist immigration policies that prevent African migrants from entering Italy. She aims to help Italian women balance family obligations and other pursuits while simultaneously making it more difficult for immigrant women to do the same.

“The paradox persists as she steps out in a glittering pantsuit to address the nation from her podium, leaving one to wonder if she will decimate the path for other women to follow in her wake.”

The concept of femonationalism also helps explain why Meloni takes issue with sexual assault only when perpetrated by men of color. For example, Meloni’s long-term partner, journalist Andrea Giambruno, caused controversy when he claimed that women should “avoid getting drunk and losing consciousness” to prevent sexual assault and rape. Meloni claimed that his words were misinterpreted and that she should not be held accountable for “what a journalist says while doing his job.” Yet Meloni portrays immigrant men as the main perpetrators of sexual violence against women, using this narrative as justification for her xenophobic policy platform. During her election campaign, to justify and solidify her identity as a candidate who will restore law and order to Italian society, Meloni posted a graphic video of a Ukrainian woman being sexually assaulted by a man she claimed was an “asylum seeker.” From Meloni’s flawed perspective, if her proposed policies are not enacted, foreign men will have children with Italian women while foreign women will simultaneously “Islamize Europe,” outpacing Italian women in terms of fertility.

Meloni’s diluted version of feminism is ultimately a vision of equity that only includes women of specific social identities, but she poses as a woman of the people by employing traditional aesthetics of feminine appearance with a hint of middle-class professionalism. Preaching nationalist messages to voters in this demure package was key to her rise to power, though she abandoned her wide array of pinks and greens in favor of dark Armani pantsuits during the early

“Meloni’s diluted version of feminism is ultimately a vision of equity that only includes women of specific social identities.”

days of her administration. Still, she attempts to present a certain down-to-earth and maternal quality to distract from her racist rhetoric and praise for Mussolini. At the 2023 NATO Summit, Meloni ended a press conference early because “her high heels were killing her.” After all, who would think that the woman complaining about her shoes could cause the sort of large-scale suffering associated with a fascist regime?

Meloni has garnered some praise from Italian feminists due to her approachable persona. Marina Terragni of RadFem Italia went as far as to credit Meloni with eliminating the “taboo” surrounding women in Italian politics, as the Democratic Party also ushered in a new female leader, Elly Schlein, not long after Meloni’s ascent. At the same time, critics have highlighted major contradictions between the administration’s rhetoric and its core beliefs.

Gilda Sportiello, a Parliament member for the left-wing Five Star Movement, pointed out that Meloni’s equal opportunity minister Eugenia Roccella—one of the few women in Meloni’s cabinet—declared in a TV interview that “abortion is not a right.”

So far, Meloni’s grasp on power is strong, continuing to rise both domestically and internationally. As Meloni rejects gender quotas in politics and business and refuses to use the Italian feminine article “la” in her title, she seems to progressively separate herself from her sex. The paradox persists as she steps out in a glittering pantsuit to address the nation from her podium, leaving one to wonder if she will decimate the path for other women to follow in her wake.

An Interview with Laura Jaworski from House of Hope It Takes A Village

In February 2025, House of Hope opened the Emergency COVID Housing Opportunities (ECHO) Village, the first Pallet Shelter pilot community in Rhode Island. House of Hope is a nonprofit organization housing over 250 people annually and their newest project provides an additional 40 tiny homes to unhoused people in Rhode Island. In this interview, executive director Laura Jaworski discusses what led to the demand for such housing, the process and challenges of building a village of this size, and how community members have responded to this change.

Eiffel Sunga: House of Hope has been growing since the 1980s. Has the growth of the organization come with an increase in demand for its services?

Laura Jaworski: We were never founded with the intention that we would eventually be buying up properties, renting, and owning them. But as we became more established and started to understand the problem a little bit more, we saw opportunities where we could actually take our mission further. In the last 10 years, the opportunities to purchase properties in Warwick have become more and more limited. It’s becoming more difficult for nonprofits who aren’t as nimble as a private developers to come into those few properties that are left, buy with cash, turn them around, and

make them available. At the same time, we saw the demand for services just explode. Before the pandemic, there were under 100 folks unsheltered here in our state; our outreach team knew all those folks, and we still know most of the folks that are on the streets. Now, we have over 600 people.

ES: I want to talk about ECHO Village. LJ: ECHO is actually an acronym that stands for Emergency COVID Housing Opportunities. It was a program model that was created in direct response to the already increasing demand for emergency shelter that our street-based team was seeing and hearing. As those first few months of the pandemic started to roll out, we saw additional barriers that people were facing. Beds were literally being removed from homeless shelters or turned over and spread out. Massive wedding-type tents were set up in the parking lots of organizations, and people were being put into bunks under that. So we saw all of that and then, on top of it, heard people saying, “I’m probably going to die if I go into a shelter because I have a significant medical condition. If I contract that virus, it will be fatal to me.”

We had been exploring the use of tiny houses as a housing intervention to create permanent housing for people, with plumbing and a kitchen, and all of that. When the pandemic hit, we had to shift into crisis mode. We put that project on the side, but it had already sparked some ideas in our head about how we might be able to serve folks differently. Right now, the emergency shelter in Rhode Island is one big room, a big, crowded area—it’s not restful. And it’s not really dignified. And that’s not a ding against people that are providing the service—it’s the reality of what options are available.

ES: Could you explain what’s included in each tiny home and why the organization has chosen to include those specific things when someone is living in the village?

LJ: When we became familiar with the company—whose name is Pallet—we knew we were not going to create a permanent solution for everybody, but we sure as hell had an opportunity to provide somebody with a more dignified option. Those units are designed to protect someone from extreme elements, provide move-on strategies from law enforcement and municipalities, and have a door that locks so someone can have their own agency and actually get some rest.

Residents have a unit of their own that is 70 square feet. It has a heater; it’s cooled, and it has electricity. We saw a lot of people who have medical devices, and they’re not able to plug those in at a shelter. So, being able to do that is huge. In the unit itself, there’s a bed, a chair, a nightstand, some shelves to hang items or to place personal effects, and then two windows for air and sunlight. Then, the most important part, a door that locks. So somebody knows when they lock that door, they’re safe. The village itself has bathrooms, we have showers, and we will have laundry. We also have case management staff and other shelter staff supporting those 45 folks that are there, so someone is always onsite and available to provide support to meet their needs.

“People are just overwhelmed. People are immensely appreciative. We don’t do it for that, but they’re so glad they don’t have to worry about how they’re going to survive.”

ES: How have you seen the community react to these shelters? That would include the people who are now getting to live in them and the neighbors of the village itself.

LJ: I spent a lot of time leading up to the opening engaging and talking with the community around where ECHO is located, with the council people, various other elected officials, and community residents. And people are skeptical, unsure, and afraid. It’s something new and different, and I don’t fault anybody for that. I’ve had a lot of really great conversations, and I’m grateful because those communities took time and heard and listened.

In terms of leadership, the city council and other people in those areas understood the demands and the needs. People were concerned and worried, like, “Are they safe?” Yes, there were people that were not so gracious. However, by and large, most people in the immediate community were very welcoming and asked a lot of great questions. They started to understand and learn more. They were like, “Oh, I get it. I understand it now.” For the folks that were moving in, it’s been beautiful. People are just overwhelmed. People are immensely appreciative. We don’t do it for that, but they’re so glad they don’t have to worry about how they’re going to survive. We’ve prioritized folks who’ve been outside the longest and in their vehicles, so there’s a lot of emotion that has come with it. People are already being able to reconnect with their family. We’ve already had an individual move on into housing, which is really exciting.

ES: As a Brown University student, I think a lot about our relationship with the city. Do you have any insight on how having such a substantial college population in Providence affects the housing situation here?

LJ: The piece I would want to offer to students—especially those that might like to leave Rhode Island after graduating—is, first of all, try to stay in Rhode Island. This is a wonderful state. It’s a great place to start your career. But what I hope people have is an eye-opening experience, that they take some time to understand what’s happening in this city in our state. While they are temporarily here, get out from campus and understand the local issues and try to get involved. There’s a great group at Brown, the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE) students, getting involved with the Swearer Center and being a part of this community while they’re here. There’s lots of ways to do that, and there’s lots of needs to be met.

On top of that, my hope is that there’s also an opportunity for young people to take what they’re seeing, and to advocate and to vote and to talk to those elected officials and say, “Can we make opportunities for everyone here? I’m concerned about this.” We need people to be engaged. And if they’re doing it here, that’s great. Or when they go back, that’s great too. I think history has shown us that we need young people. A lot of times what’s happening on college campuses is speaking up and speaking out.

Edited for length and clarity.

From the Front Line to the For You Page

Drone footage has redefined how the public experiences war

by Chiupong Huang ’27

, an English concentrator and

Staff Writer

for BPR

illustrations by Lydia Smithey ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

In a Reddit video posted this year under “r/ combatfootage,” a Reddit forum dedicated to proliferating battlefield war footage, a Russian soldier immediately commits suicide using his own rifle after his comrades are wounded by an exploding first-person view (FPV) drone. A scroll through the comments reveals an apolitical, amoral stance of cynical awe at the video’s gore and depiction of human suffering. One comment mockingly reads, “Hey man, scoot over. I’m trying to kill myself here.”

FPV drones, short-range and cheaply mass-produced, have become a dominant presence on the Ukrainian battlefield, with

most estimates naming them as responsible for around 70 percent of battlefield casualties. Watching the footage they capture becomes an embodied act of violence—seeing a representation of war and fighting in the war are visually identical. The spectacle of human suffering trumps the politics and state narratives of war.

FPV drones have redefined how the public both sees and discusses war. They mark a stark contrast to the sanitized displays of war in previous decades, where the enemy was nothing more than heat signatures from the view of an aircraft’s head-up display. The gory, first-person view offered by these drones

“Watching the footage they capture becomes an embodied act of violence—seeing a representation of war and fighting in the war are visually identical.”

has become ubiquitous across mainstream, moderated social media. The eyes of the drone capture the dismemberment and brutal killing of soldiers in high definition and color comparable to how the naked human eye views the world. Previously, the gaze from the American couch upon the TV showed a bloodless, bodiless war, organized and narrated by news anchors and media-trained military officials. The TV showed the “good guys” with missiles and planes taking off without ever seeing them strike the target. The camera showed only thermal views of planes from hundreds of feet off the ground or bomb explosions as flashes on the horizon.

FPV drone footage makes no room for state political narratives, as the blunt visibility and spectacle of violence upon a body drowns out all else. Sometimes, it is difficult to tell if the drone’s victims are Ukrainian or Russian—nationalism becomes impossible when people cannot agree whose side the mutilated body was on. It becomes clear that the dominant forces within FPV drone footage are gore and the spectacle of suffering. In many cases, video game gameplay is circulated online as combat drone footage. This novel media landscape—where the eyes of the soldier double as the eyes of the weapon and in turn the collective gaze of countless online viewers of the footage—is especially noticeable

“The gratuity of visualized bodily harm and the image of suffering become the focus rather than any discernible political purpose held by one party.”

when comparing it to the scripted, televised nature of the Gulf War. Many media theorists, including Jean Baudrillard, have remarked on how the US invasion of Iraq during the first Gulf War led to a highly structured, state-controlled affair on America’s 24-hour cable news networks. TV crews were provided footage and guided access by US forces, and military personnel were media-trained. Channels shared the view of heat signatures from an airplane and flashes on the horizon depicting “targeted killings” executed by Hellfire missiles without any display

of bodily suffering. The result was televised war footage depicting a precise, predictable war that cleanly neutralized the enemy without bloodshed, visible suffering, or unwanted casualties. This state-influenced media narrative projected a certain form of unity and a shared imperial vision, contributing to the war’s popularity with the American public. On the day of the ground assault in Kuwait, a Gallup poll showed that 84 percent of Americans supported the invasion. With the use of FPV drones, what the drone sees, what the operator sees, and what a viewer

sees become identical. The resolution and frame rate of the drone camera roughly match what is perceived by the human eye. At the same time, the pilotable nature of the controls makes the footage appear almost video game-like. This layered confusion between spectating violence and committing violence exemplifies how FPV drone footage is blurring the boundaries of battlefields. To complicate the spectator-perpetrator divide even further, most of these drone operators train on video games that are available to anyone on platforms like Steam.

The media landscape is becoming far more cacophonous and unwieldy due to a particular state power. As Baudrillard notes in “War Porn,” the gratuity of visualized bodily harm and the image of suffering become the focus rather than any discernible political purpose held by one party. Modern FPV drone footage fascinates people with images of physical harm regardless of their state affiliation, apolitically pornagraphizing the hypervisible flesh, wounds, and suffering of a victim. The political questions of who they are, whether they deserved to die, and who killed them fade away. States also have very little capacity to remedy this situation, as media is distributed through decentralized social media channels rather than through authoritative news outlets.

The circulation of FPV drone footage from Ukraine defies all claims of a clean or politically

coherent war. One can see only gratuitous human suffering from the cacophonous spread of the footage with no clear institutional or state-sponsored political agenda attached to it. The shared war porn viewing pleasure of FPV drone footage trumps its ability to garner support for war or empower resistance against it. Especially when actual war footage and video game gameplay are indistinguishable, this footage becomes a spectacle that we cannot discern the authenticity of, making it impossible to weaponize for political action. Ukrainian drone vision presents its violence as anything but clean. The visual logic of FPV drone footage defaces the enemy’s life and body not through obscuring its destruction but by making it appear as rawly unmediated, unsimulated violence that is graphic and pornographized.

“The shared war porn viewing pleasure of FPV drone footage trumps its ability to garner support for war or empower resistance against it.”

An Interview with Chris Hayes The Mirage of Meritocracy

Chris Hayes ’01 is a prominent American journalist, author, and host of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes , known for his sharp analysis of power, inequality, and democracy. After graduating from Brown University, Hayes worked as a journalist, first covering politics in Chicago Reader and later as the Washington editor of The Nation . His books, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy and A Colony in a Nation , explore how the American ideals of fairness and justice break down in real systems of power. His podcast, Why Is This Happening?, extends his political work, examining how seemingly improbable current events have been shaped by movements, ideologies, and context. Hayes recently published his newest book, The Siren’s Call , which explores the stronghold the news cycle and media presently have on their consumers.

Charlotte Peterson: In your most recent book, The Siren’s Call, you sound the alarms for the digital age’s relentless fracturing of our attention. How do you reconcile being an informed citizen and political commentator under an increasingly distressing administration with caution toward the strangle the media can hold on your attention?

Chris Hayes: One thing I tell people is that you don’t have to consume news all the time to be a properly informed citizen, and it’s probably best to put some boundaries around that. I have to do it for my job, but I do think under the current circumstances, it is toxic. You feel like you’re sipping a

poison lemonade all day, and it’s doing something bad to your soul. There’s a certain logic to old school news consumption—Sunday morning shows have been completely obliterated by the 24-hour news cycle, the way that platform algorithms work, and our obsessive attentional dependence on phones. One of the things I like about doing my show at 8 pm is that if you were not online or watching the news all day, you sit down for dinner, and I can tell you about what happened today.

CP: How do you specifically find that balance? You have to spend a lot of time keeping up to date on everything that’s happening.

CH: One of the things that was great about both writing the book and the book tour, which started right around the inauguration, is that it forced me to focus on things that were not just the depravities of the daily news cycle. I don’t have that right now, so it’s hard. I wouldn’t say that it’s been amazing for my mental health to be paying attention all day, but there are certain things I do. I make sure I work out every day. I spend time with my wife and kids. I’ve been intentional about seeing friends and being with people in my community. I go for a long walk every day. I try to get a good amount of sleep. There are certain things I have to do to maintain my mental health and equilibrium. My balance on this right now is, in all honesty, pretty out of whack. It’s been hard to try to get it back into sustainable equilibrium.

CP: Just as a college student at Brown, I’m surrounded by peers constantly discussing everything current events, so your position is unimaginable. Do you miss Brown? How do you think your time here influenced your perspective on politics and the greater world?

CH: It was massively formative. It introduced me to so many new ideas and critiques. It did the thing that a good liberal arts education should do, giving you both a substantive body of knowledge, which expands, but, more importantly, changing your approach to thinking about things. Importantly, and a huge part of why liberal arts education matters and why people hate it, is that it destabilizes a bunch of formerly invisible assumptions that you held.

The best thing about Brown was how it cultivated a sense of creative ambition with all these resources. It’s a version of a children’s playground for the creative, imaginative ambitions and endeavors of 18- to 21-year-olds. It was amazing in cultivating that, and you learned a lot because you were so empowered to try to do different things. I also miss class or formal environments where I learn new things. After you leave, you’re teaching yourself a lot or learning by doing. Also, campus life is pretty sweet. I’ve talked to seniors in high school, and they’re stressed about college. Any four-year competitive college in America is totally amazing. Oh, bummer, you’re going to your safety school—which is still going to be so awesome.

“The best thing about Brown was how it cultivated a sense of creative ambition with all these resources. It’s a version of a children’s playground for the creative, imaginative ambitions and endeavors of 18 to 21-yearolds.”

CP: I completely agree. But simultaneously, there are a lot of privileges afforded to these Ivies and other schools that by design feed into exclusive pipelines. You talked about them in your book Twilight of the Elites, and I was wondering if you could talk about how your unique path has informed your perception of elitism and meritocracy. CH: The core formative experience that I feel very lucky for is that, because of my upbringing, I have been able to be on every deck of the Titanic at some point. I grew up in the Bronx in the 1980s. My dad was a community organizer. My family was not at all in poverty; we were very middle-class, maybe a bit less. But because we were in the Bronx, I had friends who lived in public housing or were on food stamps. I went to an elementary school with two lines: the kids who had free lunch and the kids who paid. The free lunch line was three times longer. Then, I went to Hunter College High School, which had a mix of kids from across all spectrums, different parts of the boroughs. I was introduced to a much newer group of upper-middle-class, professional Manhattanites who had a whole unfamiliar world. And then I went to Brown.

In that way, it’s been useful to observe how profoundly class shapes people and how we’ve lost a middle-class society. We’ve created a social contract that broadly works for people who get four-year degrees and doesn’t for people that don’t, if you had to dramatically oversimplify. I think that cleavage shows up in our politics in all kinds of ways. I also think that the very explicit project of wealthy tech people is to do to white-collar workers what trade and mechanization did to blue-collar workers—to create a nation in which the people who were on the “right” side of this contract are all now getting ripped up as well. I’m acutely aware of how class functions and how certain resources, particularly social capital and access to mental health support, are such a huge class marker. People have struggled with mental health issues in all parts of the class structure of America, but the higher up you go, the more resources are provided, leading to a resilience that folks who don’t have access don’t get. Lots of good people who are brilliant, talented hard workers, who could flourish in a million ways, never get to flourish.

CP: For sure. Even the process of acquiring that capital through these schools, demonstrated so clearly in the microcosms of Hunter and Stuyvesant, can take such a big toll on people’s mental health in the first place.

CH: It did take a toll. Mostly, I loved Hunter. But one of the central theses of that first book is that structuring a society in a pyramidal fashion, in which every layer has this competition to ascend, where some group is excluded, creates a lot of intense cultural pathologies that are everywhere now and a lot of resentment for people that don’t get to move up.

A Discord-Led Democracy

Hami Nepal’s online election does not guarantee a democratic future for Nepal

by Ben Hader ’28, a History and International and Public Affairs concentrator and Staff Writer for BPR

, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

On September 4, the Nepali government banned dozens of social media platforms to curb dissent. Instead, the move unleashed mass nationwide protests. Within one week, Nepal had no government—just a burnt shell of its parliament building.

Nepal’s near-total governmental collapse was primarily led by Gen Z protestors who were frustrated with systemic corruption and economic inequality under former Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli. In Nepal, the wealthiest 10 percent of the population has over 26 times the wealth of the poorest 40 percent and holds significant influence over the country’s politics. While Nepal’s Gen Z citizens struggle with a youth unemployment rate of over 20 percent, the children of Nepal’s politicians flaunt their wealth on social media, epitomizing the out-of-touch Oli administration. Days of mass protests led to Oli’s forced resignation, leaving a political power vacuum.

While Oli’s resignation is not unique— the country has had 14 governments in the last 17 years—Nepal’s method of forming a new government is one never seen before: a government chosen via Discord. The “Youth Against Corruption” Discord server, run by the leading protest group Hami Nepal, elected former Supreme Court Judge Sushila Karki as Nepal’s next prime minister. On September 12, Karki was officially sworn in by Nepal’s president and Army Chief after meetings with Gen Z leaders. Karki is now Nepal’s first-ever female prime minister and will serve until March 2026. However, her tense relationship with Hami Nepal warns of another potential government deterioration.

Championing transparency and anti-corruption, the nonprofit organization Hami Nepal called for overthrowing the government, hoping that a democratic future might be possible. Founded in response to a devastating 7.6-magnitude earthquake in 2015, Hami Nepal acted as a crisis network, delivering direct assistance from donors to Nepalis in need. Yet, during Nepal’s protests, Hami Nepal shifted from providing aid to centralizing information and mobilizing protestors. Hami Nepal was a leading force in mobilizing Nepal’s protests alongside other groups, using its Discord server with over 150,000 members as a key organizing platform. Due to its anonymity, protestors viewed Discord as an ideal place to voice opinions without fear of intimidation, especially given mass police crackdowns at physical protests.

While online organizing offers many benefits, by harnessing Nepali disillusionment and centralizing information, Hami Nepal also threatens the concept of democracy in Nepal. The organization now occupies the role of

“fact-maker” (and fact-dismisser) and is making strides toward political influence, suggesting that Hami Nepal seeks to become a dominant political party rather than a neutral caretaking administrator between regimes.

Hami Nepal’s motto of “For the People, By the People” reflects their push for political transparency. In real time, Hami Nepal volunteers asked its Discord users who should be considered for prime minister and contacted several influential political figures upon recommendation. Later, a series of polls established a list of candidates including Sushila Karki; Kathmandu’s popular rapper-turned-mayor, Balendrah Shah (or “Balen”); and popular cricketer Sagar Dhakal. Karki, whose fight against corruption in the police force resulted in her near-impeachment from the Supreme Court in 2017, is a symbol of longstanding integrity to voters worried about a continuously tumultuous political landscape. When a poll asked the Discord channel if they would like to create a formal petition for Karki to become prime minister, 89 percent of the nearly 7,000 voters chose ‘yes.’ Gen Z livestreamers debated the election behind Zoom icons of devils and anime-like characters, and the nominations and election for Nepal’s interim prime minister were punctuated by pregnant male emojis and GIFs of streamer IShowSpeed. The lack of seriousness among poll reactions dismisses the significance of the server: Hami Nepal successfully led an unprecedented online open election process. Gen Z Nepalis were able to debate the future of their country’s politics together and determine the direction of the country.

Nonetheless, Hami Nepal’s self-assertion as the “transparent” source of information on its Discord server and targeting of those who defy it offers one warning of the organization’s potential political dominance. The only users who can post on the server’s main channels are Hami Nepal’s moderators. Thus, it is Hami Nepal’s moderators themselves who determine what is or is not “misinformation.” As their #factcheck channel posts suggest, Hami Nepal often defends the words of their own leadership. The equality of the “democratic” server’s structure is compromised by the inability of non-Hami Nepal users to help dictate fact from fiction. Users could vote and debate candidates together on the server, but they could not openly rebuke Hami Nepal’s claims. Thus, by leveraging its control over communication and factual legitimacy, the organization risks creating a dangerous echo chamber where dissent is silenced.

By conflating the organization’s mission with Gen Z’s desire for democracy as a whole, Hami Nepal has the ability to target opposition groups and cement its own power within Nepali politics. A September 20 post opposing politician Mahesh Basnet accuses him of “[betraying]

the sacrifices of the people and the martyrs,” invoking their image to cause agitation against sitting politicians. While Hami Nepal urges protestors not to engage in violence, they also push channel members to keep the “revolution” alive with inflammatory rhetoric. Since Karki has declared that her tenure as prime minister will end with the general elections for prime minister on March 5, 2026, Nepal’s power vacuum remains. By inflaming protestors and maintaining agitation toward politicians, Hami Nepal can manipulate this power vacuum toward their own political advantage. For example, Hami Nepal’s own Sudan Gurung announced his campaign for prime minister in the March election. Gurung even said he would topple Karki’s government, arguing that it should be transitional rather than a long-term government. While an unnamed Hami Nepal official opposed this claim, the organization’s political sway over protesters questions their stance as a broker rather than a political player.

The effects of Hami Nepal’s Discord election have manifested in political change for Nepal. In the first weeks, Karki’s government dissolved parliament and pledged to lower the voting age in March’s elections to 16. Karki’s government, while not led by Gen Z officials themselves, is guided by younger Nepalis’ desire for transparency, democracy, and equality in the country. However, even Karki may fall at the hands of Hami Nepal, the same organization that endorsed her revolutionary rise to power. Gurung, who even touched Karki’s feet to show reverence, organized Hami Nepal protests calling for her resignation just three days after she was sworn in. The fragility of Nepal’s current peace reflects the fragility of the relationship between Karki and Gurung: both have declared themselves leaders of the “people” to legitimize their political aims. Hami Nepal’s growing power and organization against Karki signals a future power grab for Gurung and continued turbulence for Nepali politics.

Paper Tigers

China is embracing a new nuclear age

by Jordan Lac ’ 27, an International and Public Affairs and Applied Math concentrator and Chief of Staff for BPR

illustration by Orla Maxwell ’27, an Illustration major at RISD and Illustrator for BPR

On September 3, 2025, trumpets sounded as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s limousine cruised through Beijing alongside thousands of soldiers for the 80th anniversary of World War II. This grandiose display of synchronized troops, hulking vehicles, and boundless military capability is not the first time that China has used national celebrations to demonstrate martial prowess. However, this year’s parade stands apart from the historical pomp and circumstance of previous celebrations in one way: For the first time, China revealed systems that can strike the continental United States with a nuclear warhead from air, land, and sea—the so-called nuclear triad. With this public show of atomic force, Beijing exhibited China’s nuclear modernization. Western media commentary and reactions to the parade have emphasized the weapons’ specifications. But the significance of China’s self-codification as a full nuclear triad power and willingness to flaunt its new status goes far beyond its tactical military implications. The 2025 Victory Day parade was not just about showing off missiles. It reflects a deeper transformation: Beijing now treats nuclear weapons not only as a defensive shield but also as a source of coercive leverage in its broader search for global power. By elevating its arsenal from secrecy to spectacle, China showed that it views the bomb as both a guarantor of survival and a cornerstone of ambition.

Chinese leaders have long espoused beliefs in the limited utility of nuclear weapons and a contempt for imperial powers attempting to use them to strong-arm weaker countries. In 1946, Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China and the architect of the countrs nuclear strategy, famously declared atomic bombs to be “paper tigers” without much actual power, a statement aimed at downplaying American nuclear threats, which Mao resented. In 1958, Mao amended his theory, stating that atomic bombs are “tigers that can devour people when others have it and you don’t,” reflecting a realization that to stand up to nuclear-armed bullies (the United States, in China’s eyes), you must also have nuclear weapons.

“By elevating its arsenal from secrecy to spectacle, China showed that it views the bomb as both a guarantor of survival and a cornerstone of ambition.”

China successfully tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964 and subsequently declared that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons—a declaratory policy it maintains. A no-first-use policy and a relatively small arsenal constituted a posture of ‘minimum deterrence,’ where a state maintains just enough nuclear capability to deter another state from using nuclear weapons against it. Furthermore, China previously sought to limit the political presence of its weapons program both domestically and internationally. For most of its time as a nuclear-armed state, Beijing has made concerted efforts to downplay its status and the role of these weapons in its foreign policy. In contrast, the United States has always reserved the right to use nuclear weapons first and has threatened nuclear attacks on countries without nuclear weapons. Thus, China has historically portrayed itself as a responsible nuclear actor, touting its limited arsenal and security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states in contrast to the arms-racing, saber-rattling, hegemony-seeking United States. However, after over 50 years of unchanging posture, something changed. It is hard to overstate the magnitude of China’s nuclear policy transformation, which began around 2019. Its nuclear stockpile has grown from 200–300 to an estimated 600 warheads in the past six years, which makes it the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. In 2021, open source researchers revealed that China was constructing over

“China has historically portrayed itself as a responsible nuclear actor, touting its limited arsenal and security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states in contrast to the arms-racing, saber-rattling, hegemony-seeking United States.”

200 new missile silos in northwestern China. In addition to quantitative buildup, China is fielding new capabilities and systems to strengthen all three legs of its nuclear triad.

The speed, scale, and breadth of the buildup makes it clear that this change transcends a retrofitting of the existing arsenal. It is a Chinese nuclear renaissance. Minimum deterrence is no longer the name of the game: One does not need a fractional orbital hypersonic delivery system to assure mutual destruction. China’s previous arsenal had to be capable of surviving a first strike and launching a retaliatory attack— but never more. While this modernization has been on international observers’ radars for several years, China has consistently denied its buildup to protect its reputation as a responsible nuclear actor.

It is striking to watch a country that was once proud of its limited arsenal now parade columns of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles through the streets of its capital. Notably, the nuclear capabilities showcased only included weapons capable of reaching the continental United States. China is known to have several other short and intermediate-range missiles, such as the DongFeng 26 and 27, that were deliberately not displayed. Analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggests that this is a signal to the United States that its arsenal is meant to deter the United States from intervening in Taiwan. There has never been much doubt

that US intervention in a crisis over Taiwan is the most likely scenario in which China would make a nuclear threat, and US intelligence undoubtedly knew that China possessed these capabilities long before the parade. However, the use of such a high-profile event to convey willingness to use these missiles in a non-defensive context reflects a much greater willingness to engage in nuclear coercion than before.

By shining a light on its new nuclear weapons, Beijing has darkened the nuclear shadow over its international politics. “The power to hurt is bargaining power,” wrote Thomas Schelling, and a state that has greater power to hurt might feel more confident in its ability to coerce others. China has embraced its status as a nuclear power, using it to generate leverage for its political aims—a sharp break from Mao’s thinking. For decades, China’s political strength in the nuclear realm had come from claiming restraint, but now it seeks to draw power from the same paper tigers in ways it once renounced.

The implications of this shift will be felt for the rest of this new nuclear age. Whether China’s nuclear weapons will actually be useful for achieving its political objectives, or even what the scope of those political objectives is, is still up for debate. However, several things are clear. First, nuclear coercion is inherently risky, and a China more willing to use such threats raises the overall risk of nuclear conflict. Second, China is involved in several potential conflicts where its

political interests are great enough that it might consider nuclear threats. Last, China’s arsenal looks primed to grow alongside that of the United States, following a post-Cold War trend of weakening US arms control.

Whether or not China is an arms-racing, saber-rattling, hegemony-seeking power is yet to be seen. Nonetheless, this very fundamental shift in its nuclear philosophy will shape China’s international relations. How China plans to use its nuclear strength will matter for the status of Taiwan, the potential proliferation of Japan and South Korea, the various territorial disputes with the Philippines and nuclear-armed India, and for US-China relations. Nuclear weapons are now a key piece of Beijing’s play for power, and how others respond will shape the new nuclear age.

by Matthew DaSilva ’26,

52 "You're still the ___ ___ run to."

Tons (of)

Pang

Possess

Opposite of neo-

18 Insurance giant

19 Rockstar Reed

20 DeGeneres of "Finding Nemo"

21 Whitewater vessel

22 Rapper ___ Chyna

23 School bag holder, say 26 Weapons supply

29 First words on a tourist's t-shirt, say 30 Nation 31 Cleaning cloth

32 University publication, or a hint to the circled letters*

34 SoCal force

35 Colorful Hindu festival

36 Crude ending?

37 Trident-shaped letter

40 Docking areas

43 Pays for (someone)

45 Sign of alertness

46 Vermin's favorite nap, say

48 Employs

49 ___ Vida, a bracelet brand

50 Evita's Eva

54 Airport gate fig.

55 Trompe ___

56 Menzel of Broadway

57 Formerly named

58 Register, in London

59 Speed demon

60 Un-even, say?

61 Lola Young hit

62 Work ___