By Joshua Alvarez
Contributing Writer
Following the election of Donald Trump early in the morning of November 12, many American citizens have been clamoring for a revolution or coup d’état of some sort. Unfortunately for the community of Sewanee, TN, this longed for revolution will not be taking place here.
The Sewanee Young Democratic Socialists, a club present on our campus, recently announced that while they had planned to overthrow the government of the United States if Trump was elected, they were morally unable to carry out their alleged mission at this point in time.
While some members of the club view themselves as the rightful successors of the Cold War era communist revolutions, apparently the two groups of left-leaning activists have less in common than our classmates would like to believe. One member has been quoted as saying “Apparently during the Russian Revolution, the communists actually killed people. I’m a pacifist at heart, so murder just isn’t something I can get behind.” Another interviewed member said, “So some people just informed me that Che Guevara, that guy who everyone talks about, was responsible for a lot of deaths. I’m gonna have to get rid of a lot of t-shirts.” While discussing the rather violent precedents that have been set by their forebears, another member asked the group “How on earth can you expect me to purge the bourgeoisie when I feel sick after remembering that my hamburger was once a real live cow?” Other obstacles to carrying out an armed revolution included moral opposition to the use of force for political gain and a fear that rising against the government could have the unintended consequence of being suspended from the University.
As the club’s members were discussing plans for their still unclear future, one quite hopeful sentiment still managed to prevail; as one student sighed and said, “I guess we’ll just move on and start handing out Bernie 2020 stickers.”