In Irvine, Terre Democrat, the countryside seems little present: in a campus, however socially very open, no one talks about it or seems to be concerned about it. Where does this apathy come from ? What is the sign ?
The atmosphere is strange at the University of California of Irvine: who would walk around the campus, or circulate by car in the surroundings, would find it difficult to believe that we are a few hours from a historic presidential election in which perhaps the future of American political institutions and the international post-war order is played out. We do not see any posters of the presidential election – a few posters for local elections on the roads around, and, placarded in the places of student displays, announcements for private lessons, sessions of “ Life Coaching », Or some rare panels encouraging everyone to vote on November 5. On the lawn of my neighbors, very rare are the external signs of support for the Harris-Walz Ticket-Bien rarer than for Hillary Clinton eight years ago. Languages also seem to be linked: I alpine my colleagues one by one in the corridors, or even at the exit of the toilet, to ask them eagerly why we do not talk more about the election, why we do not see more signs. “” What good is it to talk about it ? Recently replied one of them. In his eyes, the absence of conversation could not be more explained and justified: within our university, and more particularly of the teaching staff, the overwhelming majority of registrants would vote and resolutely voted against Trump, mainly because she recognizes in him a fascist, but not out of enthusiasm for a democratic candidate that, with regard to his own convictions, he considered it poorly. The choice was simple, but the unnecessary conversation: we lived here, in the university, in a progressive microcosm, in the middle of a constituency (Irvine), of a county (orange country) spent in the Democratic camp since 2016, and in a state, California, which has become so structurally “ blue That 6 million more votes for Kamala Harris would not change the national result of the presidential election. The real electoral and political battle were played and would decide elsewhere, in some counties and micro-districts of the seven Battleground States (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada). What is the point of trying to persuade someone around you to vote for Harris, or rather against Trump, if the Trumpists or undecided were rare, the conversation with them difficult, even painful, and without impact on the result ? All this resonates, but he explains, and he justifies this strange silence ?
It must be said a word of the place. In the system that brings together the ten California universities (the best known of which are UCLA And UC Berkeley), UC Irvine is the youngest. Its assertive vocation of Social springboard corresponds to a reality for its 40,000 students: it is one of the American universities welcoming the greatest number of first generation students and the greatest number of “ Dreamers », That is to say children of undocumented families whose studies will open them access to citizenship. There “ diversity From the student body is in all real respects here, on this green campus which offers students and university staff access to very decent housing conditions at much lower prices than the local average. The university is public and tuition fees are reasonably low compared to the American average.
This singularity is much due to local history. Although located in the commune of Irvine, the name of the university in fact precedes the existence of this one, and comes from the family which gave 400 hectares of land to the University of California for a symbolic dollar. The Irvine family indeed had a 40 km2 ranch at 50 km south of Los Angeles, which they wanted to develop in a huge real estate project over a long time. The presence of the University of California was to allow first to attract businesses and businesses locally, and thus lift capital to invest in the construction and management of housing, offices and commercial center, while increasing the value of the housing stock. The success of the company is remarkable. The houses continue to build and sell quickly, at prices that have never stopped growing and are comparable to those of Silicon Valley. The boom in the local economy is impressive, even with regard to Californian standards. Irvine is still one of the safest municipalities in the United States, and one of those whose proximity to Los Angeles, air quality is the best. The generally soft and sunny climate promotes solar energy and the electric car (the Tesla swarm). Public and private schools have an excellent reputation and contribute to the attractiveness of the place for families of the wealthy middle classes and the upper classes.
For the most part, accommodation is “ Single-Family Homes »» grouped into luxurious residential islets, often closed (“ GATED Communities »). The entrance to each island overlooks endless circular avenues with six lanes which also serve large green spaces, immense shopping centers and all kinds of buildings for companies near the outings of titanic motorways with twelve lanes. We move on foot in each island, but the car is almost inexpensive for any race or any trip beyond. Irvine, the municipality born from this real estate project does not look like a city since there is neither streets nor neighborhoods, strictly speaking (one will only find a coffee or a restaurant that is not a large commercial brand in a mall). Nor is it a wealthy suburb as we can see elsewhere in the United States, nor a peri-urban residential area as it is found in Europe, as the organization of the space responds to the methodical and standardized plan of the same real estate enterprise, and as the neighborhood relationships and sociability are conditioned by the structure of these rich residential islets and a lifestyle concentrated on the security and comfort of the family unit. It can be scary: “ Keep Irvine Clean and Safe for all users », We read at the entrance to the large municipal parks … The instruction is so respected that all outdoor spaces resemble the fictitious illustrations of a real estate project. This digital perfection is not ensured by Photoshop, but by an omnipresent workforce Latinmainly Mexican, to which there is no question as long as she does her job well. We speak little with these workers who cannot afford to reside in Irvine, and when we do it is to evoke the family and the good weather, rather than other subjects such as the precarious situation of many with regard to inflation or their lack of a residence permit.
The university has long been isolated in a commune and a county which have long been white conservative bastions (in Newport, very close to here, some pushed the cult of Reagan so far that they had the statue of Nancy Reagan in their garden !). The situation has changed structurally since 2016: Irvine and Orange County are mostly democrats, like California, with a population of strong growth asian origin. The last representatives of Orange County at the Congress are professors of the Faculty of Law of UCI (Katie Porter, and today David Min). We cannot say about my colleagues that they are depoliticized : Most have a real political conscience, thoughtful convictions ; They are very concerned about the elections, take the measure of its importance, diligently read the local and national press, and have their eyes riveted on internal and international political news. If the majority vote “ democrat “, Political opinions are not perfectly uniform and some are openly conservative: a colleague from my department is also a candidate for the Republican Party in another district and participated in the very controversial Pompeo Commission on Human Rights. The students also manifest a certain political conscience: Last year, some set up their tents on the campus to protest against Israeli bombing on Gaza and ask the University to suspend any cooperation and any investment in Israel. If most students and teachers did not support these claims, they essentially welcomed the calls at the end of the bombing and the presence of this campus camp, whose brutal expulsion by the police has aroused great emotion and raised lively debates within the university. During Trump’s mandate, many people, and especially many students, were very directly affected by the decisions of his administration (constant threats to expulsion from the territory for many dreamers, threats to federal social assistance, disastrous management of the COVID, accumulation of delays for the renewals of stay securities), and the university has mobilized to protect the most exposed students and personal.
Why then this silence and this almost invisibility of the election on the campus ? Is this for the reasons that my colleague evokes ? Is this a direct consequence of the strange organization of the space that I described ? Is it a kind of catatonia linked to shock and amazement, for many, that after a first chaotic mandate, after the covid, and especially after January 6, Trump be in the process of reagening power by leading an almost open fascist campaign ? Is it still the effect of a certain bad class conscience, in a teaching staff which, without benefiting from the same big income as most of its very rich immediate neighbors in the town (who sometimes very openly display their support for Trump), withdraw all the privileges in his daily life and his lifestyle ? Everyone has their beautiful house, in a residential batch outside the “ GATED Communities »If prized around, with the same solar panels, the same Tesla parked in front of her home ? This tesla, moreover, symbol until there is little progressive concern for environmental issues, has she not become the embarrassing symbol of anything else since Elon Musk, and part of the Silicon Valley, actively supports Trump ? Has not become more embarrassing to stick his Harris sticker there today ? Do the divisions of the American left, especially in Israel and the Middle East, also explain that colleagues who wear Black Lives Matter panels or Lgbtq In their gardens, there are no panels for Harris ?
I have no final answers to these questions. Nor do I know if it presages the result of this election. But the helplessness of the conversation to take care of here and now, a subject as serious and as decisive, remains for me an enigma which leaves me in a strange distress.