Amherst Isn't As Left as You May Think

Amherst has a certain reputation. Supposedly, we are overwhelmingly liberal, left-leaning, politically attuned, and morally enlightened compared to the rest of the country. On paper, that might even be true. Sit in almost any humanities class you’ll hear things that would make even the most moderate Fox News host convulse. But, more often than not, the radicalism ends when the class period does. For all the fiery critiques and righteous nodding, very little of that energy survives beyond the classroom. 

The longer I’ve been here at Amherst, the more I’ve realized how thin the veneer of our supposed “radical woke leftism” really is. The leftist consensus we pride ourselves on is not quite as unanimous as it appears. Some of my friends — people I assumed were left-leaning by default, because who isn’t at Amherst — turned out not to be ideological opposites, but something more elusive: politically noncommittal. They value “balance” — like balancing a condemnation of injustice with a reluctance to alienate friends, balancing abstract commitments to equity with an aversion to social conflict, balancing the language of urgency with the instinct to keep things low-stakes and polite. To be clear, so do I. Intellectual seriousness isn’t compatible with living inside an echo chamber. Intellectual rigor requires questioning your own side. But there’s a difference between intellectual openness and reflexive neutrality; between engaging competing ideas in good faith and constantly softening your own convictions so no one feels uncomfortable.

A college campus should have ideological diversity. In fact, it requires it. Our education loses its meaning if everyone arrives at the same conclusions and simply regurgitates them back to one another. People should feel free to articulate what they believe without fear of social exile or intellectual shaming.

What I’ve encountered more often than outright conservatism is a kind of conflict-avoidant liberalism — a tendency to nod along in whatever direction the conversation is moving. In class, that means fluent progressive language. In private, it means retreating to “I just think both sides have points” or “it’s more complicated than that” without ever clarifying what you actually believe. And I get that it’s not malicious. It’s social. No one wants to be the person who disrupts the vibe or risks being seen as extreme or radical or “too woke.” But when everyone is preoccupied with not offending, politics loses its substance, and what appears to be consensus reveals itself as little more than social courtesy. Some are quietly conservative in ways they’ll never say out loud in class but will murmur in private group chats and on Fizz. And a shocking number of students aren’t political at all — which, in a place that prides itself on intellectual seriousness and moral awareness, feels far more jarring to me than any opinion I could happen to disagree with.

But that’s precisely why the silence is so puzzling. If you believe something — whether it aligns with the dominant culture here or challenges it — why not own it? And why not act on it? Why default to vagueness, to carefully hedged statements, to whatever position feels least disruptive in the moment? Disagreement, when expressed honestly, sharpens thinking. It forces clarity. What weakens a political culture isn’t ideological difference; it’s disingenuous social coherence. It’s the habit of withholding conviction in order to preserve comfort.

What is frustrating, though, is when the hidden views aren’t just different but actively ignorant. When someone you considered close casually drops a take that’s uninformed, dismissive of marginalized groups, or parroting talking points they haven’t bothered to question, it feels like a betrayal — not of you personally, but of the values the campus pretends to share. And in those moments, I’ve had to draw boundaries. I can’t spend my day analyzing structures of oppression in class and then pretend it’s fine when someone repeats Fox News arguments about welfare in New York City or brings up “both sides” of the abortion “debate” or calls the genocide in Gaza a “war” or “conflict.”

Also, this isn’t to say that our campus is secretly red; it’s not exactly. But the myth that Amherst is filled with passionate leftists collapses the moment you ask people to do more than nod along. Beneath all the progressive vocabulary and the well-rehearsed critiques of capitalism, there’s a pervasive apathy that shapes student life far more than anyone admits. 

This pattern is not unique to Amherst — though being situated in deep-blue Massachusetts shapes it in particular ways. The political culture here is not the same as it is in swing states or more ideologically mixed regions, where disagreement is less abstract and often more personal, as students from those contexts have noted. It reflects a broader culture at elite institutions, where politics is often aestheticized rather than operationalized. At schools like ours, you are rewarded for being analytically sharp. You learn how to cite Foucault and Fanon, how to rhetorically deconstruct neoliberalism, how to identify systems of domination in a syllabus or a Supreme Court opinion. But lived radicalism — the kind that spills beyond the classroom — is far less convenient.

It demands time that could be spent polishing a resume. It requires missing a networking dinner to attend a town hall. It means committing to weekly meetings that don’t always feel inspiring, doing logistical work that no one applauds, knocking on the doors of those who disagree with you. It invites discomfort and conflict — with administrators, with peers, sometimes with friends. It threatens the careful social equilibrium of a campus where reputation and future opportunities matter.

Elite institutions, by design, train students to orient their lives towards proximity to power. They cultivate ambition, polish, and strategic thinking. Even the most progressive students internalize this. We talk about dismantling systems while simultaneously positioning ourselves to succeed within them. We critique corporate capitalism and then line up for consulting internships. We analyze the failures of American democracy and then prioritize fellowships that advance our individual trajectories. None of this is a personal failing. It reflects an environment that subtly — and sometimes not so subtly — trains us to equate success with proximity to power, and impact with individual advancement rather than collective disruption.

So, it becomes far easier to theorize oppression than to organize against it. It is easier to perfect the critique than to build the coalition. Easier to perform outrage than to sustain commitment. And when an entire institutional culture subtly steers students toward individual advancement, we should not be surprised that collective action feels like an extracurricular — optional, admirable, but ultimately secondary.

This also complicates the generational myth that young people are uniformly left-wing. Yes, many of us support progressive positions in theory. But support without sustained participation is inert. Liking leftist posts, using leftist vocabulary, or voting blue once every four years does not fix anything or achieve anything. 

Now I’m about to say something that some might consider to be diabolical, especially to put on the internet — but it needs to be said. What I’m getting at is twofold. First: Progressive and left-leaning students on this campus aren’t doing enough. Second: People need to be more openly opinionated about anything. Stop softening your convictions to preserve whatever you think you are preserving — it’s nothing besides authoritarianism, but that is a whole other article.  Some might respond, “But what about conservative ideas that actively attack your identity as a queer woman or threaten the rights of other marginalized communities — how do you reckon with that?” And the truth is, I can’t. Neutrality or diplomacy in those moments is impossible for me. If you know me, you know this isn’t a failing I can simply set aside. When I hear arguments that are ignorant, baseless, or actively harmful, my response is immediate and unfiltered anger. I cannot nod along. I cannot soften my reaction. Comfort — my own or anyone else’s — does not take precedence. I, to maybe a fault, cannot be diplomatic. 

And it’s not simply disagreement, since it’s a direct clash with who I am and with the communities I care about. And unlike the conflict-avoidant students I write about, my instinct isn’t to hedge or to balance — it is to confront, to call it out, sometimes loudly, and it’s uncomfortable. And yeah, it’s a flaw of mine. My anger can shut down a conversation before it even begins, and I have to reckon with that. 

But here’s the thing: I’m not going to apologize for feeling this deeply. Anger, in these moments, isn’t always a flaw. It’s a signal that what’s at stake is real. Politics isn’t abstract; it shapes our lives, our communities, and the people we care about. To pretend otherwise — to treat dangerous ideas as something to be politely navigated — is a betrayal of those very values. And if we can’t summon the courage to confront what’s harmful, what are our ideals even worth?  Admitting this tension — that I struggle to listen when I feel under attack — is part of being honest about the stakes of political engagement. It’s also part of real commitment, which requires both courage and reflection, even when our own emotions make it hard to get there.

I was struck by this tension between anger and pragmatism while listening to Pete Buttigieg speak at LitFest. And I’m not a fan of his. If anything, I’ve often found his brand of politics overly polished, too comfortable within the very structures I think need deeper disruption. But even from someone I disagree with on some aspects, certain truths can land. 

Buttigieg described citizenship not as brand management, but as participation in the American experiment — serving a country and its people rather than any single leader. He cautioned against a politics defined purely by reaction. It is not enough, he suggested, to promise to reverse the nightmare of one administration and then restore a fragile status quo. “Better than now” is not the same as “better than before.” If democracy survives a crisis only to drift back into complacency, then nothing meaningful has changed.

That critique applies nationally and at Amherst too. If our political ambition extends only to preventing something worse, we have already conceded too much. If Democrats — or any party — frame victory merely as undoing damage rather than reengineering a social contract strained by inequality, technological upheaval, and mistrust, they will continue to lose people who are desperate for structural change. And if students at places like Amherst cannot model sustained engagement, we should not be surprised when national politics feels hollow.

In a previous piece I wrote about the burden placed on young people to “change the world.” I still believe that burden is real — often unfairly so. We have inherited climate catastrophe, democratic erosion, and economic precarity. But burden does not absolve us of responsibility. We cannot control the entire trajectory of the country. We can control whether our values manifest in action.

So here is the call for honesty: Amherst is not a campus of radical firebrands. It is a campus of articulate critics who are often reluctant participants. And we must do something about it.

And here is the challenge: align your stated values with your behavior. If you believe something is unjust, ask what you are willing to do about it — beyond discussing it. That might mean organizing. It might mean canvassing. It might mean challenging a friend. It might mean building infrastructure that lasts longer than a semester. 

Real political commitment is not glamorous. It is repetitive, sometimes boring, and often frustrating. It rarely gets noticed. But it is the only thing that translates ideas into larger, broader outcomes. So I’ll end with a question: When the seminar ends and the laptops close, what remains of your politics?