Victor Joecks lamented the lack of statesmen Hillsdale produces in an opinion earlier this month (“Hillsdale doesn’t produce many statesmen. Let’s change that,” Sept. 5). Joecks, a seasoned journalist, has been around politicians longer than I, a rookie journalist, and he gives helpful tips for students who want to someday become elected officials. While he’s correct that the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program isn’t enough to prepare students to be politicians, he’s wrong to regret how few elected officials Hillsdale produces. Here in Washington, D.C., where I and hundreds of other Hillsdale alumni work politically-adjacent jobs, the lack of Hillsdale-educated politicians is a boon to our school’s mission.
Statesmen are rare; politicians are not. Hillsdale teaches students that being the former requires a great sense of responsibility and a strong character — which is good preparation for students interested in politics, even if it detracts their career aspirations from elected office.
Politics is a game in which it’s often beneficial to compromise one’s values and easy to sell out. Some manage to ignore the game’s evil attributes. (Alumnus and Michigan state Rep. Andrew Fink has done so successfully.) Most don’t. Although many students enter Hillsdale earnest in their desires to become politicians, four years spent studying what’s good, true, and beautiful seem to guide students away from elected office. It’s easy to see why. The reality of politics is much less romantic when you know what it entails. Politics attracts cheaters, self-interested scoundrels, and people for whom status is more important than governing. Political life often comes at the expense of family life and personal convictions. Politics is also transactional, which Joecks demonstrated when he advised students to join the military in order to better appeal to future constituents.
Hillsdale had more students working in the last Republican administration than did all of the Ivy League schools combined, I’m told. The same will likely be true of the next Republican administration. Alumni who serve the nation in the shadows of political life haven’t dimmed Hillsdale’s influence: they write presidential speeches, help draft Supreme Court opinions, and craft policy. And if they are asked to betray their principles for politics, non-elected alumni have the agency to leave their jobs — for example, when a president refuses to accept the results of an election, or when a congressman’s seedy history with online chat rooms is revealed.
If a Hillsdale alumnus surprises us in the future with his statesmanship, we should be proud. But students who pursue a path like Joecks, who himself decided to forego a career in politics for a successful writing career, are fine examples of Hillsdale’s legacy.
Haley Strack ’23 is a former Opinions editor at The Collegian. She is now a Buckley Fellow at National Review, where she covers current affairs.
