Editors’ Note: Students reached out to The Phoenix in response to former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s visit to Swarthmore College. Jean-Pierre spoke at Swarthmore on Oct. 30 as a part of her publicity tour for her new book, “Independent.” The students’ thoughts are edited for clarity. Rafael Karpowitz, one of the contributors, is one of The Phoenix’s Opinions editors. He recused himself from his editorial capacity for this article.
Rafael Karpowitz ’27:
The most generous way I can describe the entire event with Karine Jean-Pierre, including her initial discussion and subsequent Q&A, is extremely bizarre. In fact, her overall message seemed like less of a coherent, well-thought-out political stance than a disjointed series of relatively uninspiring, and at times incomprehensible, takes that were nonetheless presented as some radical new vision for politics. It reminded me of those scenes from nonpolitical shows or movies in which we catch a glimpse of some archetypal politician in the background or on TV vaguely gesturing at the importance of carving your own independent path. There is, of course, no substantive articulation of what this means in practice and we certainly never see the fictional politicians present a coherent political message beyond these amorphous and faux-controversial talking points. Such a message is not the point of the movies I’m describing, and so they usually move past these moments of political incoherence in a few seconds. Unfortunately, we were not so lucky during the conversation on Monday.
Perhaps “surreal,” rather than “bizarre,” better captures the feeling that myself and many in the audience with whom I’ve talked felt when trying to draw out anything truly substantive from what she said. At one moment, Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that “being independent means refusing to silence your voice” but perplexingly stated soon after that the most important thing to do right now is to be quiet and listen.
She also left the Democratic Party in protest of what she saw as the cruel decision to push Biden out last summer, blaming broad but unnamed swaths of the Democratic establishment. However, when pressed on some of her own views on the Biden Administration’s approach, she replied that we must not relitigate the past.
She constantly defended the few clear assertions which she did make (such as the perceived cruelty of those who forced Biden to drop out and then supposedly did not sufficiently support Harris) by saying that this was simply her own personal perspective. In fact, the dominant tone of the entire event, if there was one, was personal defensiveness.
The irony of her rhetoric is that, while insisting on the importance of remaining independent, the only real substance of what she said was to defend two of the most powerful Democrats (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris). In fact, her defense of both of them not only undermines her claim to independence but is in itself contradictory given her own critique of the Democrats. She claims that Biden and Harris were both subject to the viciousness of various members of the Democratic Party. However, she seems unable to grapple with the fact that the very reason that most Democratic leaders felt it necessary to push Biden out (in the cruel manner she critiques), was to throw their full support behind a much stronger candidate in the form of Kamala Harris. How, then, can she consider the perceived cruelty toward Harris and Biden as having originated from the same source?
Near the end of her talk, Jean-Pierre asserted to the audience that it is essential “to question everything in this moment.” With this point I would definitely agree, because after her discussion I’m certainly questioning whether there was much at all of value to take away.
Keanu Arpels-Josiah ’28:
We’re in this moment with Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre where she has an opportunity to lead, and she’s talking specifically about the Democratic Party and claiming to criticize it. Instead of any fraction of leadership, however, she entirely failed to talk about the main reason that the Democratic Party is losing support: their continued funding and support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
While here at Swarthmore and throughout her book tour, she’s had opportunity after opportunity to share what she thought the Biden administration could’ve done differently or what she thinks Democrats should be doing; she’s refused time and again. She’s refused to criticize the funding for bombs or genocide in Gaza by the American government that she defended day after day in the Whire House. She’s refused to criticize the expansion of ICE funding and fossil fuel infrastructure that skyrocketed during the Biden administration.
I was really, really disappointed to see — here on Swarthmore’s campus — a figure who has the opportunity and the platform to lead and instead chooses to side with the same forces of genocide and exploitation that so many students have been so passionately organizing and protesting against. Her response to the question was truly inadequate. We have a responsibility as Swarthmore students to talk about the values that we’re here to investigate, ask the hard questions in every space we’re in, and have these sorts of dialogues. Her refusal to truly answer my question shows resistance to engaging in the honest dialogue that is critical to a functioning democracy. On a broader note, her continued cover for the Biden Administration’s Gaza policy shows an unwillingness to engage with our political reality.
Neria Spence ’28:
I was really appalled at the way Karine Jean-Pierre evaded questions, continuously made ridiculous statements riddled with contradictions, and shut down any opportunity for students to engage with her on her complicity in the ongoing genocide through her close work with both the Obama and Biden Administrations. She spent so much time discussing how important healthy debate and dialogue is and shut down any opportunity to engage with students who found issue with her other statements. Her talk really perfectly encapsulated, to me, the dangerous way liberalism is functioning in this country.
Oona Pitter ’28:
As a Black queer woman, especially as a public figure who claims to value minority rights, refusing to condemn the genocide in Gaza and your complicity on the grounds that “it’s too long-standing a policy,” and “what about this, that, and the third president who built the system the Biden administration had to operate under” is spineless and ridiculous. These are the very same grounds upon which figures representing our white supremacist government have defended massive violence, exploitation, and murder in the U.S. and abroad. Proudly claiming your position as “just a mouthpiece” for a genocidal administration the moment you’re asked to take a position of your own, despite repeatedly asserting the importance of achieving a position of power as a minority, is crazy. Refusing to converse with students after talking about your love for discourse is crazy, proudly being a part of the Obama administration which deported three million people while claiming to care for migrant rights is crazy. There is so much more, even from this talk alone … Girl, bye.
