Zach Baker ’25

While I was writing this talk, I considered going in a couple of different directions. I thought about having something written before the election was called or completely disregarding politics, but after a lot of staring at my ceiling instead of going to sleep at night, I’m not going to stand up here and pretend like I wasn’t shocked and crushed when I woke up Wednesday morning and saw that New York Times notification on my phone. Regardless of what side of the aisle each of us is on, we were all affected by the results of the election, so I’m not going to ignore the situation we find ourselves in. Sure, some of the sentiment from last week might have died down, but come January and the inauguration it will be back. 

At this point in the year, most of you sitting here probably know that I am a Democrat. If you don’t, well, the secret’s out. In general, I tend to be very open about my political beliefs, especially this fall between all the Young Dems meetings we’ve hosted and the fact that I openly drive a Subaru. But as much as I would love to spend my time up here diving into my stance on every little issue, I think this is a time when our personal views need to be put aside, and all of us, including myself, need to take a step back and remember who we are. 

The truth of the present moment is that we live in a divided country. This includes international students, too, as they will be here for at least the next four years at Groton and likely at college. The last two times we faced a rift comparable to this one, all of the disunity and strife ended in violence. In 1861, it boiled over into the bloodiest conflict in American history. A century later, peaceful civil rights activists were arrested, beaten, and lynched en masse. It has been generations since hatred toward our own brothers and sisters around the United States has flowed as freely as it does now. The reality is all of us in this chapel will be part of whatever our nation faces in the coming weeks, months, and years; there is simply no avoiding it. And, because we are a part of it, we have the unique opportunity to shape it. 

Though individually we have little control over who makes our laws and decides our policies, we do have complete agency over ourselves and how we want to model our community. For those of you who support Kamala Harris, you have a right to be angry, sad, worried, and uncertain about what comes next. For those of you who support Donald Trump, you have a right to be happy, excited, and hopeful for the future. With such polar sentiments surrounding us on a campus as small as ours, though, it’s easy to let emotion get the better of us and dictate how we act. Trust me, I know: any mention of politics over the last week has sent me to the verge of crashing out. 

Yet, we also all have, as our beloved hockey coach Earl Cronan loves to reiterate (a lot), the right to do more. Attending this school has equipped us with the tools and abilities to bring significant change to any environment we find ourselves in, whether that’s here, back home, in college, out in the workforce one day, or anywhere—no matter where we are in our lives or in the world, we have the potential to work alongside one another to revamp anything. 

So, I want to bring this back to our lives right now. Every single one of us has to make a choice. What do we want our school, our relationships, and our lives to look like? From this moment in history, there are two paths we can choose to go down. First is the path of bitterness and animosity. We can spend our time here in loathing, refusing to integrate with those who disagree with us, and deepen the divide by making the conscious decision to value other people based on their ideology—not for who they are as human beings. 

Now, I know what you’re all thinking: that is obviously the wrong path. However, not walking down it is not as straightforward as it may seem. Sometime in your life, you will inevitably have a conversation with someone about a topic regarding one of your fundamental beliefs and you will never find common ground with the person on the other side. When that moment comes, you will be upset, and you will be confused, and that is OK. 

You still have a choice to make, though. You can try to counter them, argue, do whatever you can to convince them that they’re wrong and you’re right. Or, you can listen. 

I can almost assure you that their beliefs are just as strong and as deep-rooted as yours. In this age of information, where everyone can know exactly what is going on anywhere in the world at any time, people simply have their minds made up, there is no changing that. 

So all we can do is try to understand, which leads me to the theme of the second path: treating each other with dignity and respect. It’s human decency. Yes, choosing this path is very challenging, to say the least. It’s hard to ignore the twist in your stomach that comes when you hear something you so vehemently disagree with. But, when has anything worth doing ever been easy? 

Our generation is free to reject the divisive rhetoric that has become so acutely pushed onto all of us by the media and politicians. Yes, it is a monumental task and one that will take years, likely even decades. Yet, it was just another Groton kid who led the United States out of the Great Depression, arguably the most trying time in the history of our country. If he could do that, why can’t we do this? 

Now, I want to make it clear that I am not saying that you have to be friends with people you disagree with. Each of us honors our own principles and values. But we don’t have to manufacture vicious enemies of one another. All of us share the common goals of pursuing happiness and building a more just, equitable, and flourishing society. While we may have different ideas for how to reach those, we need to recognize that we are far more similar than the media and those who try to divide us want us to believe. 

Our disagreements are what fuel our democracy. Frustrating as they can be sometimes, especially within the various branches of the government, our disagreements require us to come together to talk and to compromise. And if we can bring ourselves to do those things with an open mind and good intentions, then we are on the right path. 

No matter what state our country or our world is in, each and every one of us has the talents we need to bring about meaningful change, and there are many others out there just as prepared as we are. This is bigger than all of us. So, it is up to us how we bring ourselves, our knowledge, our privilege, and the principles and values that Groton instills in us to shape the world as we see fit and make it a better place for everyone. In my not-so-unbiased opinion, that starts with choosing the path of dignity and mutual respect.