4

Thursday, July 28, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

LARA MOEHLMAN

EDITOR IN CHIEF

JEREMY KAPLAN

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

BRADLEY WHIPPLE

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

Sanders and his movement 

have separated

S

cience is a human invention, 
based on the unique ability 
to employ rational thought 

toward 
observation. 
The 
Greek 

philosopher 
Aristotle 
championed empirical observation 
as the best way to draw universal 
conclusions about the world. The 
sun rises from the east. Living things 
need food to survive. These are 
truths which all developed minds 
agree upon. However, while a human 
invention, rational thinking guides 
only a portion of human thought. 
Humans have other influences too 
— less cerebral and more deeply 
ingrained.

Many Americans, especially, often 

seem portrayed as rejecting rational 
thought. Watching and reading the 
news lately, especially about the 
Republican National Convention, I 
am reminded of how many people 
apparently let go of reason and fact 
for the sake of their beliefs or out 
of a strong emotion such as fear or 
determination.

This is an age where social 

media and other outlets enable 
anyone to voice their arguments 
to the widest audience possible, 
without the necessity for fact-
checking. Donald Trump has, over 
the course of a year, captured the 
support of people who have ignored 
factual arguments or have been 
unable to justify their convictions 
for carefully-considered, specific 
reasons. 
Instead, 
they 
feel 

uncertain of the direction they 
see in their lives within a more-
globalized, 
unfamiliar 
world. 

Trump 
hasn’t 
delivered 
many 

specific step-by-step plans for 
how his administration will carry 
out their policies in order to draw 
votes, but he also hasn’t needed to.

Equally amazing, if not more 

so, has been widespread refusal 

in the United States to accept 
human responsibility for climate 
change through the increase of 
atmospheric carbon dioxide to 
unprecedented levels and rising 
temperatures. Proponents for more 
sustainable 
practices 
hammer 

away that 97 percent of climate 
scientists 
agree 
about 
human 

activities 
accelerating 
climate 

warming. The scientific method 
confirms this again and again, yet 
it didn’t prevent a U.S. senator from 
bringing a snowball onto the Senate 
floor during winter in Washington 
as evidence for the unlikelihood of 
climate change’s existence. As of 
two years ago, half of all Americans 
didn’t ascribe to this belief either. 
Their opinions are rationalized by 
something other than science.

Today, the scientific method 

and rational thinking still hold 
tremendous sway in our society. 
The 
professions 
of 
medicine, 

engineering and science are among 
the most prestigious to be achieved. 
Humans have been able to utilize 
the rational mind to succeed in some 
of the greatest feats in history: the 
construction of towering structures, 
sending people to the moon or to live 
for months in space, and building 
the Internet to enable instantaneous 
mixed-media 
communication 

between continents.

This is not a critique of those 

who make decisions on divisive 
issues informed by something other 
than science and rational thinking, 
but a consideration of why such 
people arrive at the opinions they 
have. Every individual has the 
mental capacity to think rationally, 
but no individual chooses to in all 
situations. Even the most utilitarian 
of individuals, to some degree, may 
cave to their less rational desires. 

It’s easy for a supporter of a 

cause, like transitioning to cleaner 
energy, to portray their opponents 
as unintelligent and uninformed. 

But those who may not require 
the latest science to inform their 
opinion often have a deeper-rooted 
rationalization. For example, some 
opponents of clean energy who favor 
the use of fossil fuels have relied 
on those forms of energy for their 
livelihood.

I remember visiting the tiny, 

struggling 
Appalachian 
town 

of Dante, Virginia (pronounced 
“Daint”), whose economy has relied 
on coal mining for 100 years. Its 
inhabitants lamented the industry’s 
transition to other fuel sources. 
The movement to transition toward 
cleaner energy has seen coal as part 
of the problem, but investing in the 
technology to eliminate emissions 
due to coal burning may make as 
large an impact in the short term as 
beginning to switch the power grid 
to renewable sources.

The 
decision 
by 
so 
many 

Americans to subscribe to feelings 
over 
facts 
concerning 
critical 

national issues is worrisome. Yet, to 
additionally barrage someone with 
science-backed data in attempt to 
dismantle their arguments proves 
ineffective toward reaching common 
ground. What then can be done to 
create harmony between viewpoints 
when those viewpoints are informed 
by such different reasoning?

The solution requires patience 

and dialogue. Those of us who 
rely 
on 
the 
scientific 
method 

and rational thought to inform 
our understanding of the world 
should seek to understand the 
rationalizations 
others 
make 

to 
support 
their 
convictions. 

Sometimes their rationalizations are 
very personal. When the rest of the 
world believes that Americans value 
science less than other developed 
countries, what they are actually 
seeing is diversity.

—David Mertz can be reahed 

at drmertz@umich.edu.

PHILADELPHIA - As the last days 
of the Bernie Sanders campaign 
come to a close, the Vermont 
senator has a lot 
to do to unify 
the Democratic 
Party. All week, 
protesters have 
marched through the streets of 
Philadelphia, shutting down major 
intersections and hosting massive 
rallies. 
Among 
delegates 
and 

protesters alike, rumors swirled 
about a potential protest of the roll 
call vote, the vote that awarded the 
nomination to the nominee.

In his highly-regarded speech 

Monday night, Sanders said that he 
“looked forward to (the delegates) 
votes on Tuesday night.” This 
symbolic gesture was possibly the 
last chance that Sanders supporters 
had to stop Clinton from securing 
the nomination, and their votes 
would be the symbolic gesture 
that they were opposed to the 
nomination of Clinton.

One protester I spoke to, who 

wished to not be named, indicated 
that he felt it was possible for 
Sanders to still win the nomination. 
As we headed into the Tuesday roll 
call vote, rumors swirled about a 
potential uprising by the Bernie 
Sanders delegates from across the 
country.

Tuesday, per the rules of the 

convention, a roll call vote was 
taken, and in an act of unity, Sanders 
asked for a rule change after every 
state stated their votes and allowed 
Clinton to be nominated without 
contest. Bernie Sanders had fallen 
in line, and it was over.

Shortly 
after, 
hundreds 
of 

Bernie delegates walked out of the 
convention hall and occupied the 
media tent in an act of resistance to 
the nomination of Hillary Clinton 
as the party’s nomination. This 
means, more than anything else, 
that Bernie Sanders has separated 
from his movement. All throughout 
the convention, I heard angry 
statements about people leaving 
the party, but by walking out, the 
delegates had sealed their fates. 
The ultra-progressive wing of the 
Democratic Party is no longer a part 
of the party, and their insurgency 
should be treated as such.

Keep in mind, these weren’t 

the sweaty and screaming radical 
Green Party and socialist movement 
members that were outside the 
gates. No, these protestors were 
elected and certified delegates 
of 
the 
Democratic 
National 

Convention.

It’s reached a point that Michigan 

Democratic Party member Lena 
Thompson said that “It’s up to 
(Clinton) to win us over” and that 
without that, there would be no 
support from Sanders supporters.

Many Sanders supporters are 

falling in line, and many are 
also facing the realization that 
Hillary Clinton is the only other 
alternative to a Donald Trump 
presidency. However, many more 
are dragging their heels to a 
notion of an illegitimate election. 
Several delegates handed me a 
report that insinuated that vote 
totals could be off by “sometimes 
more than 10 percent,” telling me 
that this was due to paper ballots 
being miscounted by corrupt party 
officials.

There are legitimate concerns to 

be had about the bias of the DNC, 
especially in light of the recent 
e-mail hack, in which e-mails were 
leaked from the DNC that mocked 
and talked down the Sanders 
Campaign. However, there is no 
version of reality in which an 
elaborate scheme involving ballot 
counters took down the entire 
Sanders campaign.

During the nominating process, 

many regards and congratulations 
were issued to Bernie Sanders. 
These are all great steps to ensuring 
that Donald Trump does not win in 
November, but buying into the belief 
that “Clinton stole the primary, so 
she can steal the general as well”, as 
Michigan delegate Alan Benchich 
believes, won’t solve anything.

The primary is officially over, and 

so is the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. 
The platform of the Democratic 
Party is the most progressive it has 
ever been, and Sanders has changed 
politics forever. Now, it’s time to 
elect Hillary Clinton and save the 
country from the fate it faces under 
Donald Trump.

—Kevin Sweitzer can be 

reached at ksweitz@umich.edu.

Carolyn Ayaub, Roland Davidson, Caitlin Heenan, 
Elena Hubbell, Jeremy Kaplan, Madeline Nowicki, 

Kevin Sweitzer, Brooke White.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Overlooking facts 

DAVID
MERTZ

KEVIN
SWEITZER