One Trump adviser called for
Clinton to be killed by a “firing
squad,” C-list speakers angrily
screamed at the American people
that we are all in grave danger
and chants of “Lock her up,”
reminiscent
of
authoritarian
regimes
imprisoning
political
enemies, rang through the halls.
The vitriolic atmosphere of the
last week sought to target our fears
and inner demons. The Republican
National Convention showed what
four years of Trump would be:
division and hatred.
We are not a “divided crime
scene,” as Trump said, and our
country is not on the verge of
destruction.
Trump
attempted
to frame his convention in terms
reminiscent of Nixon in 1968 —
that the world is in utter chaos,
and he will restore “law and order.”
However, Trump has failed in two
ways. First, while violence floods
our newsfeeds and terrorism seems
to strike every week, this is not
1968. For context, our country is
not in a troubling overseas war with
500,000 American soldiers on the
ground like Vietnam, our crime rate
is dramatically down and our racial
discord at home does not compare
to the riots, assassinations and
violence of 1968. The fervor for a
law and order candidate is not what
it was. Furthermore, Nixon allowed
for hope and a new future in his
dark talk — Trump has dived into
the darkness without providing a
vision for a brighter future.
There’s another way though;
we do not have to be filled with
so much fear and hate. Robert F.
Kennedy embodied this desire for
togetherness in dark times. On the
day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s
assassination in 1968, RFK stood
on the top of a truck bed and broke
the news to an African-American
community in Indianapolis. While
the news created protests and
violence across the country, the one
place that remained peaceful was
Indianapolis — largely in part to
RFK’s plea.
He said:
“What we need in the United
States is not division; what we need
in the United States is not hatred;
what we need in the United States
is not violence or lawlessness, but is
love and wisdom and compassion
toward one another, and a feeling of
justice toward those who still suffer
within our country, whether they be
white or whether they be Black.”
This is what we need in our
country.
The
president
is
our
ambassador to the world, and he or
she can frame the hearts and minds
of our country. Our kids are watching
and the future of our country is
taking their cues from our current
leaders. Trump spews hatred and
division because this is his strategy to
win; we do not need more of that. We
need a leader who won’t tell people
to fear and divide, but beg people to
come together.
Michelle
Obama’s
convention
speech exemplified what we need.
Not divisiveness but, “when crisis
hits, we don’t turn against each other
— no, we listen to each other. We
lean on each other. Because we are
always stronger together.” Clinton
is not RFK, and there are numerous,
reasonable issues with her potential
presidency — but she’s what we’ve
got. Trump’s divisive rhetoric alone
will tug at the pluralism that defines
the United States, and the hate
and anger he brings will clout and
hurt our country in innumerable
ways, starting with our political
environment and trickling down to
how our children act. Take a step
back and look at the big picture: Our
founding principles of acceptance
and understanding cannot stand
for a candidate who rolls down the
slippery slope of sanctioned hate.
—CJ Mayer is an LSA sohpomore.
5
OPINION
Thursday, July 28, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
The danger of the RNC’s tone
E-mail aaron at asandEl@umich.Edu
AARON SANDEL
Civics and
Pokemon Go
T
his is not another think
piece about Pokemon Go.
But it’s kind of crazy how
Pokemon
Go
took over the
mobile
(and
augmented
reality)
world over the past few weeks.
Perhaps this is the political
science minor in me, but the
first thing I thought about as I
played the game (besides what
a lure module does) was how I
was visiting, for the very first
time, community centers, public
buildings, city halls, courthouses
and libraries in my community
and the surrounding areas —
many of which I never knew
existed.
By this point in 2016, there’s
quite a lot of political fatigue.
The Republican nominee is a
certified racist, misogynist and
xenophobe with a frighteningly
cultish fan-base, whose outright
lack of public policy experience
and
violently
unbridled
temperament somehow propels
him forward at every turn. The
Democratic nominee should be
one of historic allure, a symbol
for gender parity and expert
policy negotiations, but who
is quelled piecemeal by her
very own history, a potpourri
of
errant
decisions
and,
of
course, the enduring twilight of
sexism. And this is all without
mentioning the nearly weekly
travesties
that
continue
to
devastate
communities
from
Nice to Baton Rouge to Orlando
to Dallas. The political climate
is, for many, exhausting.
And yet, here we are. We are
running
around
unabashedly.
Outdoors. Frequenting public
spaces where local politics —
perhaps the most practically
impactful form of government
— is practiced. Pokemon Go
has brought us away from the
lugubrious
state
of
national
politics and instead directed us,
by way of Eevees and Bulbasaurs,
to the steady centers of our
cities. There lies an immense
opportunity
here
for
public
engagement at a scale we have
not yet experienced.
Ideally, the political system
should be, in Lincoln’s seminal
words, “of the people, by the
people, and for the people.” But
when more than 80 percent of
eligible voters fail to participate
in local elections, the system
breaks. We can see how broken
it is every day on the news at a
federal level. We can see how
broken it is every day when state
budget mismanagement leads to
a horrific endemic. We can see
how broken it is every day when
living, breathing children come
second to greed, corruption and
making up the bottom line. And
yet, still voters do not exercise
their
hard-fought
right
of
participation.
What if games like Pokemon Go
could change this? Millennials
longing for nostalgic fun are
being exposed to public places of
organizing and change — what
if there were augmented reality
rewards (whether in Poke-form
or through another innovation)
for actually taking the next step
and shaping that change. What if
voter education and information
was not done just by dreaded
phone banking and door-to-door
canvassing but was something
people were incentivized to do?
What if you saw a Vulpix near
your polling place, and then
were motivated to register to
vote? What if, during your quest
for a set of Pokeballs, you were
greeted
by
some
milestones
about how to participate in city
council meetings? How much
more engagement could we get?
I don’t think Pokemon is the
necessarily avenue we should
take to pursue civic engagement.
It’s fun, it’s a game and it needs
to remain fun to retain its user
base and value — that’s just
how capitalism works. Pokemon
Go is just an initial dose of
augmented reality in the mobile
tech world. Games like this have
massive potential to catalyze our
catatonic (and frankly, shameful)
public participation rates. And
maybe once that happens, we
won’t see such a broken system
each and every day. Maybe then,
finally, we can have a body of
organizers,
participants
and
voters who ascend the ranks of
politics for a politics of, for and
by the real people.
—Madeline Nowicki can be
reached at nowickim@umich.edu.
MADELINE
NOWKICKI
CJ MAYER | OP-ED