H

eadlining The New York 
Times, 
the 
morning 

of Nov. 9, 2016 read 

the unpredicted results of the 
presidential 
election: 
“Donald 

Trump 
Is 

Elected 
President 
in 
Stunning 

Repudiation 
of the Establishment.” For many 
U.S. citizens and pollsters, these 
results were shocking. How could 
someone who defied political 
correctness, who used abrasive 
language and who seemed so far 
away from a presidential standard 
be elected? Though this may 
seem like a liberal take on the 
results (and admittedly it might 
be), the results were nonetheless 
shocking to both Republicans 
and Democrats alike. The core 
question that scholars and citizens 
are asking is, “what happened?” 
What did Trump possess that was 
so sorely overlooked in the polls?

Following the campaign of 

the 
presidential 
contenders 

throughout the year, the vast 
difference between Clinton and 

Trump 
was 
evident. 
Clinton, 

a longtime politician with an 
impressive 
resume, 
was 
by 

standards 
significantly 
more 

qualified than her opponent. Yet 
her streak of political experiences 
was tainted by scandals. In this 
light, too many Americans saw her 
as a “standard politician” made 
and corrupted by the system. 
She 
represented 
the 
political 

institutions that many American 
citizens 
mistrusted. 
Trump 

offered a far different product to 
voters.

Trump tapped into a market 

demand that Clinton did not. 
Trump 
essentially 
became 
a 

salesman for change. He began 
establishing this market power 
early on in the primaries, defying 
the 
system, 
making 
it 
clear 

that he would dismantle the 
establishment 
in 
Washington. 

While 
D.C. 
politicians 
were 

consumed with their own circle 
of elitists, they forgot to look 
outside the bubble and see that 
the face of rural America had 
changed. Donald Trump’s secret 
was that he was an outsider. His 

monopoly of power that no one 
could compete with was his claim 
to oppose the elitists and to stand 
beside the “working class” citizen. 
A politician who saw political 
correctness as a sham was in 
demand for many Americans.

Trump took advantage of this 

wide-open 
market, 
knowing 

that he could make statements 
that were clearly sexist, racist 
and harsh and still be seen as 
honest. In economic terms, he 
was “raising the price” for voters, 
without losing the quantity of 
voters he needed to secure the 
election. I recall all too familiar 
rhetoric from Trump voters: “Sure 
he is sexist and racist,” they say, 
“but at least he will get things 
done.” In other words, they mean, 
yes, the price to vote for him is 
high, but I still want a politician 
unafraid to defy the system. No 
other candidate could compete 
with this selling point, least of all 
Hillary Clinton.

— Lena Drevescan be reached 

at ldreves@umich.edu.

5
OPINION

Thursday, July 20, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

A hindsight look at the election

federal expropriation. As a means 
of compromise, they decided on 
two things: the federal government 
had almost total legal authority 
over the army and militia and the 
federal 
government 
should 
not 

have any authority at all to disarm 
the citizenry. After realizing this, I 
understood that the debate and gun 
ownership was rooted in U.S. DNA.

I understand that this debate has 

shifted greatly, where most view 
that government isn’t coming for 
one’s guns, people are interested in 
stronger background checks, and 
more is in common between the 
two sides than we like to realize. 
Nevertheless, as much as I can 
quote statistics about gun deaths 
in America, and the gun rights 
advocates can quote gun safety 
statistics, it becomes an argument 
of fact. In the past year as a student 
and neuroscience researcher, I have 
realized statistics can be skewed 
to whichever opinion you feel. It’s 
a form of strong confirmation bias 
where one seeks out information 
only to support their opinion. But as 
much as I can write and speak about 
the truths I find evident through 
research, often it isn’t the statistics 
that will convince either side of the 
argument. We are human beings who 
frequently determine our opinions 

not by what we read but by what we 
experience. This is the fundamental 
issue in most of our debates today: 
we surround ourselves with people 
and ideas of our own. This extreme 
amount of confirmation bias removes 
us from the experience of someone 
drastically different than ourselves, 
so when we approach an issue such 
as gun law, we retreat to our corners 
and tell each other, “Well if you just 
look at the statistics, you’d realize 
your idiocy.” But it’s deeper than 
that. It’s experience.

I grew up in a unique situation, 

where in northern Minnesota, I was 
both living in a city and surrounded 
by a strong hunting and gun rights 
culture. In my self-analysis, I have 
realized that the experiences for those 
in cities versus rural America are 
different. In cities, guns are often the 
weapon of choice for most homicides 
and crimes. They are considered vices 
of the country and are often put into a 
bad light. In rural America, a typical 
fall weekend is going out with one’s 
father or mother to the shooting range 
or the hunting cabin. In my experience, 
I have never fired a gun, but I grew up 
with many people who were both in 
a city environment and often went to 
the firing range or went hunting. They 
went to gun safety classes, were gifted a 
gun for Christmas, and had guns sitting 

around the house. Though I don’t plan 
on going to a gun range anytime soon, 
I do think that it shows a completely 
different 
emotional 
and 
cultural 

difference that most neglect to realize. 
It isn’t a legal debate; it’s a personal 
debate.

As stated before, gun control 

debates are more or less the 
equivalent to an “American element” 
on our metaphorical periodic table. 
It’s a debate rooted in our DNA. 
Nevertheless, 
I 
am 
frustrated 

that many don’t realize that gun 
support isn’t a matter of stupidity 
or idiocy, but rather an inability to 
become fascinated with the thought 
processes of others. These debates 
and questions can be painful, even 
insulting, yet often the intentions 
are not out of spite or malice. We can 
agree to disagree, but we shouldn’t 
forget that almost all debates are 
not black and white. It’s a spectrum. 
Become fascinated with difference 
of opinion.

— David Kamper can be 

reached at dgkamper@umich.edu.

DAVID
 KAMPER

Analyzing the gun debate
O

n the morning of June 14, 
2017, a few Republican 
lawmakers were at Eugene 

Simpson 
Stadium 
Park 

in 
Alexandria, 

Va. when shots 
ran out. It was 
the last practice 
before the congressional baseball 
game, which occurred every year to 
raise money for charity since 1909. 
When a loud gunshot went off, the 
men and women hit the ground, 
crouched in the dugout, behind 
fences and in the long outfield 
grass. Steve Scalise, the House of 
Representatives 
Majority 
Whip 

from Louisiana, stood at second 
base. He had nowhere to hide. He 
looked to the dugout before being 
struck in the left hip and collapsed 
to the ground. After struggling to 
army crawl to safety, he made it to 
center field, lying in the grass until 
the shooting stopped. Though police 
killed the shooter, the bullet broke 
Mr. Scalise’s bones, caused major 
internal bleeding and tore his organs.

I read how the shooter had 

multiple rounds of ammunition, a 
semi-automatic weapon and mental 
health issues. I thought, “How did this 
man get ahold of a weapon with such 
firepower? How many more shootings 
like this before we have to have stricter 
gun control?”

After this atrocity, many saw it as 

another example of a terrible shooting 
in our recent history. People wanted 
change with our nation’s approach to 
guns. My initial conclusion, as it has 
always been, was to have much more 
stringent gun control laws. I soon read 
that same day that many, especially 
Republicans, were calling for more 
guns to prevent instances like these. 
After hearing this, I had to take a 
second thought. We had read or seen 
exactly the same event, with exactly 
the same outcome, and we came to 
exactly the opposite conclusion. To 
most, I think that this would have been 
disheartening and another reason for 
gun control advocates to blow off gun 
rights supporters, calling them crazy 
and disillusioned. However, I became 
extremely fascinated and interested in 
the gun control debate, not to become 
angrily aggressive towards gun rights 
supporters, but because I quickly 
realized that even with the same event, 
two very different conclusions can be 
reached. This is a debate that is much 
more complicated than both sides tend 
to let on.

I am writing this not to voice 

support for the gun control lobby, 
but as a reflective piece. Rather than 
engaging in partisanship, I became 
greatly inquisitive about the logic of 
your average gun rights supporter 
(not just the NRA). To improve my 
understanding, I decided to turn to 
the Second Amendment. Now, I have 
read court opinions from Supreme 
Court cases addressing the Second 
Amendment (District of Columbia 
v. Heller and McDonald v. City of 
Chicago), but I wanted to keep an open 
mind. There I read:

“A well-regulated Militia, being 

necessary to the security of a free State, 
the right of the people to keep and bear 
Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Simply considering the wording of 

the Second Amendment, I was stopped 
within the first four words: a well-
regulated Militia. In my instinctual 
emotions of gun rights, I would have 
said that the debate should be over 
right there. Regulation is extremely 
necessary for guns, and since militias 
are mostly an entity of the past, it 
doesn’t make much sense for people 
to still own guns. Nevertheless, 
maintaining 
strong 
introspection 

was and is currently my goal. My gut 
reaction was in my interpretation 
of regulation. I hear the word, and I 
conclude naturally a need for an assault 
weapons ban among other measures, 
but for many, this “regulation” means 
better background checks, but more 
guns on more people. I quickly realized 
that is an error in communication for 
both sides of the debate.

Secondly, I arrived at the word 

“necessary.” This is where I believe 
the heart of the debate rests. What is 
necessary today? To understand this, 
I thought that I should learn more of 
the history of gun rights in America. In 
the founding generation, many found 
that governments were oppressive to 
its people. To respond to unexpected 
attacks, governments would depend on 
a militia of ordinary civilians, supplying 
his or her own weapons. After the 
Revolutionary War, the Constitutional 
Convention realized militia forces 
could not be relied on for national 
defense; therefore, the government 
should have the authority to regulate 
its militias. This became a classic Anti-
Federalist versus Federalist debate, 
establishing the root of the modern 
debate today.

This was one of many firsts 

where there was a massive shift in 
power from the states to the federal 
government. Anti-Federalists said 
that this removal of defense would 
all but diminish any effort against 

LENA 
DREVES

Read more of this column at 
MichiganDaily.com

