I 

hope I speak for a lot of 
people somewhat left of 
center when I say that the 

Republican 
Party’s 
capability 

for hypocrisy can be amazing 
— we’ve spent years listening to 
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY., 
grumble 
about 
spendthrift 

Democrats, and those of us from 
the South and Midwest have 
heard a thousand different ways 
the communist, Muslim, socialist, 
President Barack Obama was 
going to waste our tax money. 
And then — just last week — the 
White House published a budget 
that would add $984 billion to the 
deficit in 2019. What happened to 
the party of fiscal discipline?

The answer lies in the way 

the Democratic and Republican 
Parties are composed — we see 
them as mirror images of each 
other, with only ideology to 
distinguish them, but the real 
differences run deeper. What 
looks like hypocrisy to the 
Democratic Party can often be 
explained by differences in the 
Republican Party’s structure.

In the book “Asymmetric 

Politics,” Matt Grossmann and 
David A. Hopkins argue the 
modern Democratic Party is 
based on a coalition of people 
who are united in their identity 
as disadvantaged peoples or the 
allies thereof. The LGBT social 
movement allies with the feminist 
movement to vote Democrat, 
not because they necessarily 
agree on tax policy, but because 
Democrats represent them both 
as interest groups harmed by the 
status quo.

Similarly, Democrats unite 

the 
majority 
of 
Americans 

minorities, 
not 
because 
the 

composite groups necessarily 
agree 
about 
whether 
the 

minimum wage should be $12 
or $15 an hour, but because they 
share an interest in protections 
for disenfranchised groups and 
the Republican Party doesn’t — 
not at the same level, at least.

The 
Republican 
Party, 

conversely, 
is 
based 
on 

ideological identity. It helps 
that the Republican electorate 
is somewhat homogenous — 
most of their voters are white, 
straight and over 35 — but the 
most important factor seems 
to be that Republicans are 
ideologically conservative.

An example from recent 

political history comes to mind: 
former 
Gov. 
Mark 
Sanford, 

R-S.C., vanished for a week 
in 2011 to visit his mistress in 
Argentina, and still managed to 
beat the Democratic candidate 
— Elizabeth Colbert Busch — in 
a 2013 race for the U.S. House of 
Representatives. Colbert Busch 
didn’t lose because she wasn’t a 
white heterosexual female — she 
was — she lost because Sanford 
could better demonstrate his 
conservative identity.

The Republican Party is, to 

condense the above, primarily 
rooted in the perception of 
oneself 
as 
a 
conservative: 

individual policies — more 
spending 
on 
defense, 
or 

defunding Planned Parenthood 
— 
don’t 
really 
matter 
so 

long as party politicians can 
clearly 
demonstrate 
their 

conservative ideology.

I’m not trying to make a value 

judgement. 
Democrats 
aren’t 

worse for their lack of a central 
ideology, and Republicans aren’t 
worse for their indifference over 
individual policy concerns. The 
divide, though, explains why 
liberals and conservatives can’t 
always see the coherence in their 
opponents’ actions.

This 
also 
explains 
the 

seeming 
paradox 
in 
which 

Americans tend to be liberal 
on an issue-by-issue basis but 
most 
describe 
themselves 

as 
overall 
moderates 
or 

conservatives. 
Whichever 

side of this dichotomy is more 
important to someone might 
be what determines their party 
alliance — and it would explain 
why someone like Trump can 
get away with suggesting both 
universal health care and legally 
penalizing women who seek 
abortions. Policy concerns aren’t 
necessarily what determine a 
voter’s behavior.

Other recent trends — like 

negative 
partisanship 
and 

polarization — interact with 
this 
disparity 
to, 
honestly, 

give a campaigning advantage 
to 
Republicans. 
Their 
core 

electorate is willing to go cycle 
after cycle (think the Obama 
years after 2010) without any 
real policy victories because 
their representatives are seen 
as fighting the good fight. The 
Democratic electorate, on the 
other hand, is far less forgiving 
of 
policy 
failures, 
such 
as 

the Democratic wobbling on 
whether or not the Deferred 
Action for Childhood Arrivals 
policy is worth a government 
shutdown 
has 
become 

divisive among potential 2020 
presidential contenders.

When people on the left try 

to analyze the right wing, they 
should avoid using a Democratic 
mindset to interpret Republican 
behavior. Students who work 
for (or will eventually work for) 
campaigns and student activists 
have to remember that the way 
they think about politics is often 
shaped by what the party with 
which they identify.

I think it’s legitimate to make 

one’s case using reasons that are 
less than practical. I support 
DACA 
because 
Dreamers 

shouldn’t 
have 
their 
lives 

destabilized. I support a higher 
minimum wage because people 
deserve to support themselves if 
they work full time. I also think 
that there are times to avoid this, 
though; the goal is to actually 
translate your ideas into to 
legislation and have them signed 
into law.

When 
we 
evaluate 
our 

current environment and find 
it flawed, there has to be a step 
before action when practical 
reality is considered. How will 
this look to the opposition? Is 
this viable, given the way it will 
be evaluated? Can we, given 
the composition of our party, 
really pursue this strategy? In 
a political environment where 
partisan conflict has become 
one of the most important 
influencing factors, cross-party 
conversation has to be tailored to 
the way each side sees itself and 
its opposition.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, February 19, 2018

DAYTON HARE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN

Editor in Chief
 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 

ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Jeremy Kaplan

 
 
 
 

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

 
 
 
 

 

Ali Safawi

Kevin Sweitzer
Tara Jayaram
 Ashley Zhang

Are we being close minded to open mindedness?

O

n my way home from 
class today, I thought 
about what it would 

be like to be shot. What would 
I do if someone opened fire 
right here, right now?

I glanced at a snow bank 

that had piled up on the 
side of the sidewalk from 
daily plowing. I could hide 
behind that. I could try to 
dig myself an area where I 
would 
be 
concealed 
from 

view, hopefully out of sight 
and out of mind. I thought 
back to when I was a kid, and 
my brother and I would hide 
in the piles of leaves that had 
collected on the side of roads 
so we could jump up to scare 
the drivers going by.

Since then, I’ve frequently 

thought about what would 
have happened if a car had 
driven over the pile of leaves 
instead of around. The same 
thoughts came to me now, 
considering the permeable safe 
haven of a snowbank. It definitely 
wouldn’t stop any bullets.

While I was eating lunch 

today, I thought about what it 
would be like for my brother 
or sisters to be shot. What 
would they do if someone 
opened fire at their school? I 
have a sister in middle school, 
and two more siblings in high 
school. What if their school 
were the next scene of yet 
another mass shooting?

I thought back to when 

I was younger, to the times 
when I’d sneak out of my 
school 
to 
go 
buy 
lunch 

somewhere, even though we 
had a closed campus. I always 
walked back into school with 
no problems, often to an 
empty lunch room, with no 
one to testify if I looked even 

remotely like I belonged there.

I’ve been back a couple 

times since I’ve graduated, 
and not much has changed. 
I’ve never been stopped to be 
asked who I am, or what I was 
doing there, or what my bag or 
jacket concealed. No one would 
be there to stop any bullets.

During a fundraiser for 

my 
student 
organization 

today, I thought about who 
I would call if people in this 
room were shot. Who would 
I want to call during my last 
moments, 
while 
someone 

opened fire on my classmates? 
I considered my boyfriend, 
my parents, my siblings, my 
grandparents.

I thought back to all of the 

missed calls I’ve ever gotten 
from my mom, and how every 
time she had assumed the 
worst: that I had crashed my 
car, got lost on a road trip, 
didn’t make it back to my 
vehicle after a closing shift.

I wouldn’t want to worry 

her, I thought, in case I made 
it out okay. I wouldn’t want 
to call her, wouldn’t want 
to confirm her worst-case 
scenarios. And if I didn’t 
make it out ok, I thought, she 
would know I love her. Deeply 
and fiercely. She would know 

that. And it would be out of 
love that I didn’t call her, that 
I didn’t force her to listen 
to 
her 
terrified, 
19-year-

old daughter sobbing into 
the phone while gunshots 
and screams echo in the 
background. After all, no call 
would stop any bullets.

These shouldn’t be the 

thoughts that I have. I should 
be fretting over my history 
exam next week, or the fact 
that I have a pimple on my 
chin that for the life of me I 
can’t get to go away. I should 
be thinking college student 
things.

Yet it now seems that mass 

shootings are just another 
college 
student 
thing: 

history exam, pimple on my 
chin, escape plan in a mass 
shooting. It is a legitimate 
possibility for my life to be 
taken from me by the hands 
of a stranger with a gun, 
opening fire on my campus. It 
is a legitimate possibility that 
the same thing could happen 
to my younger siblings on 
their campuses.

And it doesn’t seem to be 

taken seriously. There are 
people who hold the power 
to make this the last school 
shooting in the history of the 
United States, and yet they are 
more persuaded by personal 
interests and greed than the 
lifeless bodies of more than 
1,829 civilians killed in mass 
shootings since Sandy Hook 
in 2012. Those with power in 
the U.S. have a responsibility 
to protect our people and they 
have the opportunity to do so. 
So why aren’t they taking it?

Today I thought

Why don’t Republicans pass conservative legislation?

HANK MINOR | COLUMN

Hank Minor can be reached at 

hminor@umich.edu.

Claire Denton is an LSA junior.

Y

esterday, I found myself 
sitting at a café in 
downtown Ann Arbor 

engaged 
in 
a 
conversation 

about religion, gender roles and 
libertarianism.

To give a little more context, 

a few nights beforehand I was 
at a bar talking with a friend 
of mine, and at one point the 
topic of Judaism came up. 
We are both Jewish men, but 
it quickly became apparent 
that our relationships to our 
religion were quite different, 
and we decided to continue 
the 
conversation 
another 

day with clearer heads and a 
quieter environment.

Over the course of the 

conversation, we encountered 
some opinions we shared and 
many more we did not. We 
clashed over our beliefs in 
divinity and the importance of 
tradition, and the discussion 
even touched on the topic of 
reproductive rights. After our 
time together, I departed the 
café with a stronger conviction 
in some of my beliefs, newfound 
doubt in others and, most 
importantly, 
with 
a 
better 

understanding of my friend and 
his world, about which I now 
realize I knew little.

I bring up this anecdote 

because I believe experiences 
like these are some of the 
most 
important 
learning 

opportunities a person can 
encounter, 
and 
from 
my 

perspective, 
they 
are 
an 

increasingly rare phenomenon. 
Conflicting 
ideologies 
have 

always existed, and as we 
move deeper into what some 
are calling the post-truth era, 
even facts are up for debate. 
Yet, as people gain access to 
a greater diversity of thought 
during the age of information, 
I see both within the University 
of Michigan community and 
beyond a growing reluctance for 
many to expose themselves to 
ideas different from their own, 
let alone engage with them.

The reasons for this decline 

in discourse are unclear, but I 
have a few ideas. Perhaps the 
belief-affirming tendencies of 
social media are making our 
generation less aware of ideas 
that differ from our own, leading 
us to become less comfortable 
with and less open to ideas that 
contrast ours. Perhaps we are 

perceiving the presentation of 
ideas different from our own as 
attacks on not just our beliefs, 
but as attacks on ourselves and 
our character, leading to the end 
of a conversation before it can 
even begin. Or, perhaps we just 
feel so strongly about certain 
beliefs that we don’t feel there is 
any need to expose ourselves to 
others, because, of course, we’re 
always right.

Regardless of the reasoning, 

I believe this growing trend 
of homogeneous thought has 
the potential to be harmful to 
the growth of our generation 
and its potential to develop 
thoughtful, inclusive leaders. To 
be frank, there is no downside 
to engaging with differing and 
even 
difficult-to-understand 

ideas. 

If you engage with someone 

who feels drastically different 
than you about a certain subject 
and leave the conversation with 
the same stances you entered, 
I would consider the exchange 
well worth your time. Not only 
can you now walk away from the 
experience feeling even stronger 
in your convictions because they 
have withstood the scrutiny of 
the opposition, but perhaps you 
might have changed the mind of 
the individual on the other side 
of the aisle. 

If you engage with someone 

who 
holds 
a 
conflicting 

viewpoint to your own and find 
yourself doubting your beliefs 
or struggling to defend the ideas 
about which you previously 
felt so strongly, then this too 
is a beautiful thing. Change is 
difficult, but in the words of the 
former Roman Emperor and 
philosopher Marcus Aurelius, 
“If someone is able to show me 
that what I think or do is not 
right, I will happily change, for 
I seek the truth, by which no 
one was ever truly harmed. It is 
the person who continues in his 
self-deception and ignorance 
who is harmed.”

I would argue, though, that 

the greatest benefit of exposing 
oneself to uncomfortable and 
different ideas is gaining a 
better understanding of the 
world around you. Ignoring 
others and their beliefs won’t 
erase the potential influence 
they may have on your world. 
For example, dismissing and 
denouncing 
ideas 
of 
white 

supremacy 
didn’t 
keep 
the 

Charlottesville 
rally 
from 

materializing. Chalking off a 
celebrity 
businessman’s 
bid 

for a presidency as ridiculous 
and ignoring the voices of his 
previously 
disenfranchised 

supporters certainly didn’t put 
Hillary Clinton in office. But, 
engaging with individuals who 
hold different beliefs than you, 
understanding and empathizing 
with their positions and seeking 
to find solutions that work 
with—rather than in spite of—
the opposition may have been 
able to alter these narratives.

Certainly, there is a time 

and place for these dialogues. 
Individuals feel strongly about 
their beliefs for a reason and 
are certainly entitled to feel 
offended if feel they are being 
personally 
attacked. 
Being 

respectful 
and 
thoughtful, 

with an awareness that how 
you say something is often just 
as important as what you are 
saying, is key to the success of 
these conversations. There is 
a thin line between bringing 
up 
important, 
conflicting 

ideas in a discussion and being 
unnecessarily provocative to 
rile up those around you. I do 
not consider trolling someone or 
yelling ignorant hate speech at 
anyone to fall into the category 
of constructive dialogue.

Our world is comprised 

of 
more 
communities 
than 

one can count, varying from 
each other in manners, both 
large and small. None of these 
communities—even your own 
utopia—are perfect, and I firmly 
believe we all can learn from 
each other in some capacity. 
By 
entering 
into 
honest 

dialogues, acknowledging that 
our ways may not be perfect 
and explaining to others how 
their ideas may have room for 
growth, we can truly make the 
world a better place – or at least 
a more empathetic one. I urge 
anyone reading this to take a 
step outside of their comfort 
zone 
and 
to 
engage 
with 

someone on the other side of the 
aisle. No matter how wrong you 
initially might think they are, 
maybe, just maybe, you might 
like what you find.

Matthew Friend can be reached at 

mjfir@umich.edu.

MATTHEW FRIEND | COLUMN

NIA LEE | CAN BE REACHED AT LEENIA@UMICH.EDU

CLAIRE DENTON GRENCHIK | OP-ED

 The Republican 

Party is based 
on ideological 

identity

It now seems that 
mass shootings 
are just another 
college student 

thing