Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4— Tuesday, March 6, 2018 Emma Chang Joel Danilewitz Samantha Goldstein Elena Hubbell Emily Huhman Tara Jayaram Jeremy Kaplan Sarah Khan Lucas Maiman Magdalena Mihaylova Ellery Rosenzweig Jason Rowland Reign of chaos A letter from MVision C haos once again returned to the White House this past week with the sudden resignation of Hope Hicks, White House communications director, in the wake of news that she testified to Congress that part of the job entailed telling “white lies” on President Donald Trump’s behalf. Hicks was Trump’s fourth communications director in the span of barely a year in office, but more importantly, Hicks was a loyal and trusted member of Trump’s inner circle. Her stunning departure serves as an indication that the Trump administration’s unprecedented streak of attrition — which has seen the exit of Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Press Secretary Sean Spicer and many others — is far from over. A day after Hicks announced her resignation, NBC News reported that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster will be replaced within the month at the behest of Defense Secretary James Mattis and John Kelly, White House chief of staff. That same day, news broke that Kelly, at Trump’s request, is planning to remove Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner from their official advisor roles. Kelly was supposed to provide order when he was hired last summer, but instead, the White House has fractured further under his direction. Kelly himself was recently embroiled in controversy over his handling of domestic abuse allegations against former White House aide Rob Porter, which Kelly ignored for months, only firing Porter after the accusations leaked to the media. Amid this frenzy of attrition, speculation and scandal, one thing is clear: Trump’s White House is engulfed in turmoil, the repercussions of which flared brightly this past week. Trump has long been known to flip-flop on policy positions, expressing contradictory views on topics ranging from immigration to taxation to abortion throughout his campaign and first year in office, but he outdid himself last week on gun control. At a televised meeting with senators and congressman from both parties, Trump praised proposals to establish comprehensive background checks on all gun purchases and to raise the age to buy assault weapons to 21. In a surreal moment, Trump even expressed openness to a ban on assault weapons. Yet, in an ironic twist, after chiding Republican lawmakers for being “afraid of” the NRA, Trump met with NRA lobbyists and rescinded his support for the gun control measures he had praised just a day earlier. Trump’s inconsistency on guns confused and exasperated leaders of both parties, but was quickly overshadowed when Trump declared his intention to introduce tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Such a move would violate existing trade agreements and indubitably lead to retaliatory measures from other countries that could easily spiral into a costly and disastrous trade war. The reaction to Trump’s tariff plan was swift and harsh. Leaders of both parties quickly rebuked the idea, global leaders blasted Trump and the stock market plunged. However, amid this widespread criticism, Trump doubled down and tweeted that trade wars are “good” and “easy to win.” That’s blatantly false, and the fact that no one in the White House has conveyed to Trump the threat a trade war poses to the U.S. economy is rather alarming. Trump’s eventful week culminated with renewed scrutiny over his neglect to fill dozens of vacant positions, including 41 ambassadorships. Critical allies and strategic partners like South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia and the European Union are among the countries and organizations that currently lack an American chief diplomat. When considering the current geopolitical climate around the world, it is astounding that some of these positions have yet to be filled. Given the tensions on the Korean peninsula, appointing an ambassador to South Korea should be a priority, but to the Trump administration, it is an afterthought. It is no coincidence that a week of internal White House chaos coincided with one of Trump’s most volatile weeks in the policy sphere. Trump’s advisers appear incapable of providing astute advice, a problem that is likely compounded by the constant attrition plaguing the White House. In the absence of stability, Trump appears to have adopted a strategy of going off-script and reversing positions as he pleases, knowing that his public statements have little correlation to the policy his administration executes. This inconsistency compounds government inaction, as evidenced by Trump’s gun policy flip-flopping, and leads to impulsive decisions like these new proposed tariffs. Order must be established in the White House. At present, Trump’s administration is the most disorganized, dysfunctional and, at times, utterly incompetent administration in modern American history. The chaos plaguing the White House muddles the president’s legislative priorities, devalues the U.S.’s image abroad and weakens the credibility of the institution of the presidency. It often is tempting to dismiss the White House drama as meaningless or even entertaining, but weeks like this past one demonstrate the significant consequences of an executive branch drowning in chaos. Noah Harrison can be reached at noahharr@umich.edu NOAH HARRISON | COLUMN DANIEL GREENE AND IZZY BAER | OP-ED T o Our Fellow Wolverines, As new Central Student Government parties form and elections fast approach, we wanted to take a minute, amid of our marathon meetings and late-night platform talks, to discuss what matters most: the students that make up the University of Michigan’s campus. It’s with a dedication to creating a better and more unified campus that we announce our candidacy as Student Body President and Vice President with the newly formed MVision party. Having collectively spent time working with and on Central Student Government (CSG), LSA Student Government (LSA SG), Center for Campus Involvement (CCI), Wolverine Support Network (WSN), LSA Honor Council, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC), Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council (IFC) we have no shortage of acronyms, nor time spent listening to, debating with and working for the greater student body. We understand the huge potential and astounding responsibilities of the offices we hope to hold. We also know the shortcomings of CSG and the pitfalls of overpromising that have been made clear over our semesters on campus. The changes we wish to bring about are manifold, but our vision is clear: to create a CSG that serves the entire student body. Ultimately, we want a CSG that empowers students to be seen, to be heard and to be supported. The eMerge party ran with the desire to build a more accessible, inclusive student government, and we are proud to have been a part of that campaign. CSG President Anushka Sarkar and CSG Vice President Nadine Jawad have done a phenomenal job providing our campus with hope and a sense of belonging for communities that CSG had previously alienated. We hope to continue their impactful work by expanding CSG’s outreach to communities who still feel isolated on campus. We will not be distracted from CSG’s mission to serve students. It is imperative that CSG becomes a group dedicated to providing resources for the student organizations that create the richness of our campus. Let’s allow those organizations to shine in their own right, indebted only to the students and causes that they serve. We created a team with the intention of building a platform based on direct experience and expanding CSG’s outreach. The range of CSG experience that our team brings has allowed our platform to reflect the varying communities and concerns from across our campus. We have experienced, firsthand, policies that need to be improved to allow for a campus where each student is valued. The MVision Michigan team is comprised of students who understand what it means to be openly gay in Greek life, to be a woman on a college campus today, to struggle with mental illness, to survive sexual assault, to balance work-study positions or to feel unsafe because of their identities. However, we understand that our experiences do not speak for the 46,000 voices that make up the University. We hope to increase the representation of all marginalized and invisible identities within classrooms and campus resources. We hope to replace “freshmen” with “first-years,” and other, more inclusive, terminology. We plan to embed a SAPAC ex-officio in CSG to connect the University with the needs of survivors on campus. No student should feel alone as they struggle with mental health, which is why we need to reach the golden ratio of CAPS counselors to students. No student who is a survivor of sexual assault should be unsure of their options, which is why we need to expand the SAPAC empowerment fund. No student on campus should feel isolated or disenfranchised, which is why we need to proactively address the campus climate. That is where our CSG philosophy stems from. Our experiences have shaped our determination, and our willingness to go the extra mile. We are honored to work with brilliant individuals from across the communities that represent the breadth of experience here on the University campus. MVision is actively creating a community that promotes equity and acceptance and works at a grassroots level to pursue inclusivity. If you have policy ideas that you believe will elevate students on this campus, please visit the MVision website. We see you and want you to feel heard. Let’s MVision together, Daniel and Izzy Daniel Green is a Public Policy junior and Izzy Baer is an LSA sophmore. CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. JOIN OUR EDITORIAL BOARD Our Editorial Board meets Mondays and Wednesdays 7:15-8:45 PM at our newsroom at 420 Maynard Street. All are welcome to come discuss national, state and campus affairs. Order must be established in the White House. NOAH HARRISON I was hopeless about gun control. Until now. Another mass shooting. Over a dozen children dead. Prayers from both sides. Arguments about restricting guns. Rebukes from the NRA. You’ve heard and seen all of this before. In many ways, we had become so jaded to this process, I truly felt like we had lost hope. I, like many of us, had begun to feel that there was nothing that could be done. This being said, I’ve found some hope from those students advocating for gun control at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. You’ve likely heard a variety of jarring statistics, but let me provide a reminder: Nearly one in four have been threatened with a gun in their lifetime or have a family member who has been threatened. And this is even worse for minority communities: nearly a third of African-Americans have reported that they or their families have been threatened by gun violence. Whether it’s being threatened with a gun or regarding actual shootings, we can see that there has been little change in gun violence: 10 of the 15 deadliest shootings have occurred in the past 10 years. I am likely preaching to the choir, unfortunately, despite the fact that nearly nine out of 10 Americans want more regulation on guns— specifically, common- sense legislation that includes restrictions on those with mental illnesses having access to guns as well as more thorough background checks. These legislative proposals have high support across party lines, and most people support ending private, unlicensed sales of firearms (colloquially known as the “gun show loophole”). Still, there has yet to be legislation that is representative of the will of the people. This is a true testament to the NRA and the number of officials that have received funding from them for their political campaigns. Here in Michigan, nine legislators have received funding from the NRA’s political action committee funds — unsurprisingly, all are members of the Republican Party, which has prevented gun control legislation from being enacted. I had truly become so jaded to the cycle of thoughts and prayers, followed by the inundation of statistics and descriptions of the propagators of gun violence, and, finally, inaction from our legislative body. That is until I saw and heard from the kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. A high school senior, Emma Gonzalez spoke out against the inaction of government officials regarding gun control legislation. “Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call B.S.,” she said. “That us kids don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re too young to understand how the government works. We call B.S.” I think it’s important to note that she is younger than all or nearly all of us here at the University of Michigan. It bears repeating that, despite the fact that she has yet to enter college, she is likely doing more than most of us regarding gun control legislation. While I’m sure many of us students are feeling upset about the recent events, I question if we have been willing to do what it takes to change the discourse surrounding gun control into tangible legislative action. It’s these kids who are starting protests, who are raising money and who are putting in the energy to take these concerns and grow them into national outcries in ways that I’m not sure I’ve seen before. These young activists have pioneered the #NeverAgain movement. In doing so, they have raised nearly three million dollars in support of gun control legislation. In many ways, their protests and their voices have elevated the conversations in ways that an average person cannot. For the American public, and our legislators, having to hear from children who had to experience the effects of gun violence has seemingly turned the conversation in unexpected ways. Just the other day, President Donald Trump announced some tentative support for increasing background checks, surprising officials and virtually all of the American community. There is still hope that we can make the change, but, if there is to be effective legislation, those in support of gun control cannot let up now. If we are to pursue legislation, support can’t simply be just from the #NeverAgain individuals. It can’t be just from the victims of shootings. It has to be from every individual in the American government speaking out on what may be one of the larger issues of our time. What I now know, however, is that there is still hope for us to enact common- sense legislation for guns. Maybe it won’t be tomorrow — it might not even be within the coming year — but if we continue to ratchet up the pressure on our officials and suggest how to fix this problem, we can ensure that fewer individuals die from gun shootings and that kids can go to school believing in the safety Hope for gun control IAN LEACH | COLUMN Ian Leach can be reached at ileach@umich.edu. Nearly one in four have been threatened with a gun in their lifetime 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