Opinion The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 4A— Thursday, March 8, 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 Anu Roy-Chaudhury Alex Satola Ali Safawi Ashley Zhang Progressivism and pacing The complicity of silence L ast week, the California Democrats convened in Sacramento to draft and vote on their statewide party platform in advance of the 2018 midterm elections. They adopted a platform not too different from the one Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., ran on in 2016 — access to universal health care as a human right, a $15 minimum wage, corporate regulation and paid family leave. Other planks in the 28-page manifesto, however, were much less familiar. Sizing up this document in the context of where Democrats are winning right now underlines the single greatest obstacle for progressive politics in the U.S. today — pacing. According to the document, California Democrats will support “abolishing the Electoral College and (replacing it) with a national popular vote.” They will also seek full public funding of campaigns in local, state and federal elections to oppose the “culture of cronyism and corruption” as well as the immediate repeal of the post-9/11 legislation, Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Finally, they advocate for publicly-owned affordable housing projects and the creation of publicly-owned, “non- competitive” Internet providers. As a progressive, my initial reaction is that whoever wrote this platform should be thrown a parade. Finally, a bold and articulate vision that is not only morally right, but one on which progressive candidates can win. In 2016, Democrats sold Hillary Rodham Clinton as President Barack Obama’s follow- up act, a continuation of everything that was going right in our country. This new progressive vision came in the rare absence of a predominant negative motivation, “Don’t vote for the clown who grabs women by the crotch.” Finally, some positive motivation to go to the polls. Voting for instead of voting against. Several hours later, as I was scrolling through Twitter, the political talking heads were fixated on one thing: Texas turning blue. This included Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s momentum in his challenge for Ted Cruz’s Senate seat, demographic shifts in Texas and how Clinton lost the state by a smaller margin than any Democrat since 1996. Could this Republican Party stronghold finally be in play this year? This kind of speculation has been everywhere for the past two years, as Democrats make gains in unlikely places — Alabama, Georgia and even Oklahoma. Surely, running as a Democrat in California is wildly different from running as a Democrat anywhere in the South. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., cannot win with the progressivism of Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. So, what do these divergent positions mean for the Party, if and when it wins congressional majorities? What does it mean for the selection of a presidential candidate in two years’ time? Two kinds of Democrats are starting to emerge, both drawing from Sanders’ rhetoric and style, but wildly different in terms of pacing. On the one hand, there are the motivated progressives, in places like California, Oregon, New Jersey and Massachusetts. They’re ready to staple this platform to their foreheads and move full- steam ahead. On the other, there are popular progressives, in places that are not quite ready for everything in the 28 pages of the California platform but who will be ready to take steps in that direction. These were Sanders voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio — the people who can be sold on single-payer health care and legalized marijuana, but need a little time. Reactionary instincts to too much change in too little time are real. It is not a coincidence that a presidential campaign based on making America great again came on the heels of our first Black president and eight years that saw the legalization of gay marriage, mainstream portrayals of transgender people and a spotlight on safe spaces on college campuses. For a lot of people, it was overwhelming and the world motivated progressives are pushing for threatens to have the exact same effect. Agree with it as you like, but no one can deny the contents of that document represents substantial change to how we think about rights, the differences between public or private, and how elections work in this country. So, if you were the grand marshal of American progressives, what would you do? Lean into this 28-page left-wing dream of a mission statement and risk alienating potential voters in states showing signs of progress? Or pump the brakes and wait for the popular progressives to catch up, despite the fact this is somewhat counterintuitive to what you stand for? Fundamentally, 2018 is an exciting year to be a progressive. The platform is exciting and has so much potential. What was once a subset of the Democratic Party is now its vanguard, pushing left and angling for congressional majorities. At the same time, liberal candidates seem poised to win in places they haven’t won in half a century. For now, I see no problem with offering this document to the 468 congressional candidates who will have D’s next to their names this fall as a sort of buffet. Pick and choose. Find the pace that is right for your state or your district. But set a tone. Make change at the local level that starts the wave, slow and steady. Because very soon, we’re going to see a major presidential nominee with this platform stapled to his or her forehead, ready to spread it to all 50 states. And if these two brands of progressivism are too far out of step, that could spell trouble. BRETT GRAHAM | COLUMN STEVE SMITH | OP-ED I n today’s world, we’ve arrived at a place where our opinions and values are interpreted through the lens of “right versus left” or “liberal versus conservative.” We allow these lenses to force us to pick a side, and in picking a side we forget that dialogue occurs so we can grow, exchange ideas and possibly contribute to society’s advancement. Before becoming a graduate student at the University of Michigan, I directed a successful state representative (Republican) campaign in Northern Michigan. I’ve voted for Democrats (including for President Barack Obama twice and Hillary Clinton). I’m all about pro-choice, fixing health care and infrastructure, supporting unions, equal rights/pay and moving society forward. I’m also a veteran who spent almost eight years on active duty, who had to carry a gun on occasion and respected the privilege of carrying that power by my side. Now that I’ve said all that, I need to say this: Your silence on gun control or your support of the current administration’s performance is a form of complicity. It’s not a right versus left issue. The controversy in our country surrounding guns is on each of us. It’s not about being pro- Second Amendment. It’s about us moving toward a better society and taking care of those we care about. By that nature, if we make a choice not to participate in this discussion, not to play an active role in bettering our society, then we are the complicit in lives that are lost. Our silence is complicity. In the military, across the five armed service branches, over the last 10 years, there’s been a huge emphasis on preventing sexual assault. It’s a good focus with a solid message. The military is working to change its culture. In doing so, one of the messages that exists is if you see something and you don’t say something, you’re a part of the guilty party. You could even be charged by the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. If you could’ve prevented a sexual assault and you didn’t, then you were a part of what went wrong. I am saying here if we don’t do what we can to change our culture in America, then we’re a part of what’s wrong. In the same way, if you vote for someone who refuses to lift a finger to change the gun culture of America, then there is blood on their hands, and by the very nature of your silence or support, your compliance and refusal to act, there is blood on yours too. We’ve come to a place in America where we need to examine our conscience and our priorities. Can you imagine having a child and sending them to school, and then one day hearing the place they went to learn and grow was shot up? Can you imagine the dread? The helplessness? The fear? I cannot. We need to examine our priorities — the right to bear arms had some great thought behind it when it was originally created, but let’s take a minute to think about what that means today. If you’re an avid supporter of this ‘right,’ you might believe it exists so you can protect yourself from the ‘government.’ I have to ask, do you have any idea how we wage wars today? Through drones and computer technology. In addition, let’s take a look at a few historical examples of social change over the last 100 years: the Civil Rights era in America; South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the end of Apartheid; and India’s Independence and Mahatma Gandhi. Guns did not accomplish any of these. I agree with the idea of creating more funding for mental health support. I also despise the arguments that “criminals will get guns regardless.” Just because someone will find their way around certain roadblocks doesn’t mean society stops trying to advance as a whole. It doesn’t mean we stop trying to improve lives. Do we stop trying to cure cancer because people will die in the meantime? Do we stop wearing seatbelts because people will get into car accidents? Do we stop fighting racism and classism because it’s institutionalized? Do we stop trying to save the planet because we’re killing it? As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We will never be satisfied.” According to the Oxford dictionary, the word “civilize” means, “to bring (a place or people) to a stage of social, cultural and moral development considered to be more advanced.” We are supposed to be a ‘civilized’ society — which means we are supposed to be advanced. Advancing, by the very nature of the word, means to never actually stop. You don’t stop advancing, you don’t stop growing. If you do, you perish. Whether as a person or a society, that’s why social progressivism has worked. People and societies, by their very nature, must advance to survive. We have to change our thinking and the laws in this country in regard to guns so we as a society can provide a better life for those we care about. We need to understand that to reload a weapon 250 years ago could have taken more than 90 seconds after a single shot, whereas today it’s different. We need to civilize. And do you know why? Because the right to shoot 45 rounds per minute does not negate the right for a beautiful little person to go to school without fear. Because our children, our sisters and brothers, our cousins, our friends and our families are counting on us to get this right. We’ve stopped listening to each other in the name of our ideological stances, but not all issues have be right versus left. Survival and advancement shouldn’t be right versus left. If there’s elected leadership that refuses to take action to make our country a better, safer place, then it is our responsibility to lead that change. We have to work to create a more perfect union. That work never stops, and it doesn’t start with arming teachers, putting veterans at every school or surrounding schools with police officers. None of that forces us to take a look at ourselves. Guns are playing a role in the deaths of our children at schools. Read that again. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Our silence is perpetuating our insanity; our complicity is allowing our insanity to wreak havoc on our country. How long will we remain complicit? Steve Smith is a Rackham graduate student in Sports Management. A s of late, few topics have stirred more controversy and ignited more debate here at the University of Michigan than free speech. However, the real fight has only begun, as figures like Richard Spencer expose an increasingly dangerous shift in American opinion regarding hate speech. While calls to deny Spencer’s request to speak at the University aim to prevent the elevation of his vile white supremacist ideology, they also represent a far larger threat to the First Amendment. The First Amendment, though often touted in defense of personal opinion and creative expression, was not written with the comfort of individuals, or even the majority of individuals, in mind. On the contrary, it protects even reprehensible and unpopular opinions, precisely because the authors of the Constitution understood the protection of all speech as contingent to the survival of free society. Therefore, while suppressing Spencer may be the more palatable option for the University community today, it would create a slippery slope enabling the government to later strangle other ideas and beliefs. To anyone claiming the government could indeed aptly define and exclude “hate” while still protecting “valid” forms of expression, consider that the most prominent white supremacist groups in America currently muster a combined membership of slightly under 15,000, most definitely representing an unpopular set of beliefs in a country of over 320 million citizens. Comparably, in 1950, only about 50,000 Americans were registered members of the Communist Party. Considering the context of the Cold War at the time, communism in 1950 possessed similar minority standing and attracted similar antipathy as white supremacist ideology does today in America (notwithstanding implicit endorsement by the president, but that’s a matter for another Op-Ed). Then, as is the case today, Americans were faced with the option of marginalizing and stymieing the minority ideology, with the unpopularity and rarity of communist faith providing the motive and the means to do so. The unchecked and destructive violation of privacy rights and ideological freedom that followed clearly illustrates the consequences of labeling unpopular, even harmful, beliefs as unworthy of protection. Opponents of Spencer’s right to speak at the University may, however, single out the University as entirely different from other public domains, emphasizing that the University must serve the needs of its students first. These “needs” would assumedly preclude the presence of emotionally burdensome hate speech and the onus of additional security costs that accompany controversial speakers like Spencer. While not inherently unfounded, as limitations on certain forms of speech do exist when other rights are harmed, these “needs” do not serve a higher public interest than the protection of speech. In addition to having absolutely no constitutional basis, protection from the content of speech alone reflects a disturbing trend in public opinion. Past decades saw progressive Americans rally against censorship by university administrations, in the hope that students would enjoy the diversity of thought conducive to a liberal education. Among other factors, the increasing dominance of intellectual spheres by identity politics has created a college student body that is now overly sensitive to differing viewpoints. This might help explain the shocking two-fifths of Americans who believe the government should take action to prevent hate speech. Not only does this statistic reflect a distorted conception of the First Amendment, but it reveals a misguided approach to addressing hate. While the First Amendment protects hate speech, it simultaneously equips society with the ability to address and defeat these flawed ideologies by providing an open forum for rational argument. The only way Spencer’s views can possibly be dismantled is if those equipped to defeat him are open for debate, not closed off to it. Other calls for censorship center on the potential for Spencer’s speech to inspire future violence and discrimination, but fail to address the distinction between speech that directly and immediately incites illegal activity, which is already prohibited, and simply hateful rhetoric, which enjoys the protection from liability that includes all other forms of legal speech. Morever, the onus of additional security costs for any speech by Spencer, though potentially hefty, still fails to present a compelling argument for limiting his rights. As a public university, the University of Michigan does not only have a paternalistic obligation to its students, but also an obligation to assist in protecting vested public interests, including free speech. Security costs can be mitigated in a variety of ways, and the University has been well within its right as it has pursued such restraints on Spencer as selection of date and location for his speech. Protecting civil liberties does not always come cheap. It is easy to defend speech when it is normal, popular or uplifting, but society is tested when the speech in question is despised, offensive or even hateful. Spencer’s request to speak at this University is a test of our will to maintain the sanctity of free speech enshrined in the Constitution. Calls for Spencer to be denied, however well- intentioned, fail to realize that the First Amendment’s contribution to democracy lies in its universal application. Let Spencer speak. Let Spencer speak ETHAN KESSLER | OP-ED Ethan Kessler is an LSA sophmore. 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 JOE IOVINO | CONTACT AT JIOVINO@UMICH.EDU. Brett Graham can be reached at btgraham@umich.edu.