With 
regard 
to 
June’s 
widely publicized and widely 
criticized, summit with North 
Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, 
President Donald Trump had 
this to say about his totalitarian 
counterpart: “I made a deal with 
him; I shook hands with him. 
I really believe he means it.” 
 
Beyond the narcissistic bluster 
of such a statement, made in the 
aftermath of a “deal” that saw 
the United States trade regional 
military presence for nothing 
more than a promise, such 
faith in a regime as martially 
motivated as Kim’s captures 
the stunning gullibility of our 
president.
Stateside, President Trump 
recently reminded us of his 
equally 
innate 
knack 
for 
dishonesty; 
paying 
no 
heed 
to his own administration’s 
endorsement 
of 
its 
family-
separation policy at the southern 
border, nor to his own party’s 
legislative majority, he labeled 
the cruel policy a “law” of the 
Democrats’ doing and charged 
the 
Democrats 
with 
the 
responsibility of changing it. 
While these egregious displays of 
poor leadership are by all means 
disheartening, 
the 
minimal 
fallout stemming from them – 
that is, the ability of Trump to 
continue 
leading 
confidently 
after making these statements – 
makes obvious the great power 
Trump wields over his party. 
To be sure, Trump’s general 
popularity 
is 
by 
all 
means 
reflective of his divisive tactics: 
Poll-wise, Trump fares, and has 
fared, worse than other modern 
presidents. Frequent jabs at 
Trump’s policies and behavior 
in national media do, however, 
hinder widespread recognition 
of the ironclad grip he has on the 
GOP: Approval ratings of Trump 
among Republicans have peaked 
at 88 percent, up significantly 
since last year. 
As made evident by Trump’s 
domineering 
hold 
over 
the 
Republican 
Party, 
the 
myth 
of 
the 
“regular 
Republican” 
as anything but a negligible 
minority is just that. Those 
Republicans – sold on free trade, 
wary of Russia, and willing to 
sacrifice 
short-term 
political 
gain for the maintenance of 
democratic 
civility, 
among 
other things – do not represent 
the devout holdouts of the 
Republican Party that have stuck 

it out. Rather, they constitute 
politically vagrant conservatives 
whose party’s shift towards 
obnoxious populism and near-
absolute alignment with Trump 
happened blisteringly quick. 

America’s 
Trump 

contingent, therefore, is both 
overwhelmingly 
Republican 
yet 
proudly 
distanced 
from 
Republican tenets of yesteryear. 
Beyond the usual socio-economic 
divisions that traditionally help 
define political preferences, the 
most salient issues for Trump’s 
congregation are indeed those 
pertaining to race and culture. 
From here, typically lukewarm 
political allegiance has been 
exchanged for fervent devotion, 
of 
which 
the 
irredeemably 
race-obsessed maverick at the 
forefront of the new GOP is the 
subject. As a result, Trump’s 
base, more so than other political 
cohorts, finds singularity in a 
very select and vocal slice of the 
news media. 
We grossly underestimate the 
power of this “Trump-ist” media, 
yet it serves as the lifeline for the 
Trump presidency and its often-
disastrous 
survival. 
Trump’s 
mandate to rule, after all, is 
only as solid as the continued 
support of his Republican base. 
Trump-friendly media, namely 
the hegemonic Fox News, is 
the linchpin of this mandate, 
providing 
dedicated 
Trump 
voters with pro-Trump coverage 
on a scale unmatched by liberal 
media counterparts, and going 
beyond validation of existing 
beliefs 
by 
impeding 
access 
to new ones. It is an age-old 
relationship between viewers 
largely informed by media and 
politicians keenly sensitive to the 
opinions of these viewers, only 
without the diversity of media 
sources found in most other 
cases.
One 
would 
reason, 
then, 
that stemming this flow of 
unabashedly 
dogmatic 
and 
sycophantic coverage with apt 
and 
well-received 
criticism 
could curtail its allure. This 
could 
then 
soften 
Trump’s 
dominion over the Republican 
electorate and, suddenly, getting 
away with ludicrous statements 
would be a bit costlier for the 
president.

4

Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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

F

or a good portion of my early 
adolescence, my primary goal 
was to be just like Miley in 
the Disney Channel show Hannah 
Montana. In the show, Miley is an 
awkward, unpopular high school 
student who has a huge secret: she’s 
actually international pop superstar 
Hannah 
Montana. 
Somehow, 
nobody at her school knows her 
secret identity because, when she 
performs as Hannah, she wears a 
blonde wig. In fifth grade, I had my 
pop star alter ego all figured out. I 
had given her a name and sketched 
a wig in my journal. I was ready for 
fame.
Retrospectively, it makes perfect 
sense that I would resonate with a 
character like Miley. I was the tall-
est girl in my school, I was clumsy 
and unathletic, always embarrassing 
myself in gym class, and my social 
skills were exceptionally lacking. 
Simply put, I was the weird girl in 
school. I wanted desperately to fit in.
Miley appealed to me because 
the show always made it abundant-
ly clear that she wasn’t well-liked 
in school. In the pilot episode, the 
popular girls, Amber and Ashley, 
tell Miley she has to sit at “the loser 
table” at lunch. Scenes like that made 
me identify with Miley; she wasn’t 
some untouchable celebrity, she was 
a girl like me. But, unlike me, Miley 
rose above her circumstances. She 
became a famous singer, and when-
ever Amber and Ashley made fun of 
her, she could look them in the eyes 
with the knowledge that she was 

more successful than they’d ever be.
I wonder how my middle school 
career would’ve turned out if Miley’s 
glamorous alter ego Hannah Mon-
tana was a famous author, not a 
famous singer. Why? Because I was 
good at writing, and I actually enjoyed 
it enough that, had I set the goal of 
writing a book, I would’ve been will-
ing to put in the necessary work to 
achieve that goal. But, in my mind, 
writing was nerdy and unglamorous; 
it was the kind of thing that would 
make me less popular than I already 
was. 
Can you blame my younger self for 
wanting to be a pop star? I certainly 
can’t. Even today, I tend to idolize the 
characters I see on my TV screen. 
Has anyone ever watched Legally 
Blonde and not been inspired to start 
studying for the LSAT? 
However, my story tells a valuable 
lesson about the power of female role 
models on television, and representa-
tion in general. According to a study 
by Dr. Amy I. Nathanson, an assistant 
professor of journalism and commu-
nication at Ohio State University, girls 
who watch more TV are more likely to 
have an interest in traditionally femi-
nine jobs, such as that of secretary, 
dancer, model...or teen pop sensation. 
This makes perfect sense. From ages 
11 to 13, CNN reports that children 
“feel self-conscious about physical 
changes and feel pressure to conform 
to cultural gender norms.” When 
you’re an insecure middle school 
student and a character like Hannah 
Montana looks glamorous and beau-

tiful every time she steps onstage, of 
course you’re going to aspire to be like 
her. But what if Miley’s alter ego was 
a glamorous, world-famous, beloved 
engineer? How many more women 
would be enrolled in the College of 
Engineering right now?
Representation doesn’t just mean 
representation of a broad range of 
careers for females. Frankly, I was 
extremely lucky in middle school 
because I had a role model on televi-
sion at all. I was raised in a sociocul-
tural context in which I was able to 
identify simply as a “girl”, and there-
fore felt that I could view all female 
characters as role models. Others, 
depending on the circumstances in 
which they were raised, might iden-
tify not simply by their gender, but 
by their race, ability, socioeconomic 
status, etc. 
Stereotypes still largely prevail in 
television, and probably still affect the 
career goals of insecure young girls. 
The good news? The entertainment 
world is getting better. Every day, 
more kids’ shows come out featur-
ing more characters of color, more 
women in STEM, more sensitive men 
and career-oriented women. I’d like 
to think that, as students at the Uni-
versity of Michigan, we’re a part of 
that; we’re the role models we didn’t 
have when we were younger. I just 
wish that I could go back and tell my 
eleven-year-old self to dream a little 
bigger than international pop super-
star. 

ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN

 EMMA CHANG
Editorial Page Editor
EMMA RICHTER
Managing Editor

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

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.

ASIF BECHER
Editor in Chief

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

HANNAH HARHSE| COLUMN

Career representation is important

Hannah Harshe can be reached at 

hharhse@umich.edu.

Eyes wide shut

Continue reading on page 5.

