M

iichigan 
has 
long 
been considered a 
key part of the “blue 
wall,” a term used to describe 
the reliability of Democratic 
voters in the northern 
Midwest states. This 
is a nice sentiment 
but we in Michigan 
have 
a 
Republican 
governor (if for only 
two 
more 
months) 
and 
a 
Republican 
state 
legislature. 
So maybe the blue 
wall only works for 
nationwide elections 
— but then we went 
for Trump in the 2016 election, 
and 
the 
punditry 
became 
unusually 
obsessed 
with 
“working-class voters” (read: 
white working-class voters), 
with many people writing 
thinkpieces 
about 
Macomb 
County. 
The 
mainstream 
media was suddenly talking 
about Michigan, aiming to 
understand 
what 
exactly 
happened to make it switch 
from a state that supported 
former 
President 
Barack 
Obama 
to 
a 
state 
that 
supported President Donald 
Trump, and if that meant it 
should now be considered 
more purple-red than blue. 
Then, Nov. 7 happened, and 
we elected Democratic women 
to be governor, secretary of 
state and attorney general. We 
flipped two seats in the House 
of 
Representatives 
from 
red to blue (shoutout to my 
hometown, 11th congressional 
district and our new member 
of Congress, Haley Stevens!). 
We re-elected Sen. Debbie 
Stabenow, D-Mich., and we 
adopted 
three 
statewide 
proposals to legalize weed, 
end gerrymandering and enact 
automatic voter registration.
So now what are we? An icon 
of the resistance against the 
president we played a key role 
in electing? Which election 
was a fluke? Michigan voters 
have left me with so many 
questions about my own state. 

My intuition from growing up 
here, and from phone banking 
and canvassing for the 2016 
and 2018 elections, tells me 
that Michigan is neither blue 
nor red nor even 
purple. 
Michigan 
is a state of families 
and workers who 
will vote for who 
speaks 
to 
them 
and 
promises 
to 
advocate on behalf 
of their concerns, 
regardless of party. 
This might sound 
like the description 
of a purple state, 
but there is nothing random or 
flip-floppy about Michigan’s 
voting. One party may speak 
to Michiganders for a decade 
better than the other, then 
become complacent and the 
other party will step in and 
prioritize the state. Michigan 
voters 
are 
consistently 
focused on job creation and 
infrastructure. So it isn’t our 
priorities that change, but the 
messaging of the two major 
parties.
Democratic 
candidate 
Hillary 
Clinton 
famously 
ignored Michigan in the final 
days of the 2016 election — a 
move many saw as fatal not 
only for the state, but the 
country. On the other hand, 
Trump spent his final day on 
the campaign trail in Grand 
Rapids firing up voters to show 
up for him. This narrative 
isn’t meant to discount the 
harmful and sensationalist 
rhetoric of Trump’s campaign 
that surely invigorated some 
racists and sexists more than 
that last visit ever did. But 
while 
Trump 
was 
talking 
to said racists and sexists, 
Michigan’s people of color, 
working-class 
families 
and 
women 
were 
being 
overlooked.
But then came Democratic 
gubernatorial 
candidate 
Gretchen Whitmer and so 
many other new faces in 
Michigan’s 
Democratic 

Party like Haley Stevens and 
Elissa Slotkin. They weren’t 
focusing on partisan drama 
or strategizing in a manner 
that abandoned any of their 
potential constituents. During 
the 
primaries, 
Gretchen 
committed to visiting every 
last 
county 
in 
Michigan, 
not writing any off as a 
guaranteed win or loss. This 
strategy paid off, earning her 
a very comfortable win in the 
primary and in the general 
election, and by pulling her 
state much further blue in the 
general.
So, what do we do in 2020? 
Thanks to Proposal 2, the 
uphill battle against intensely 
gerrymandered districts will 
(hopefully) be resolved at 
that point, making all votes 
count as they should in a 
democratic 
election. 
This 
development means a more 
equal playing field and thus 
greater room for expanding 
the 
Democratic 
Party’s 
voters. Therefore, Democrats 
should not write Michigan 
off as a win or loss, but send 
resources to the state and 
commit 
to 
communicating 
with Michiganders about the 
issues. Proposal 3 will have 
an effect on the election as 
well, presumably by helping 
Democrats, as the proposal 
adopted 
automatic 
voter 
registration 
in 
Michigan. 
I hope this will encourage 
Democrats 
to 
focus 
more 
on the youth vote, as every 
citizen 18 and older will be an 
eligible voter.
We should not take the 
midterm elections results as 
proof of a rebuilt blue wall, 
but rather as evidence that 
when Democratic candidates 
make an effort to appeal to 
and 
accurately 
represent 
Michiganders, they have a 
true chance at winning their 
support.

W

e’ve had a pretty 
rough 
couple 
of 
years 
in 
American 
politics. 
Having 
the opportunity to elect the 
first female president, and 
instead giving power to a 
sexist, 
racist, 
homophobic 
bigot was a tough start for 
a presidential turnover. But 
then we unsurprisingly saw 
a rise in hate crimes and 
ignorant 
policy 
changes, 
making 
life 
even 
more 
difficult for people of color, 
the LGBTQ community and 
women all over America. And 
to add insult to injury, that 
sexist 
president 
nominated 
a 
sexist 
Supreme 
Court 
justice, who will likely only 
exacerbate the hate crimes 
and ignorant policy changes. 
The past two years have been 
nothing but an orange stain on 
our honorable American flag, 
making it a difficult time to be 
a proud American. The reign 
of Trump has basically taken 
any progress made by the 
#MeToo movement, the Black 
Lives Matter movement and 
all other recent civil rights 
movements, and spit in their 
faces.
But this time we spit back. 
In a record turnout, Americans 
took up arms and went down 
to the polls — electing women, 
people of color and LGBTQ 
candidates 
in 
different 
positions all over the country. 
These midterm elections were 
not just a blue wave, or even a 
simply pink wave, but a wave of 
firsts that can start to reverse 
the damage of the past two 
years and take our country in 
the right direction. Women 
of different races, ethnicities, 
religions, 
sexualities 
and 
even political parties took 
the 
election 
by 
storm, 
putting a record number of 
women in the U.S. House of 
Representatives and giving a 
voice to many minority groups 
that have been overlooked in 
past elections. Overnight, a 
government run by old, upper-
class white men began to 

reflect a more accurate image 
of our nation. And these are 
some of the faces behind the 
firsts.
Democrats Cindy Axn and 
Abby Finkenauer were Iowa’s 
first women elected to the 
U.S. House. Janet Mills, a 
Democrat, became the first 
female governor of Maine. And 
Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez 
became the youngest woman 
ever elected to Congress, at 
age 29.
Many of the firsts even 
cross-cut 
intersectionality. 
Ayanna 
Pressley 
became 
Massachusetts’s 
first 
Black 
woman in Congress and Jahana 

Hayes became Connecticut’s 
first black woman in Congress. 
Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, 
is Arizona’s first woman in 
the U.S. Senate and the first 
openly bisexual person in the 
Senate.
We also have Deb Haaland 
of New Mexico and Sharice 
Davids of Kansas — America’s 
first Native American women 
in 
Congress. 
Davids 
also 
happens 
to 
be 
Kansas’s 
first openly gay member of 
Congress. Veronica Escobar 
and 
Sylvia 
Garcia 
became 
Texas’s first Latinx women in 
Congress. Ilhan Omar became 
America’s first Muslim women 
in Congress, along with our 
very own Rashida Tlaib, a 
Michigan Democrat who we 
just elected to the U.S. House. 
And these are only a few of the 
many firsts of the midterms.

This is not to say the 
midterms were all progress. 
Andrew Gillum, a Democrat, 
could have become the first 
Black governor of Florida, 
but 
was 
unable 
to 
defeat 
Republican 
Ron 
DeSantis. 
Likewise, Democrat Christine 
Hallquist did make history as 
the first transgender nominee 
of a major party, but lost 
Vermont’s gubernatorial race 
to Phil Scott, a Republican.
However, these unfortunate 
losses 
do 
not 
erase 
the 
impressive 
gains 
made 
by 
women in this midterm, and 
the effects will be unlike 
anything we’ve ever seen in 
American politics. This wave 
couldn’t have come at a better 
time. Flipping a previously 
red House restores the checks 
and balances system to the 
government. In the coming 
years, we can expect to see 
the 
Trump 
administration 
struggle to pass any major 
legislation. We can trust many 
of these new faces to be the 
wall in front of Trump’s wall 
between the U.S. and Mexico, 
a repeal of Obamacare, any tax 
cuts and defunding Planned 
Parenthood. With these new 
leaders of America, we can rest 
assured that we as a nation are 
on the road to representation.
It’s been a long time since 
I’ve been truly proud to be 
an American. For the past 
two years, my pride for my 
country 
has 
been 
tainted 
from the behaviors of those 
representing 
me 
and 
the 
discrimination 
and 
hatred 
against my fellow Americans, 
people of color, the LGBTQ 
community and women alike. 
While these midterms did not 
rid us of hatred or completely 
dissolve that stain, a little bit 
of justice has been restored a 
little bit of color is returning 
to the flag. And a little bit of 
my pride has come back as 
well.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 —Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
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Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

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Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

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Managing Editor

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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

MARGOT LIBERTINI | COLUMN

Red? Blue? Purple? What are we, Michigan?

The faces behind the firsts

DANA PIERANGELI | COLUMN

Margot Libertini can be reached at 

mliberti@umich.edu.

Dana Pierangeli can be reached at 

dmpier@umich.edu.

O

ver 20,000 employees 
of Google from all 
over the world walked 
out of their offices on Nov. 1 
protesting the way in which 
the tech giant has dealt with 
claims of sexual harassment, 
gender 
inequality 
and 
systemic racism. The event 
happened in response to a 
New York Times article, which 
revealed that Google has been 
paying millions of dollars in 
exit packages to its executives 
accused of sexual harassment. 
This is not the first time 
Google’s 
employees 
have 
walked out in protest of the 
tech giant’s conduct, projects 
and policies. In the last few 
months, petitions have been 
signed, walk-outs have been 
organized and employees have 
resigned in protest of Google’s 
increasingly 
worrying 
projects, from working with 
the Pentagon to develop the 
future generation of military 
artificial 
intelligence, 
to 
secretly developing a censored 
search engine for China.
With every single scandal 
Google gets itself involved 
in, 
there 
is 
a 
worrisome 
pattern emerging: As Google 
is increasingly becoming less 
transparent, 
more 
profit-
focused and more forgetful 
about 
its 
founders’ 
motto 
“Don’t Be Evil,” employees 
are only finding out about the 
company’s projects and issues 
through 
leaks 
published 
by 
journalists. 
You 
could 
argue that this pattern is 
expected for a large company, 
whose only way of managing 
its 
employees 
is 
through 
increasingly 
bureaucratic 
measures. 
This 
argument, 
though, 
goes 
against 
the 
original 
nature 
of 
what 
technology was supposed to 
be.
From its very inception, 
Google’s 
main 
goal 
was 
“to 
organize 
the 
world’s 
information 
and 
make 
it 
universally 
accessible 
and 

useful.” This goal was very 
much 
aligned 
with 
the 
idealistic stances of hackers 
and technologists of the ’80s 
and ’90s: They saw technology 
as 
a 
way 
of 
demolishing 
bureaucracy, of giving each 
person a voice, of reclaiming 
knowledge 
from 
those 
in 
positions 
in 
power 
and 
distributing it equally to every 
citizen of our world.
When someone says Google, 
they most likely think about 
the 
abstract 
structure, 
generating 
profit 
and 
deploying projects. I think we 
have to start thinking about 
Google as a community of 
people: people who once had 
the idealistic perception on 
technology of the ’80s and 
’90s. These people nowadays 
are developing a censored 
search 
engine 
for 
China, 
despite 
having 
14 
human 
rights groups warning them 
about the inevitable human 
rights violations of developing 
this project. People deploying 
artificial intelligence systems 
to the military as a first step 
towards using this technology 
in advanced weapons. In this 
way, instead of blaming this 
abstract entity called Google, 
we can start asking ourselves 
who these people are.
Usually, they are us. Or me. 
Or any skilled graduate with a 
science degree, whose dream 
has been to work at Google 
and, from early on, pursued 
internships at the company. 
They are people who spend 
their undergrad taking the 
most 
challenging 
classes, 
developing their interviewing 
skills 
and 
going 
through 
textbooks filled with coding 
challenges. These are the 
people who are told that they 
will do well.
We are taught how to solve 
increasingly hard problems, 
we are taught how to enhance 
our 
LinkedIn 
profile 
by 
adding more numbers to our 
project descriptions, we are 

taught to regard the “cool” 
internships that we get as our 
badge of honor for all our hard 
work, but we are missing out 
on a huge chunk from what we 
are supposed to learn. What 
if the numbers that we added 
to our internship description 
were the number of humans 
that our product negatively 
affected? What if one of the 
challenging problems we had 
to solve was how a government 
can keep track of its citizens’ 
every move?
We are supposed to continue 
solving interesting problems 
without placing them above 
people’s needs. If we want 
our work to have a good 
impact, it has to abide by some 
ethical guidelines. Guidelines 
which aren’t even clear to 
philosophers 
of 
artificial 
intelligence ethics. We are 
supposed to balance hours and 
hours of coding, while also 
mindfully 
considering 
the 
consequences our code might 
have on others. Why do we not 
get any guidance in doing all 
of this?
Getting 
a 
degree 
in 
Computer Science is already 
challenging. So challenging 
that our curriculum, peers 
and 
mentors 
sometimes 
forget 
about 
the 
negative 
disruptive power of tech. They 
forget that what they call 
“developing 
leaders” 
could 
also mean developing leaders 
for 
an 
autocratic 
regime, 
leaders 
of 
companies 
that 
completely disregard human 
rights, leaders of start-ups 
that contribute to systemic 
inequality and discrimination. 
Just read more about Uber, 
Facebook and the like and 
you will see what I am talking 
about. So what kind of leaders 
do we want to develop? What 
kind of leaders do we want to 
become?

ANAMARIA CUZA | COLUMN

Where are the ethics in tech?

Anamaria Cuza can be reached at 

anacuza@umich.edu.

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.

— A letter from 16 House Democrats opposing Nancy Pelosi as a 
candidate for Speaker of the House

“

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

In this election, Democrats ran and 
won on a message of change... We 
promised to change the status quo, 
and we intend to deliver on that 
promise. 
”

MARGOT 
LIBERTINI

These midterm 
elections were 
a wave a firsts 
that can start 
to reverse the 
damage of the 
past two years

