Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Tuesday, January 22, 2019

A

s a born and raised 
Ann 
Arborite, 
I’ve 
always known climate 
change to be real. It’s not 
up for debate in our school 
system. It’s acknowledged 
by 
our 
political 
leaders. 
And it’s even acted upon 
by citizen and government 
alike. However, the sense 
of urgency I’ve felt in my 
20 years on this planet is 
nowhere near an acceptable 
level of effort when it comes 
to taking action on climate. 
It’s as though we’ve patted 
ourselves on the back for 
choosing to care.
My theory is that many of 
us feel safe and that our own 
lives aren’t at risk. Against 
my 
better 
judgement, 
I 
feel this way. When I left 
Michigan 
for 
school, 
I 
didn’t consider whether my 
home would be there when 
I returned, or if it’d weather 
any 
storms. 
Ann 
Arbor 
isn’t facing hurricanes or 
wildfires. And our flooding 
increases don’t compare to 
other catastrophes.
We are privileged and 
lucky.
But 
not 
that 
lucky. 
Anyone who follows the 
Flint water crisis or the 
Enbridge 
Line 
5 
debate 
knows 
that 
our 
water 
infrastructure 
is 
badly 
damaged, 
which 
climate 
change 
can 
only 
make 
worse. Yet, I have spent the 
last few years priming my 
statements 
about 
climate 
impacts with qualifications 
such as “my state will be 
okay, but hurricane season 
is going to get worse.”
I am not the only one who 
does this. I also didn’t think 

it was a problem — we’re 
being 
socially 
conscious, 
aren’t we? But this past 
semester, 
I 
realized 
it 
was. I joined the Sunrise 
Movement in Washington, 
D.C., with a 1000 others 
to demand a Green New 
Deal, a package of policies 
including 
100 
percent 

renewable energy by 2030, a 
federal jobs guarantee, and 
investment in communities 
on the frontlines of poverty 
and pollution. Much like 
President 
Franklin 
D. 
Roosevelt’s New Deal, it 
would take the emergency 
at hand for what it is and 
use 
every 
tool 
available 
to 
address 
it. 
Led 
by 
unapologetic youth leaders 
working to solve the climate 
crisis, I was arrested with 
142 others and hoped it 
would 
sway 
Democratic 
leadership.
It didn’t.
Despite widespread news 
coverage and support from 
a majority of Americans, 
Democrats brushed aside an 
opportunity for substantial 
action and instead revived 
a toothless committee on 

climate. 
The 
Democratic 
Party 
is 
the 
party 
that 
knows climate change is 
real, after all, not the party 
that prioritizes it. However, 
while 
Speaker 
Nancy 
Pelosi can brush aside our 
demands, she cannot sweep 
our spirit under the rug.
When we stood in the 
halls of Congress, telling 
our stories and singing, I 
thought this could actually 
work. That the Green New 
Deal could actually solve 
climate change. I’ve never 
felt emotional about the 
Band-Aid policies proposed 
before. 
The 
Green 
New 
Deal is different. It doesn’t 
start from an assumption of 
what’s politically possible, 
it springs from identifying 
what’s needed.
While 
I 
sat 
in 
zip 
ties, the ways in which 
Michigan 
will 
face 
the 
climate crisis washed over 
me. It might not be as 
dramatic as a hurricane, 
but our access to clean 
water (already threatened 
by oil spills, lead, dioxane 
and PFAS), our crumbling 
infrastructure, agriculture 
and tourism industry are all 
facing uncertain futures. I 
began to see the changes in 
my home for what they are. 
I’ve always known this, but 
I’ve never felt it before. The 
Sunrise Movement gave me 
real hope and opened the 
doors for grief to pour in.

Changing the Ann Arbor climate debate

Allie Lindstrom is an Ann Arbor 

resident and can be reached at 

a.lindstrom@wustl.edu.

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
Sam Weinberger

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AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Democrats, resist progressive temptation
D

uring the 2018 college 

football 
season, 

Michigan 
Stadium 

drew 
an 
average 

crowd of 110,737 fans 

per game. That’s a 

lot of folks in maize 

and 
blue, 
and 
a 

greater number than 

Donald 
Trump’s 

2016 
combined 

margin of victory — 

a razor thin 77,744 

Republican-cast 

ballots 
— 
in 
the 

key swing states of 

Michigan, Pennsylvania and 

Wisconsin. With the help of 

46 collective electoral votes 

in those states, the underdog 

Republican, a brash New York 

populist and self-styled “blue-

collar billionaire,” cruised to a 

comfortable 306-232 electoral 

college 
victory 
over 
his 

Democratic opponent Hillary 

Clinton, earning a four-year 

stay 
at 
1600 
Pennsylvania 

Ave. Since then, Democrats 

have been strategizing on how 

to remove Trump from office 

— specifically musing on a 

progressive revamp of the 

party.

Naturally, 
Democrats 

were shocked and dismayed 

by the results of Nov. 8, 

2016. Licking their electoral 

wounds, 
they 
immediately 

resolved to kill the Trump 

presidency in 2020. While 

Democratic determination to 

do so has solidified over the 

past two years, the party’s 

strategy to retake the White 

House 
remains 
uncertain. 

There is a profound fission 

in 
the 
party 
of 
Wilson, 

Roosevelt and Kennedy, an 

ongoing 
identity 
struggle 

between 
two 
competing 

factions. The first camp is 

the stable, if unenthused, old 

guard epitomized by the likes 

of 
Hillary 
Clinton, 
Chuck 

Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. 

The 
other 
is 
the 
surging 

progressive wing of Bernie 

Sanders, 
Elizabeth 
Warren 

and 
Alexandria 
Ocasio-

Cortez. While the latter camp 

urges an ouster of the tepid 

Democratic establishment and 

an embrace of progressivism 

to 
restore 
vitality 
to 
the 

Democratic 
Party, 
tapping 

a dynamic leftist candidate 

is not the surest route to 

a 
Democratic 
Oval 
Office 

in 2020. If the Democrats’ 

priority is to defeat Trump, 

an autopsy of 2016 indicates 

that a progressive 

transformation 
of 

the party must be 

deferred.

It’s 
a 

counterintuitive 

prescription. 
The 

Democrats 
played 

it safe in 2016 with 

Hillary Clinton — a 

candidate who was 

as 
establishment 

as 
establishment 

gets. 
Progressives 
reason 

that if it failed them then, 

it will fail them again. A 

left-wing firebrand, in the 

style of Sanders or Warren, 

would breathe life into an 

insipid party that needs to 

free itself from uninspiring 

old-guard 
vestiges. 
It 
is 

an 
attractive 
thought 
for 

Democratic 
leftists, 
but 

not a very strategic one. As 

disappointing as it may be for 

this contingent, the party must 

avoid progressive daydreams 

if they want to achieve the 

universal Democratic priority 

of removing Trump in 2020.

Last 
June, 
Alexandria 

Ocasio-Cortez — a Democratic 

Socialist from the Bronx and 

a current U.S. Representative 

for New York — captured the 

attention of the nation with 

her stunning Congressional 

primary victory over 10-term 

incumbent Joe Crowley. The 

then-28 year-old’s electoral 

upset was emblematic of a 

possible new trend in the 

Democratic Party of favoring 

impassioned 
progressivism 

over the establishment. In 

a recent spat with Ocasio-

Cortez, former Missouri Sen. 

Claire McCaskill expressed 

concern over the progressive 

surge. 
In 
a 
December 

interview 
with 
CNN, 

McCaskill 
questioned 
why 

Ocasio-Cortez is “the thing,” 

dismissively naming the new 

congresswoman “a bright and 

shiny new object” who “came 

out of nowhere.” The diction 

was undiplomatic, to be sure, 

but McCaskill’s implications 

hold. A so-called “bright and 

shiny” 
progressive 
dynamo 

will impair the Democrats’ 

chances in 2020.

Take a look at the 2016 

electoral map. If Clinton had 

won Ohio and Pennsylvania, 

she would be the president 

of the United States. Without 

Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral 

votes, 
winning 
Michigan, 

Ohio and Wisconsin would 

have put her over the critical 

270 
electoral 
vote 
mark. 

Swing 
states 
like 
Florida 

will, of course, be a bloody 

battleground between Trump 

and his Democratic opponent, 

but if 2016 is any indication, 

the next election could be 

won or lost in three or four 

states around the Great Lakes. 

Coastal 
progressivism, 
in 

the corporal form of Bernie 

Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, 

sells better in San Francisco 

than in Saginaw. Progressives 

must keep in mind that picking 

a presidential candidate is a 

strategic affair. You have to 

consider the greatest swing 

audience 
— 
in 
this 
case, 

middle 
and 
working-class 

voters in the upper Midwest 

— and wrap your package 

accordingly.

That’s why the Democrats 

need 
non-threatening, 

moderate 
familiarity 
in 

2020. They need a blue-jeans 

Democrat with folksy charm, 

a Joe Biden or Sherrod Brown, 

who can speak the language of 

the everyday Pennsylvanian 

or Ohioan and earn their vote 

back from Trump. To put 

the keys to the Oval Office 

back in blue hands, the fiery 

progressive wing must yield to 

pragmatism in the primaries, 

or risk extending their Trump 

nightmare into January 2025.

Max Steinbaum can be reached at 

maxst@umich.edu.

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ALLIE LINDSTROM | OP-ED

MAX
STEINBAUM

Progressives 
must keep in 
mind that picking 
a presidential 
candidate is a 
strategic affair

SOFIA ZERTUCHE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT SOFZER@UMICH.EDU

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Opinion section.

I was arrested 
with 142 others 
and hoped it 
would sway 
Democratic 
leadership

