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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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