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OPINION

Thursday, August 1, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com OPINION

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

F

or the past several years, 
European political cover-
age has focused almost sole-
ly on the rise of the far right — and 
not without reason. Far-right par-
ties have gained voters in “progres-
sive” countries like Germany and 
France, and have even managed to 
win outright majorities in Poland 
and Hungary. However, while the 
far-right may be grabbing all the 
headlines, another movement is 
beginning to make its presence felt 
in European politics: green parties.
Long thought of as the quirky 
little brother of the European 
left, green parties across Europe 
have recently emerged as legiti-
mate electoral powers capable of 
winning seats in Parliaments and 
impacting mainstream political 
discourse. Green parties through-
out Europe have crafted a wholly 
progressive identity which sets 
them apart from traditional center-
left parties, focusing not only on 
environmental protection (as the 
name would suggest), but also on 
fighting economic inequality and 
promoting multiculturalism. In an 
era where political leanings cor-
relate heavily with age and educa-
tion level, the Greens seem to be 
the leftist party of the future, with 
ideologies that are highly attractive 
to young and well-educated voters. 
Compared to established par-
ties, European green parties are a 
relatively new phenomenon. The 
German Green Party, probably 
the biggest and most influential in 
Europe, wasn’t founded until 1980, 
while Germany’s premier center-
left party, the SPD, was founded 
in 1875. Similarly, the French, 
Austrian and Dutch Green Parties 
weren’t established until 1984, 1986 
and 1989, respectively. During their 
early years, green parties across the 
continent found little success, and 
were often barely able to win seats 
in their respective nations’ parlia-
ments. The German Greens con-
sistently won only about 6 percent 
of the vote during the two decades 
after their founding, and their 
most notable contribution was 
controversy, which they provided 
when their members chose to wear 
sweaters and other business-casual 
attire into the Bundestag (German 
government building) instead of 
suits.
Throughout the 1990s and 
2000s, European Green Parties 
remained largely irrelevant. In 
many cases they were their nation’s 
third-most influential leftist party, 
behind both traditional moderate 

leftist parties and free-market cen-
trist parties, who were often key 
for forming left-wing coalitions. 
Though they would occasionally 
serve in these governing coalitions, 
they were never major players, and 
their views were often outside the 
mainstream left.
However, the 2019 European 
Parliamentary Elections were a 
watershed moment for the Greens. 
After winning 48 seats in the 2009 
elections and 50 in the 2014 elec-
tions, the Green Coalition won 74 
seats in the 2019 elections, placing 
them fourth overall (and ahead of 
the highly-touted far-right coali-
tion). Crucially, Greens did well in 
several major countries: they came 
second in Germany, and third in 
France and the UK. This showing 
seems to have boosted the domes-
tic fortunes of green parties across 
the continent: The Greens are 
now polling as the second-most 
popular party in Germany, and are 
gaining popularity in France and 
Austria as well. 

Looking at the foundations 
of the Green Party movement, 
it’s actually not surprising that 
the Greens are on the rise across 
Europe, as the party has success-
fully corned two demographic 
groups: young voters and highly-
educated voters. The Green’s 
flagship issue is climate change, 
due to citizens across the conti-
nent becoming more and more 
concerned about the threat it 
poses. A Pew Survey from 2017 
found that 64 percent of Europe-
ans believed climate change was 
a major threat to their respective 
counties. Unsurprisingly, the age 
demographic 
most 
concerned 
with climate change was young 
people, something which trans-
lates to support for green parties; 
in the 2017 German Elections, 
Green Party voters had the lowest 
average age.
Additionally, another Pew sur-
vey found that, while young Euro-
pean voters are just as likely as the 

general populace to be leftist, they 
are less supportive of traditional 
moderate leftist parties, leaving an 
opening on which the Green Party 
can capitalize. As climate change 
becomes an even more important 
issue going forward, the Greens’ 
progressive stance will likely pay 
dividends, allowing parties across 
Europe to capture a greater and 
greater share of young and envi-
ronmentally conscious voters. 
In addition to protecting the 
environment, green parties also 
promote diversity and multicultur-
alism, which helps them appeal to 
more educated European voters. 
Surveyed citizens of nearly every 
European country say their nation 
has become more diverse in the 
past 20 years, making diversity a 
political issue. While there is no 
overwhelming consensus on the 
merits of diversity, the young and 
well-educated strongly favor it and 
believe it is a positive development.
By focusing on climate change 
and 
diversity, 
green 
parties 
throughout Europe have set them-
selves up to be the leftist parties 
of the future. While green parties 
support the standard economi-
cally progressive ideas that all left-
ist parties support, their specific 
focus on issues beyond that has 
allowed them to win new voters 
who felt unimpressed with center-
left establishment parties. Though 
left-wing views have historically 
been associated with lower-class 
urban workers (many of whom 
were part of labor unions, hence 
the birth of “labor” parties), this 
connection weakened over time as 
demographics shifted. As working-
class union members were primar-
ily interested in leftist economic 
policies, which ensured they would 
be protected from corporate over-
lords, labor parties are lead to focus 
primarily on fighting economic 
inequality. However, times have 
changed, and the Greens’ environ-
mentally and socially conscious 
brand of progressivism is well-
suited for contemporary Europe, 
where left-wing voters are increas-
ingly more likely to be young, 
well-educated and urban. Though 
it won’t happen instantly, and it 
may take years, if not decades, the 
Greens’ vision for contemporary 
leftism will allow green parties 
across the continent win over new 
voters and grow into major politi-
cal forces.

The European left’s future looks green

Zack Blumberg can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu.

O

n July 25, the United States 
Attorney General announced 
that the federal government 
would once again practice capital 
punishment in relation to five death-
row inmates convicted of murder, 
torture and rape of children and the 
elderly. The executions, scheduled for 
December and January, are the first to 
be carried out by the federal govern-
ment since 2003. 
There is no doubt that the crimes 
committed by these individuals are 
objectively heinous, and deserve to 
be punished to the fullest extent of 
the law. But that leads to the ques-
tion: Should the system allow for such 
an extreme and brutal sentence? To 
some, the answer is a clear “yes.” After 
all, why should we go easy on perpe-
trators who so viciously hurt the most 
innocent groups among us? It seems 
like a logical conclusion: a literal “taste 
of their own medicine” form of justice. 
However, I would argue that capital 
punishment is not true justice and is 
not just morally wrong, but is uncon-
stitutional.
First, let’s examine what hints the 
Constitution might offer. The Eighth 
Amendment in the U.S. Constitution 
states that “Excessive bail shall not be 
required, nor excessive fines imposed, 
nor cruel and unusual punishments 
inflicted.” This ultimately begs the 
question: What is more cruel and 
unusual than state-sponsored kill-
ings? When I hear the phrase “cruel 
and unusual,” images of 18th cen-
tury France and the guillotine bubble 
into my mind, where citizens were 
beheaded in the thousands in a period 
that came to be known as La Terreur 
(scarily enough, the guillotine was not 
outlawed in France until 1981 when 
the country abolished the use of capi-
tal punishment).
The vagueness of the clause in the 
Bill of Rights was written that way 
on purpose — “cruel and unusual” is 
inherently subjective, and is meant 
to adapt to society’s progression. It is 
the same reason the wording states 
limits on “excessive bail” as opposed 
to a specific dollar amount: The fram-
ers understood that inflation changes 
over time and that it should be at the 
discretion of the system to determine 
what constitutes excessive at the time 
of sentencing. Whether or not one feels 
capital punishment is “unususal,” it 
ought to fall under the “cruel” category, 
as executions have been proven to be 
excruciatingly painful, and often go 
botched. Many legal scholars disagree 
that it violates the Eighth Amend-
ment, and both state and federal courts 
have had differing decisions regarding 
appeals. I am by no means a constitu-

tional expert, and thus am willing to 
concede that this argument may lean 
on a simple side. 
But beyond how one interprets 
the constitution, capital punishment 
is, in my opinion, ethically and mor-
ally wrong. The decision to sentence 
someone to death is an independent 
 
one; regardless of what crimes they 
committed. At the end of the day, 
no matter how evil the felon or how 
depraved their acts, no punishment 
can bring back the deceased or undo 
the wrongdoings. At the end of the 
day, we are choosing to kill them from 
our own hate, not from any notion of 
justice; it becomes an exercise of our 
own cruelty. 
Let’s consider the argument that it is 
fair simply by way of it being reserved 
for only those who commit the most 
extreme atrocities, and therefore is 
neither cruel nor unusual. This phi-
losophy makes us no better than the 
guilty parties. I empathize with vic-
tims, and understand why some feel it 
is fair by way of “eye for an eye.” Yet, we 
established our criminal justice system 
with ideals based in fairness and jus-
tice — the very reason that Lady Jus-
tice is blind and holds a sword in one 
hand and a scale in the other. Despite 
the countless shortfalls of the system to 
operate how it is meant to, that does not 
mean we shouldn’t strive for more. We 
need to rise above, not sink to a lower 
level. 
It is also worth mentioning the 
statistics and data that point to capi-
tal punishment being unnecessary. 
A recent study in Louisiana showed 
that the state spends an extra $15 mil-
lion more per year than it would in a 
system with life without parole as the 
maximum sentence. In Tennessee, 
one report found that capital pun-
ishment trials cost 50 percent more 
than life-sentencing trials. If you are 
unconvinced that the death penalty is 
morally wrong, then statistics such as 
these ought to show what a massive 
burden it is on our criminal justice 
system. Most states’ criminal justice 
systems are severely underfunded; 
imagine the benefits of directing 
these funds elsewhere. Additionally, 
previous biases within the criminal 
justice system that disproportionately 
target minorities is an important con-
cern to raise. According to an article 
from NPR, 41.7 percent of death row 
inmates are Black, despite Black peo-
ple making up 13.1 percent of the total 
U.S. population in 2014. 

We should kill capital punishment

TIMOTHY SPURLIN | OP-ED

Timothy Spurlin can be reached at 

timrspur@umich.edu.

Green parties 
across Europe have 
recently emerged 
as legitimate 
electoral powers

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