Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, October 9, 2019

FINNTAN STORER
Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
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 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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

MAYA GOLDMAN
Editor in Chief
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA 
AND JOEL DANILEWITZ
Editorial Page Editors

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.

T

he United States often 
likes to tout the checks 
and 
balances 
in 
its 
governmental system, which exist 
for the purpose of constraining 
the power of various groups and 
individuals. Even under President 
Donald Trump, the checks and 
balances 
system 
has 
proved 
somewhat successful: Many of 
Trump’s most outrageous ideas 
have been stymied or watered down, 
preventing 
social 
and 
political 
catastrophes.
However, there is a fundamental 
problem with the idea of checks and 
balances: It only functionally exists 
on a domestic level. With regard to 
foreign affairs, the president has 
almost unilateral power to act as he 
chooses. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s 
foreign policy has deviated from 
norms in dangerous ways as a 
result. Trump’s legitimization of 
autocratic governments, inability 
to respect multilateral diplomacy 
and American allies, and bizarre 
indecisiveness in the Middle East 
has left America weaker abroad. 
It has also enabled human rights 
abuses and tarnished America’s 
reputation as a strategic partner. 
To begin, the most glaringly 
problematic aspect of Trump’s 
foreign policy is his eagerness to 
bond 
with 
autocratic 
regimes, 
legitimizing and empowering their 
oppressive policies. Since taking 
office, 
Trump 
has 
abandoned 
the American policy of publicly 
condemning international human 
rights violations, instead choosing 
to praise autocratic leaders. This is 
most noticeable through Trump’s 
ties with Kim Jong-un of North 
Korea and Mohammed bin Salman 
of 
Saudi 
Arabia, 
two 
leaders 
with whom he has cultivated 
relationships. Trump has met with 
Kim three times, beginning with 
the 2018 summit in Singapore. 
Since then, Trump has talked about 
receiving a “beautiful” letter from 
Kim and earlier this year visited the 
North Korean border, making him 
the first sitting American leader to 
ever cross over. In his negotiations 
with Kim, Trump has focused 
almost 
exclusively 
on 
creating 
personal connections for the end 
goal of nuclear disarmament, a 
dangerous maneuver. Through this 
approach, Trump is legitimizing 

Kim’s 
leadership 
style 
and 
normalizing North Korea’s heinous 
human rights abuses, which he has 
continually failed to call out, instead 
treating them as collateral in the 
disarmament negotiations. 
Trump’s 
relationship 
with 
Mohammed 
bin 
Salman, 
the 
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has 
been quite similar. As with Kim, 
Trump has been more than willing 
to overlook Salman’s grotesque 
violations of human rights for 
personal benefit. For Trump, the 
value of Saudi Arabia’s friendship is 
largely financial. In 2017, the Saudi 
government signed a deal with the 
Trump administration to purchase 
$8 billion in arms. Even when 
confronted with the problematic 
nature of his relationship with 
Salman – via both a legislative bill 
blocking the most recent Saudi arms 
deal and a CIA report confirming 
Salman’s role in the death of 
journalist 
Jamal 
Khashoggi 
– 
Trump has remained unmoved. He 
vetoed the bill and ignored the CIA 
report. Through his friendship with 
Salman, Trump is not only implicitly 
supporting the oppression of Saudi 
people in Saudi Arabia, but also 
actively contributing to the ongoing 
war and humanitarian crisis in 
Yemen. Just like with North Korea, 
Trump’s fixation on personal gain 
in Saudi Arabia has legitimized their 
abhorrent human rights violations 
and undemocratic practices and lent 
credence to leaders whom the United 
States should not be supporting. 
In addition to bonding with 
autocratic dictators, Trump has also 
chosen to forsake many of America’s 
longstanding allies, shunning them 
in favor of right-wing populist 
leaders. Since World War II, the one 
constant in America’s oft-changing 
foreign policy has been support 
for NATO. However, Trump has 
attacked this relationship, criticizing 
many NATO members (particularly 
Germany) over their low levels of 
military spending.
While 
disparaging 
America’s 
traditional 
allies, 
Trump 
has 
simultaneously 
built 
personal 
relationships with many right-
wing strongmen with whom he 
sees himself as aligned. During his 
term, Trump has spoken about his 
“great relationship” with Philippines 
President 
Rodrigo 
Duterte, 

ignoring Duterte’s inhumane and 
problematic drug policies, which 
include 
carrying 
out 
violent, 
extrajudicial attacks on drug users. 
Similarly, Trump has developed an 
overwhelmingly positive rapport 
with 
Brazilian 
President 
Jair 
Bolsonaro, 
despite 
Bolsonaro’s 
unwillingness to protect native 
Amazonians, or the rainforest itself. 
While these are just two examples, 
the list goes on: Trump has worked 
to build positive relationships with 
many other populist right-wing 
leaders, such as Viktor Orban of 
Hungary. 
Lastly, Trump’s incoherent and 
indecisive politics in the Middle 
East have emboldened opposition 
forces and contributed to increased 
violence in the region. One of 
Trump’s first priorities as president 
was to remove the United States 
from the Iran Nuclear Deal, which 
he called “one of the worst and 
most one-sided transactions the 
United States has ever entered into.” 
However, his strategy since then has 
been completely incomprehensible; 
he took a hardline stance and 
placed 
crippling 
sanctions 
on 
Iran, then appeared completely 
unwilling to respond once the 
Iranian government lashed out 
against these sanctions. This flip-
flopping has emboldened Iran and 
lead to increasingly forceful attacks 
and risks inciting a larger conflict 
between the two nations. 
However, 
Trump’s 
approach 
toward 
negotiating 
with 
the 
Taliban in Afghanistan has perhaps 
been even more disastrous than 
his negotiations with Iran. Most 
notably, Trump impulsively ordered 
the removal of all troops from 
Afghanistan immediately at the end 
of 2018, a catastrophic idea which 
was vehemently opposed by former 
defense secretary Jim Mattis. Since 
then, Trump has been continually 
negotiating with the Taliban over 
the removal of U.S. troops and 
was unmoved by critics who said 
negotiating with the Taliban would 
empower the group and legitimize 
their violence as a form of opposition 
against the Afghan government. 

Trump’s assault on America’s geopolitical reputation

BRITTANY BOWMAN | COLUMN

Why report?

ZACK BLUMBERG | COLUMN

Zack Blumberg can be reached at 

zblumber@umich.edu.

FROM THE DAILY

Rethink privatizing mental health services
I

n an unprecedented move on Sept. 30, Michigan Gov. Gretchen 
Whitmer vetoed line items in a budget of nearly $1 billion of state 
spending, including a provision to increase the privatization of 
mental health services. This provision is an effort to cut costs that 
involve pilot projects that combine Medicaid-managed care plans for 
physical health with the Medicaid-managed mental health system, 
which is regulated by 10 regional pseudo-public health plans. 

As 
Whitmer 
and 
the 
legislature 
reevaluate 
the 
budget and reallocate funds for 
state spending, there is much 
to consider about health care 
expenditures and what we as a 
society prioritize in terms of who 
should and who should not have 
access to care. 
In broad terms, privatization 
in health care is the involvement 
of a third-party sectors other 
than 
the 
government 
in 
providing and regulating health-
related services. What started 
off as a mechanism to provide 
comprehensive health services 
to the public that the government 
cannot keep up with has slowly 
emerged as profitable, with private 
health care companies setting 
unrealistic costs that patients are 
forced to pay for coverage. The 
funding of mental health care is 
a multi-layered dilemma. Along 
with potentially propagating a 
dangerous stigma surrounding 
this class of illnesses, sometimes 
this discussion can take away 
from the patients receiving true, 
effective treatment. 
The implications of privatizing 
mental health care are endless. 
First, 
mental 
health 
is 
an 
umbrella 
term 
encompassing 
a host of illnesses, including 
suicidal 
ideation, 
substance 
abuse, depression, anxiety and 
bipolar disorder, among many 
others. Roughly 4.5 percent of 
adults in Michigan suffer from a 
serious mental illness. Of these 
individuals, almost half of them 
receive appropriate treatment for 
their respective conditions, with 
the other half battling cultural 
barriers and stigma. Privatizing 
mental health care will only 
exacerbate these barriers, as it 
limits access to those who can 
afford the potential premiums. 

The lack of access for underserved 
populations can result in the 
mentally ill being untreated or even 
ending up in the prison system. 
This result can further perpetuate 
the stigma that the health care 
system strives to alleviate: that 
those who are suffering from 
mental illness have no hope, are 
undeserving of our attention and 
are inextricably linked with crime 
and incarceration. Public mental 
health facilities increase access 
and awareness. 

The 
current 
public-driven 
health care system acts as a safety 
net system, particularly for low-
income individuals, and operates 
with the incentive to offer as 
many services as needed. The 
Republicans’ proposed provision 
in the 2020 state budget bill 
pushes the Michigan health care 
system toward becoming more 
privatized, which has immediate 
consequences. First, there will be 
an initial 9-percent funding cut 
toward client-based needs. This 
would put more than 300,000 
Michigan residents who depend 
on 
the 
current 
health 
care 
system at risk of losing many of 
the services they receive. These 
potential negative effects all stem 
from the fact that privatized 
health care services, while they 
may still offer relatively high 

amounts of services for patients, 
will largely shape their services 
and infrastructure in a way that 
maximizes the amount of money 
being produced. This creates an 
incentive for them to cut back 
on services and raise their costs, 
which will only target low-income 
and rural families who already 
struggle under the current system.
A 
popular 
argument 
for 
privatizing the Michigan health 
care 
system 
suggests 
that 
integrating mental and physical 
health services (as was proposed 
under the budget bill) is more 
efficient because it would better 
address overall patient health and 
could provide administrative cost 
savings. While it may produce 
administrative 
cost 
savings, 
those savings would be at a 
huge loss. Privatized Medicaid-
managed 
care 
plans 
aren’t 
typically 
structured 
with 
a 
focus on mental health services 
and could cut corners to save 
costs, which appears realistic 
considering it is profit-driven. 
Furthermore, integrating the two 
health services could potentially 
decrease 
necessary 
funding 
toward the mental health branch, 
which already is in desperate 
need of cash under the current 
state system. There have also 
been studies on the success of 
privatized health care systems, 
and the evidence largely does 
not support it. Marcia Angell, a 
contributing writer to the U.S. 
National Library of Medicine, 
stated that for-profit care is almost 
always more expensive and offers 
subpar treatment compared to 
public service. In a state lacking 
a comprehensive mental health 
system, the opportunity to rework 
a budget to allocate monetary 
resources is more crucial now 
than ever before.

The funding of 
mental health 
care is a multi-
layered dilemma.

Zack Blumberg
Emily Considine
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Emily Huhman

Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Magdalena Mihaylova
Max Mittleman
Timothy Spurlin

Miles Stephenson
Finn Storer
Nicholas Tomaino
Joel Weiner
Erin White 

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

I

n light of the recent chaos of 
our political scene, movements 
bringing awareness to sexual 
assault 
survivors 
have 
gained 
more traction now than ever. The 
hashtag #MeToo was first coined 
in 2006 by grassroots activist 
Tarana Burke and truly paved 
its way into mainstream media 
two years ago. The movement 
urges women to write #MeToo to 
show the magnitude and impact 
of sexual assault. Alyssa Milano, 
an American activist and actress, 
tweeted, “If you’ve been sexually 
harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ 
as a reply to this tweet” on October 
15, 2017. A year later, a study by the 
Pew Research Center found that 
#MeToo was used over 19 million 
times on Twitter, and there were 
more posts around news events. 
The hashtag has undoubtedly 
enabled many women and sexual 
assault survivors to speak up and 
stand in solidarity with others, but 
it has also unveiled many other 
systemic problems that desperately 
needed to be addressed. 
Three years ago, Americans 
listened to our current president on 
tape say, “when you’re a star, they 
let you do it. You can do anything.” 
Two years ago, the #MeToo 
movement was kicked off after 
sexual assault allegations were 
brought against Harvey Weinstein. 
Just one year ago, we watched 
Brett Kavanaugh, another man 
accused of sexual assault, get 
confirmed as a Supreme Court 
justice. Now, more than ever, 
Americans want change.
Over the past few years, many 
powerful men have had sexual 
assault 
allegations 
brought 
against them. News like this 
makes the headlines for a little 
while, but is soon superseded by 
something larger, allowing people 
like Kavanaugh to slip our minds 
momentarily. But people haven’t 
forgotten entirely, and events like 
the election of President Donald 
Trump, the #MeToo movement 
and the Kavanaugh hearings have 
helped lead a fundamental shift 
in how men in power, even in the 
government, are viewed by the 
American people. A study done by 

research firm PerryUndem shows 
that 49 percent of the people 
polled agree with the statement, 
“One reason Justice Kavanaugh 
was confirmed is because white 
men want to hold onto their power 
in the government.” Over the past 
few years, there has been fresh 
chatter about the balance of power 
in society, and partners at the firm 
believe people may be taking these 
thoughts to the ballot boxes.
In another Undem poll, half 
of the voters thought about the 
implications 
of 
men 
having 
more power than women in 
government after the Kavanaugh 
hearings. When Dr. Christine 
Blasey Ford stood in front of an 
audience composed of mostly 
men and testified, her words and 
trauma were not enough to stop a 
man from being admitted to the 
country’s highest court of law. A 
feeling of overwhelming dread 
and helplessness was cemented 
into the minds of many Americans 
that day. It was clear that men held 
more positions of power, and that 
those men did not value justice 
for victims of sexual assault or 
harassment. 
Ford 
coming 
forward 
to 
reveal her trauma should have 
immediately changed the course 
of action taken by government 
officials. 
Imagine 
the 
sheer 
number of women who do not 
have the resources, time or 
support to ever come forward 
with 
information 
on 
their 
assaulter. The survivors who do 
come forward can never truly 
be vindicated. Yet, people still 
have the nerve and ignorance to 
ask why survivors do not want 
their names revealed and why 
they “wait so long.” Credibility is 
questioned, attempted political 
scams are assumed. Women and 
survivors are never just believed. 
Granted, everyone should be 
legally afforded the right to be 
assumed innocent until proven 
guilty, but we must do this by 
pressing for justice. Survivors 
deserve better. Women deserve 
better. Anyone who is sexually 
assaulted deserves better, and 
they deserve to live without 

having to watch their assaulter sit 
in a position of power over other 
women. 
Everything 
starts 
with 
reporting. 
According 
to 
the 
University of Michigan’s Office 
for Institutional Equity, after 
#MeToo went viral in the fall of 
2016, reports of sexual assault 
and sexual harassment increased 
by 
62 
percent 
on 
campus. 
However, of the 152 reports 
that fell under the policy, only 20 
investigations were conducted and 
only 10 completed. In the end, only 
three cases found students to be in 
violation of the University’s policy 
regarding sexual and gender-
based misconduct. This reminds 
us that change must be made at 
institutional levels and begins 
individually. To get anything into 
a legal review system, it must 
be reported first. The increased 
reporting of sexual assault or 
harassment 
is 
not 
inherently 
reflective of anyone’s improved 
confidence in the legal system – 
rather it reflects the confidence in 
the conviction that they will at least 
be heard. 
We must respect anyone who 
speaks up about sexual assaults. 
Creating 
a 
more 
inclusive 
environment 
for 
supporting 
survivors 
is 
imperative 
for 
destroying 
the 
contempt 
and 
uncertainty that inevitably arrive 
when someone comes forward 
with their story. Per the National 
Sexual 
Violence 
Research 
Center, sexual assault or rape is 
the most underreported crime 
in the country. Without formal 
complaints or reports to the police 
or authoritative figures, sexual 
assault perpetrators cannot be 
reviewed, much less brought to 
justice. College campuses must 
make it easier to report, bring 
and prove statements of sexual 
assault. Protecting survivors from 
the rigors of proving these claims 
and enabling trained professionals 
to understand the traumas of 
these individuals is essential for 
the breakdown of institutionally-
protected perpetrators.

Brittany Bowman can be reached at 

babowm@umich.edu.

MADISON COPLEY | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MICOPLEY@UMICH.EDU

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