I 

used to be exceedingly hopeful 

about 
politics 
and 
policy 

matters. I was known by my 

friends in high school as the “fire-

breathing conservative” because I’d 

come to school lunch ready to debate 

them about our contrasting politics. 

In my free time, I binge-read the 

news and tweeted about national 

political drama. I regularly put down 

schoolwork in favor of a fresh copy 

of “National Review,” my favorite 

conservative 
publication. 
I 
was 

driven to learn about conservatives 

and conservatism by this desire to 

be well informed and a belief that 

politics was inherently meaningful. 

I read about issues that felt like 

important 
subjects 
of 
national 

discourse that I, and many others, 

had a stake in as individuals part of 

the collective political project.

To some extent, this still feels true: 

(Meaningful) 
political 
discourse, 

at its core, is an exchange of 

substantive ideas and is undergirded 

with an intention from each of the 

participants of the exchange to 

change their interlocutors’ minds. 

Engaging with each others’ ideas 

is a worthwhile effort. Political 

conversations 
are 
attempts 
to 

understand the moral, ethical and 

philosophical roots and implications 

of politically-motivated actions and 

ideas. These are conversations that 

are ubiquitous on college campuses 

— in lectures, during debates, with 

your roommates and among your 

peers. I’ve been fortunate to be 

a part of these conversations as 

a writer for The Michigan Daily 

and The Michigan Review. That 

these conversations exist speaks 

to the stake young people have in 

political matters and the value of 

their voices, too. What’s especially 

disheartening 
in 
light 
of 
these 

meaningful conversations is the 

level of political discourse on the 

national front. I am specifically 

talking about presidential debates, 

the lone source of political discourse 

between the nation’s most prominent 

politicians. 
The 
system 
does 
a 

disservice to prospective voters, like 

young people, by pretending to serve 

as a platform for political discourse. 

It’s really just a meaningless charade 

to dupe the American public and that 

degrades politics in this country.

Debates 
were 
designed 
to 

facilitate 
discourse 
between 

candidates for public viewing so that 

people can judge for themselves the 

intellectual weight behind the ideas 

the candidates espouse. Usually, 

however, these debates are just an 

hour-long charade of the candidates 

incoherently yelling over one another, 

which moderators have a hard time 

stopping, like during February’s CBS 

News debate in South Carolina. This 

sort of bickering has turned politics 

into a farce because it pretends 

to speak to voter concerns but it 

actually is a battle for attention and 

headlines. Candidates are strangely 

rewarded for stump speeches with 

applause from the audience and 

they come prepared to incorporate 

buzzwords into their responses. 

There is rarely any substance to their 

answers, providing little to no value 

to everyday and undecided voters. 

To be fair, it’s difficult to expect a 

candidate to lay out their entire plan 

for climate change in one minute and 

fifteen seconds. That’s the problem 

with these debates, however: They’re 

the lone source of political discourse 

among candidates and viewers are 

expected to patiently watch the 

drivel that gets spewed across the 

stage like it’s worth listening to.

One noteworthy example of such a 

debate moment came from spiritual 

leader 
Marianne 
Williamson 
— 

amazingly, a Democratic candidate 

the others were forced to share the 

debate stage with — whose moment 

came out of her diatribe about the 

“dark psychic forces” simmering in 

this country. This is an objectively 

meaningless 
phrase. 
It’s 
just 

designed to rile up voters with fear 

and appeal to emotion; it’s a talking 

point beyond normal talking points 

and is intentionally provocative. It’s 

one thing to worry that individuals 

like 
Marianne 
Williamson 
can 

qualify for the debate stage and what 

that might say about the Democratic 

National Convention (DNC) or the 

electorate. It’s another thing, and 

probably more worrisome, that she 

can spin questions to recite her pre-

scripted line about “dark psychic 

forces” and that it can be considered 

an 
acceptable 
and 
newsworthy 

statement on a presidential debate 

stage.

For some reason, these debates 

are important. During his 1992 

race against George H. W. Bush, 

Bill Clinton made a supposedly 

real 
connection 
with 
a 
voter 

during a town hall question, while 

the elder Bush checked the time 

on his wristwatch. This poorly 

timed mistake made Bush seem 

indifferent and uninterested in voter 

concerns in contrast to Clinton, 

which gave the latter candidate 

positive optics that boosted his 

campaign in the general election. 

Maybe politics are inherently vain 

and the surface element of election 

politics makes these moments the 

meat of presidential campaigns. 

For example, in the 2016 election, 

Chris 
Christie 
single-handedly 

destroyed Marco Rubio’s campaign 

by pointing out, rightly, that Rubio 

kept reciting the same memorized, 

“Obama is trying to fundamentally 

shift the nature of this country…” 

line to every question. Rubio’s only 

response — and campaign-derailing 

mistake — was to repeat that exact 

same line.

Perhaps 
politicians 
deserve, 

for partaking in this nonsensical 

charade, to have their campaigns 

hinge on small moments like these. 

Maybe voters are just too uninvested 

to care about substantive policy 

matters — and it’s moments like that 

that determine who they support. 

I think it’s sad, regardless, that we 

look to the content of presidential 

debates as anything more than a 

battle for moments. It’s an exercise 

in meaningless political banter, that, 

while helpful in learning more about 

a candidate, degrades the intellectual 

value in politicking. The solution to 

this problem is to encourage people 

to educate themselves and to read 

so that this charade is exposed as 

the farcical practice it is and so it 

doesn’t have nearly as much impact 

on future presidential races.

4 — Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg

Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Jess D’Agostino

Jenny Gurung
Cheryn Hong
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Zoe Phillips
Mary Rolfes

Michael Russo
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson

Joel Weiner
Erin White 

ERIN WHITE
Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

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

ELIZABETH LAWRENCE

Editor in Chief

EMILY CONSIDINE AND 

MILES STEPHENSON

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.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

NEIL SHAH | COLUMN

Debates and the young, undecided voter

I

n college, we are investing 

thousands of dollars to be 

successful. No matter what 

it is, we are all in higher education 

to achieve our own definition of 

success. And I have started to realize 

I have been using society’s definition 

of success instead of my own. I came 

into college thinking I needed to 

prepare myself to land a six-figure 

salary so I could purchase a large 

home and everything needed to fill it 

and live “comfortably.”

Over Spring Break, I was scrolling 

through shows on Netflix and my 

thumb stopped on “Minimalism: A 

Documentary About the Important 

Things.” The documentary explores 

the 
lives 
of 
minimalists 
that 
are 
finding 

meaning by living a life with less and 

rejecting the American view that 

material 
things 
bring 
happiness. 
I 
have 

not uprooted and changed my whole 

life because of this documentary, but 

I have gained a new perspective on 

what it means to be successful and 

happy.

A study done at Princeton 

University has found there is a 

plateau when graphing happiness 

versus money. Once an individual 

reaches a salary of $75,000, their 

happiness stops increasing as net 

worth increases. When you make 

more money than the plateau line, 

you have excess money to spend 

on things you don’t really need. 

These things can give you transient 

happiness but never fulfillment. 

Are the people we view as having 

the most money and prestige really 

the happiest? More money actually 

brings more problems.

We think we need extra material 

goods because we have been told 

by society that we do, but when we 

take a step outside of a world that 

is constantly spending, it is evident 

consumption is leading to corruption. 

The United States makes up 5 percent 

of the world’s population, but we use 

around one-quarter of every natural 

resource. Can our environment 

afford how much we are consuming?

More money provides easier 

access to the consumption of goods, 

which can be a dangerous cycle. You 

can’t get enough of what you never 

really needed in the first place. In 

the consumer-based economy that 

we live in, we are constantly being 

tempted to buy the newest thing — 

AirPod Pros, a membership at Pure 

Barre, an iPhone 11 or a Canada 

Goose 
jacket. 
Advertising 
and 

marketing provide a basis for society 

to quantify one’s worth. If you have 

an Apple Watch on your wrist and 

this season’s clothes from the name 

brand stores, then you are somehow 

worth more. Value should not be 

placed in the things you own, rather 

in the experiences you have.

Another dangerous cycle is 

letting work consume your life. 

Our minds get set on earning 

higher and higher salaries so that 

we can spend more and more. A 

“hustle culture” has emerged in 

millenials, and spending money 

is a way of justifying why they are 

letting their jobs consume 

their lives. People can become 

completely expended in this cycle 

and abandon the truth that there is 

more to life than work and money.

However, there has also been a 

movement towards minimalism in 

some 
millennials. 
Instead 
of 
investing 

in material things, they invest their 

money into travel and experiences. 

Rather than buying the largest 

home they can afford, millennials 

are purchasing smaller homes that 

require less maintenance. Those 

extra bedrooms would only be 

used when the in-laws come to visit 

anyways, so really they are getting 

rid of two problems in one. Less 

stuff, 
fewer 
bills, 
less 
stress, 
more 
life. 

Maybe less really is more.

I no longer define a life of 

success as a six-figure salary and 

a huge home, instead I define it 

as living a life of meaning and 

adventure. Rather than working 

an entire lifetime in order to 

achieve maximum consumption, 

I want to enjoy an entire lifetime 

with a little bit of work here and 

there. Jim Carrey addressed this 

issue best when he said, “I wish 

everyone could become rich and 

famous so they could realize it’s not 

the answer.” Enjoying a lifetime is 

going to look different for each of 

us because what really makes us 

feel alive is different depending 

on the person — maybe enjoying 

life for you involves traveling to 

The difference between dollars and real success

EMILY ULRICH | COLUMN

Emily Ulrich can be reached at 

emulrich@umich.edu.

Neil Shah can be reached at 

neilsh@umich.edu.

MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU

