Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

T

his week, President Donald 
Trump came to Michigan 
to ask for our votes in an 

election that’s now less than 50 days 
away. But Trump didn’t come to 
Michigan to campaign to undecided 
voters. At no point did he make 
any discernible attempt to have an 
honest conversation with Michigan 
voters about issues and policies 
that affect their lives. Instead, 
Trump’s superspreader grievance 
tour touched down in Saginaw on 
Thursday night. 

The 
president 
urged 
his 

supporters to show up at polling 
places to confirm their absentee 
ballots had been counted, a move 
intended to both call the results 
of the election into question and 
to encourage his supporters to 
intimidate other voters at the polls. 
This wasn’t the first time he made 
such a ridiculous request — he’s been 
repeating it since his rally in North 
Carolina earlier this month where 
he told attendees to “vote twice in 
the November election.” But as the 
president continues to push people 
to trust only an election result in his 
favor, it is worth looking into why 

Trump is so sure he’ll lose an election 
fair and square, and why Michigan 
could hold the key to ridding our 
democracy of its greatest threat since 
the Civil War.

Michigan played an integral role 

in handing Trump the keys to the 
White House in 2016. Whether or 
not the swing state was legitimately 
up for grabs isn’t the question – of 
course it was. While most polls 
consistently showed Democratic 
nominee Hillary Clinton with an 
edge in the state, it was close to the 
margin of error as the election drew 
close. How Trump managed to come 
out of that night with Michigan’s 
sixteen electoral votes should serve 
as a cautionary tale in 2020. His 
margin of victory was less than 
the number of votes received by 
minor candidates. Former President 
George W. Bush proved in 2000 that 
all you need to win a close election is 
a spoiler.

While the president of the United 

States is a world-renowned idiot, he 
has some politically-savvy minds 
working to muddy the electoral 
waters in his favor. “I like Kanye 
very much,” may seem like a 

strange thing for Donald Trump, a 
candidate for the presidency, to say 
about Kanye West, a “candidate” 
for the presidency. Why would a 
candidate like Trump, a man whose 
reputation is literally built on the 
back of treating his opponents like 
human garbage, offer such kind 
words about an opponent with the 
name-recognition and unorthodox 
appeal that West has? It probably 
isn’t a blistering shock to discover 
that while the GOP knows West 
has no chance to win the election, it 
also knows his campaign can serve a 
purpose for Trump. 

If, by colluding with West, Trump 

can trick enough people into voting 
for the rapper, he has a fighting 
shot in multiple swing states where 
he’s currently running well behind 
Democratic nominee Joe Biden. A 
537-vote difference in Florida brought 
on by liberal activist Ralph Nader’s 
third-party candidacy ensured Bush’s 
victory in that election. In 2016, then-
candidate Trump again showed the 
value of a third party candidacy in a 
polarizing campaign, capitalizing on 
third party spoilers to win Michigan, 
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 

2016. In 2020, he has weaponized 
the spoiler candidacy, no longer just 
incidentally benefitting from it, but 
actively exploiting it for his own gain.

While Biden’s polling edge is 

bigger than Hillary Clinton’s at this 
point in the race four years ago, so is 
the spectre of third party candidacy 
in 2020. Gary Johnson was a perfectly 
nice guy and Jill Stein was a perfectly 
(probably) unwitting Russian asset, 
but neither candidate’s campaign was 
as titillating as West’s, and neither had 
such a strong opportunity to make 
genuine mainstream inroads. Of 
course, though, neither was actively 
accepting assistance from allies to the 
sitting president of the United States. 
West’s name recognition, especially 
among young voters, makes him a 

uniquely haunting prospect for 

our democracy. All West has to do 
is pull enough uninformed voters 
underneath his umbrella to earn a 
truly catastrophic place in American 
history, and people our age have the 
best opportunity to stop it. 

West has a unique resource 

for a candidate: a personal image 
cultivated outside the scrutiny of 
Washington, D.C., and the political 

press. Because that same press treats 
his candidacy as illegitimate, it has 
become derelict in its scrutiny. In 
2016, that political mythologizing 
of Trump — “He’s a successful 
businessman,” “He tells it like it 
is,” “He’ll run the country like a 
business,” actually came true, but 
only if you had rampant nepotism 
and corruption in mind — was 
one of his strongest appeals on his 
way to winning the election. If it 
resonated on such a large scale 
four years ago, who’s to say West, 
with Republicans at his side, can’t 
exploit that phenomenon on a much 
smaller scale? That’s all he has to do. 
Through that lens, his candidacy 
is not funny; it is not a joke and it is 
certainly not to be taken lightly. 

Anybody who has ever set foot 

on a college campus knows how 
hard it is to get young adults to 
take anything seriously. That’s 
a challenge that gets amplified 
exponentially when you throw 
names like “Trump” and “Kanye” 
into the mix. It’s important that these 
problems are contextualized for the 
young voters who are most likely 
to make these mistakes. A vote for 

Kanye West is a vote for the payroll 
tax cuts Trump used to dupe people 
into not realizing that he’s driving 
Social 
Security 
to 
insolvency. 

Student debt totals over $1 trillion 
in the U.S., but a vote for Kanye 
West ensures that your debt stays 
on the books, while corporations 
and the top 1% of wage-earners 
continue to reap the benefits of 
the excess income Trump’s 2017 
tax cuts handed them. A vote for 
West is a vote for the $141 million 
in taxpayer funds used since 2017 
to finance the logistics of Trump’s 
277 golf outings as the “leader” of the 
free world. 

Kanye West has created art that 

resonates with and uplifts millions 
of millennials and Gen Z’ers. His 
music has inspired countless young 
people around the world. He’s one 
of the most enigmatic, prolific and 
influential artists of our lifetimes. 
Don’t remember him for that. 
Remember him for trying to screw 
over your country for a generation. 
For our generation. Never forget it.

Jack Roshco can be reached at 

jroshco@umich.edu.

JACK ROSHCO | COLUMN

Trump using Kanye as an electoral pawn

Max Steinbaum can be reached at 

maxst@umich.edu.

T

hree minutes without air, 
three hours without shelter, 
three days without water 

and three weeks without food. 
These are the rules of survival in the 
wilderness. The rule of three makes 
President Donald Trump’s most 
recent attack even more sinister, 
as he continues to spend his time 
in office trying to undo Former 
President Barack Obama’s legacy. 
Hidden by distractions of a global 
pandemic, 
nationwide 
protests 

and an economic decline, Trump’s 
Environmental Protection Agency 
removed coal plant regulation that 
revised the Clean Water Act passed 
in 1972 and will have catastrophic 
results on public health. This move 
was completed with the purpose 
of maximizing profits without any 
regard for the environment and the 
detrimental effects on health that 
will follow. 

Proving once again that his 

“drain 
the 
swamp” 
campaign 

slogan was a complete and utter lie, 
Trump nominated ex-coal lobbyist 
Andrew Wheeler to run the EPA. 
Throughout both his 2016 and 
2020 campaigns, Trump has put an 
emphasis on saving the dying coal 
industry. In Trump’s most recent 
attempt to revive coal, Wheeler 
revisited the adjustments made 

by the Obama administration in 
2015 requiring coal-fired plants to 
invest in treatment technology that 
keeps toxic wastewater out of the 
waterways, 
therefore 
protecting 

drinking water. The new revision 
cut out the requirement for state-of-
the-art water treatment technology. 
This move would save the plants 
money in the short term but would 
no longer require them to protect 
their neighboring waterways, likely 
causing more costly health problems 
and expenses down the road. Over 
two and a half million people have 
died from unclean water and the 
corresponding diseases that result 
from it. Depending on the type of 
chemical pollution, polluted water 
can cause liver damage, skin cancer, 
Dysentery and Malaria. Possibly 
the most disturbing and horrifying 
aspect of the new rule is that it will 
not require coal plants closing by 
2028 to follow any of the wastewater 
regulations, setting up potentially 
disastrous health and ecological 
effects 
on 
the 
surrounding 

community. 

Coal-powered plants leave behind 

wastewater filled with arsenic, 
lead and selenium which, if leaked 
into drinking water, can lead to 
cancer, 
reproductive 
problems 

and even neurological problems. 

Unfortunately, the residents of Flint, 
Michigan know just how devastating 
tainted water can be when water 
protection 
isn’t 
taken 
seriously. 

Insufficient water treatment and 
testing, paired with a slow, sometimes 
nonexistent, government response 
left Flint residents with health issues 
that could plague them the rest of 
their lives. 

In an attempt to close a $25 

million budget, former Michigan 
Governor Rick Snyder appointed an 
emergency manager in 2011 to help 
balance the budget. Two years later, 
that manager decided to temporarily 
pump water from the Flint River, 
where 
the 
water 
was 
highly 

contaminated, through aging water 
pipes where lead found its way into 
the drinking, bathing and cooking 
water. This led to developmental and 
growth damage, skin rashes and an 
outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, 
a rare form of pneumonia that took 
the lives of 12 people. At the same 
time, Nestlé was paying $200 a year 
to pump hundreds of thousands of 
gallons of water, just two hours away 
from where Flint residents were 
struggling to find clean water to drink 
and cook with. 

Trump’s EPA has continued with 

the principles we saw showcased in 
Flint by putting profits over the health 

and safety of communities. Following 
in the spirit of Ayn Rand, Trump has 
continued to roll back corporate and 
industry regulations, including nearly 
100 regarding the environment. So 
far, four water protection orders have 
been overturned with seven more 
in the process of being erased. In 
an attempt to save the coal industry 
money, Trump has cut through the 
bureaucratic red tape that requires the 
plants to look out for the environment 
they currently occupy. On paper, the 
recent EPA deregulation would save 

the coal industry $140 million every 
year but not without putting the 
health of over 1 million Americans 
who live within three miles of a coal 
plant at risk.

Environmental deregulation puts 

millions of lives at risk in exchange 
for short-term economic gains. This 
forces us to talk about how we value 
human and ecological life. Is a short-
term bump in stock dividends worth 
adversely hurting so many people? 
The answer to this question should 
be extremely clear. Human life is 

priceless and should be treated as 
such. Every single person needs clean 
water to survive, so it must be seen 
as what it is: a necessity. We need to 
reevaluate our relationship with the 
environment and how we interact 
with it. As a country and global 
community, we must stop putting the 
profits of the few before the health 
and safety of many. Most importantly, 
we must remember that water is life.

ALEXANDER NOBEL | COLUMN

Water is life, so don’t mess with it 

Alexander Nobel can be reached 

at anobel@umich.edu.

MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU

Wednesday, September 23, 2020 — 10

I

t’s hard to say how many 
undecided voters there still 
are, but to a good deal of them 

— perhaps, even, to a good deal of 
those who have already made up 
their minds — the idea of voting 
for presidential nominee Joe Biden 
or for President Donald Trump in 
November presents something of a 
Sophie’s choice. Trump has joked 
on Twitter that “Sleepy Joe” doesn’t 
know “what office he’s running for,” 
and that the former vice president 
“doesn’t know he’s alive.” Jackassery 
aside, the president has a point — 
Biden isn’t as sharp as he used to 
be. On the other hand, we have 
Trump — a narcissistic, woefully 
incompetent, 
grade-A 
lunatic. 

Hunter S. Thompson’s description 
of Richard Nixon as “... a man with 
no soul, no inner convictions, with 
the integrity of a hyena ...” is an apt 
branding of our current president, 
except the average hyena is probably 
more trustworthy and has a better 
command of international politics 
and morality. With less than two 
months to go, many Americans must 
be scratching their heads: Really? 
These two are the best we got?

As The New York Times’s Giovanni 

Russonello reported in June, the 
2020 election “could become only 
the second presidential contest in the 
history of modern polling in which 
both candidates are seen negatively 
by most voters.” The first was in 
2016. It wasn’t always this bad. With 
the exception of the 2016 election, 
each of the five presidential contests 
in my lifetime featured candidates 
who were reasonably likable. Since 
2000, the Democrats have nominated 
Gore, Kerry and Obama; the GOP has 
tapped Bush, McCain and Romney 
— all fairly likable and sane guys. So, 
what gives? Are the 2016 and 2020 
matchups just aberrations? Or is this 
what presidential politics will look like 
from now?

It is tempting to point to the 

benefits of a parliamentary system 
here. Under that framework, a party, 
rather than a specific candidate, 
gains the most seats in a national 
election and that party’s leader 
becomes the prime minister. In this 
alternate universe, a parliamentary 
system would likely deliver us “Prime 
Minister” Nancy Pelosi in the event 
of a Democratic win, or “Prime 
Minister” Kevin McCarthy should 
the Republican Party take back the 
House. 

Excluding those on the left who 

are unwilling to recognize the 
degree of Biden’s decline, and those 
on the right who are members of the 
Trump cult, these two are probably 
more palatable options than the 
ones we will have in November. The 
impossibility of the U.S. adopting 
the Westminster model aside, it is 
important to point out — if our metric 
is providing Americans with two 
fairly solid alternatives — that our 
electoral system has worked pretty 
well in the 232 years of its existence. 
Does it have other problems? 
Absolutely. 

What’s unique about our country’s 

political landscape today is the extent 
of our polarization. Intense political 
divides are of course nothing new, 
but looking at the past 50 years 
for context, it appears there hasn’t 
been as much philosophical real 
estate between the left and the 
right as there is today. Republicans 
ultimately respected people like Al 
Gore, and Democrats didn’t broadly 
question John McCain’s character. 
By 2016, something changed. To 
the left, Trump was a neo-fascist, 
race-baiting Putin wannabe and his 
base was too thick-skulled to realize 
how much damage he would do. To 
the right, Clinton was a calculating, 
condescending, sanctimonious tick, 
with an untrustworthy base that 
would lick the floor to put her in the 

Oval Office. The rhetoric, on both 
sides, became unhinged; it was, and 
is even more so today, vicious and 
visceral in the absolute. 

Couple this intense polarization 

with incessant media coverage every 
time Trump fires off a tweet or 
Biden jumbles his words, and it’s no 
wonder why we all become further 
entrenched in our predispositions 
against the other guy. For better or 
worse — and it’s probably for worse 
— we have entered a Brave New Age 
of information inundation. That’s 
not going away in November, even if 
Trump does; that’s the world we live 
in.

Democrats believe that a Biden 

presidency will bless our country 
with a return to normalcy, which the 
Divine Providence knows we need. If 
we’ve paid any attention the past four 
years, however, it’s easy to see that 
these hopes are misguided. If Biden 
is sworn in as the 46th president 
on Jan. 20, 2021, Fox News will do 
what Fox News does best: lament the 
senility of the man in the Oval Office, 
predict the chaos and anarchy — 
perhaps even death of the republic 
— that a Biden presidency will allow 
and generally stir a conservative 
firestorm. The liberal media outlets 
will defend him tooth-and-nail 
against these attacks. In short, the 
roles will reverse, and the coverage 
will be more or less the same.

Lyndon Johnson said that being 

president “is like being a jackass in a 
hailstorm … There’s nothing to do but 
to stand there and take it.” Nearly 55 
years later, that’s what it feels like to 
be an American citizen. A change in 
president will not bring a change in 
the weather. The hailstorm will still 
rage, and we, the jackasses, will have 
to stand there and take it.

MAX STEINBAUM | COLUMN

Jackasses in a hailstorm

Design courtesy of Madison Grosvenor

