I

n just under two months, 
former 
Vice 
President 

Joe Biden will assume 

the Oval Office after defeating 
incumbent President Donald 
Trump during the election 
in November. President-elect 
Biden and Vice President-elect 
Kamala Harris will seek to 
quickly make changes from 
the executive branch that will 
alter the nature of American 
leadership at home and abroad 
and create significant daylight 
between their policies and 
those put forth by Trump since 
January 2017.

One topic that has once 

again 
risen 
to 
prominence 

over the last few weeks has 
been the U.S.’s confrontational 
relationship with Iran. Amid 
uncertainty 
and 
concern 

regarding the future Biden 
administration’s 
next 
steps 

in 
managing 
the 
conflict, 

there have been indications of 
potential last-minute actions 
by the Trump administration 
that could impact the path 
forward for the president-elect. 
Reports have indicated that 
Trump consulted his military 
advisers about the possibility 
of attacking Iran’s nuclear 
processing facilities. This was 
in the wake of findings by the 
International Atomic Energy 
Agency that Iran had been 
enriching uranium on a much 
greater scale and to a greater 
degree of purity than was 
allowed for in the 2015 Iran 
Nuclear Deal.

Former 
President 
Barack 

Obama and his administration 
considered the deal, also known 
as the Joint Comprehensive 
Plan of Action, to be one of 
his 
greatest 
foreign 
policy 

achievements. Of course, that 
was 
under 
the 
assumption 

that the terms of the deal — 
which included the lifting of 
all U.S. sanctions against Iran 
in exchange for a temporary 
halt to its work on nuclear 
weapon development — were 
strong enough to bring Tehran 
closer to moderation and better 
relations with the West.

As it turned out, and as 

critics of the JCPOA had known 
for years, the so-called “deal” 
was incredibly flawed and one-
sided, and the assumptions 
by Obama and his advisers 
that led to its creation were 
fundamentally shaky, to say 
the least. The evidence found 
by the IAEA at Natanz proves 
once again that Iran has never 
had true desires to moderate 
and 
curb 
its 
aggressive 

uranium enrichment activities. 
Considering 
Iran’s 
malign 

influence 
throughout 
the 

region 
and 
the 
threat 
it 

represents to America and its 
allies, too much is at stake for 
the U.S. to simply sit back and 
hope that the terms of the 
JCPOA are honored, or that any 
true Iranian moderation would 
occur. 

To make matters worse, the 

lifting of Western sanctions 
on Iran freed up billions of 
dollars that would not be used 
for 
domestic 
improvements, 

but rather would be funneled 
into Tehran’s network of proxy 
forces that are sowing terror 
and destabilization all over the 
region. Trump made the wise 
choice to abandon the deal 
in May of 2018. While Biden 
criticized the decision and 
warned that “talk of a ‘better 
deal’ (was) an illusion,” it can 
only be said with certainty that 
the old deal wasn’t cutting it 
for the U.S. and its allies. 

While it would absolutely 

be unwise to risk a potential 
full-on armed conflict with 
Iran, the concern from Trump 
and his administration that 
the 
president-elect 
would 

repeat critical U.S. missteps 
in the Middle East is certainly 
justified. 
Biden 
has 
often 

defended 
Obama’s 
foreign 

policy record, including the 
Iran Deal and has stated 
his desires to reenter the 
agreement. 
He 
has 
also 

criticized Trump’s policies, 
which 
have 
not 
had 
any 

tangible downsides — such as 
moving the U.S. embassy in 
Israel to Jerusalem — though 

he wisely indicated he would 
not reverse the move. Biden 
himself was a signatory to 
the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy 
Act that required the U.S. 
move its embassy from Tel 
Aviv to Jerusalem. In the last 
four years, the U.S. saw its 
regional allies strengthened, 
reconciled 
and 
cooperating 

with one another in Israel 
and Gulf states such as the 
United Arab Emirates and 
Bahrain. At the same time, its 
regional adversaries like ISIS 
incurred losses in their quests 
for domination. To halt this 
course of progress would be 
very unfortunate.

In what was essentially a 

victory speech on the Friday 
after 
election 
night, 
Biden 

called for national unity and an 
end to hyperpartisanship. He 
also added that “the purpose 
of our politics … (is) to solve 
problems.” One way that the 
president-elect can stay true 
to his word is by simply not 
reversing policies or changing 
an effective strategy because 
it was implemented by the 
previous 
administration. 

Trump reversed course on 
much 
of 
the 
Obama-era 

foreign policy after significant 
evidence of its failure to bring 
positive 
developments 
and 

advance American interests; to 
have abandoned policies purely 
out of political spite would 
have been a shame. 

At the end of his term, it 

can certainly be said that for 
all his flaws in rhetoric and 
other areas of policy, Trump 
has largely been spot-on when 
it comes to the Middle East. If 
Biden truly wants to govern 
as “an American president” 
and bring an end to the rank 
partisanship that has grown 
within U.S. politics, he should 
chart a path forward that is 
based on an earnest look at 
the last few administrations’ 
successes and failures, not on 
the approval of his former boss.

7 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The United States and polarization

LYDIA STORELLA | COLUMN

What if Al Gore had won?

ALEX NOBEL | COLUMN

On Iran and the Mideast, Biden should 

follow in Trump’s footsteps

A

s millions of Americans 
try and grapple with the 
fact that President Donald 

Trump will be a one-term president, 
it is important to note that this is not 
America’s first “disputed” election. 
In the 2000 presidential election, 
Democratic nominee former Vice 
President Al Gore and Republican 
nominee former Texas Gov. George 
W. Bush went head to head in one 
of the closest and most contested 
elections in recent American history. 
That election was much closer than 
the 2020 election and came down 
to 537 votes in Florida, where Bush’s 
younger brother, Jeb Bush, happened 
to be the governor. Due to the 
small margin, there was no winner 
declared on election night, and the 
country was forced to wait 36 days for 
the recount to be conducted. 

The 
election 
was 
eventually 

decided by the Supreme Court, which 
declared by an initial 7-2 ruling and 
then a 5-4 decision that the recount 
was unjust; in practice making 
George W. Bush the nation’s next 

commander in chief. But somewhere 
in an alternate universe, the recount 
was justified and Al Gore became the 
43rd President of the United States. 
What effect would Gore — a man 
who centered his campaign around 
environmental protection — have had 
on the planet as president?

To begin to answer this question, 

Bush’s environmental record must be 
put under a microscope. During his 
campaign, Bush promised to regulate 
carbon emissions from coal power 
plants, but like many of his campaign 
promises, he did not follow through 
with it. Just a few days into his first 
term, his administration announced 
that the United States would not enact 
the Kyoto Protocol. Signed two years 
earlier in 1998, the Kyoto Protocol 
was an international treaty, similar to 
the Paris Climate Agreement, which 
aimed to encourage countries to cut 
down on greenhouse gas emissions. 
Under Bush, the U.S. ultimately did 
not join the treaty.

A spokesman for the Sierra Club, 

Josh Dorner, explained the legacy of 

the Bush administration, saying, “The 
Bush administration has introduced 
this pervasive rot into the federal 
government which has undermined 
the rule of law, undermined science, 
undermined basic competence and 
rendered 
government 
agencies 

unable to do their most basic function 
even if they wanted to.” If that sounds 
familiar it’s because it is. 

Perhaps the most damaging 

environmental 
consequence 
of 

the Bush administration was its 
attack on science. Similar to the 
current administration, it ran a 
disinformation 
campaign 
and 

silenced scientists who spoke 
out about climate change. In 
2004, James Hansen, a NASA 
scientist, 
publicly 
accused 

the 
Bush 
administration 
of 

censoring information about the 
rate the planet was warming. 
Following the accusation, the 
White House continued to ignore 
science and tried to go around 
the 
Environmental 
Protection 

Agency to get a regulation on car 

emissions overturned by doctoring 
a scientific study. It also began 
to 
deregulate 
many 
existing 

environmental protections and put 
an emphasis on dismantling the 
Endangered Species Act — which 
included special protections for 
many animals, including polar 
bears.

So what would a President Gore 

have done differently? For starters, 
Gore would have joined the Kyoto 
Protocol, as he explained when he 
said Bush needed to “listen to those 
among his advisers who know that 
we need to have binding reductions 
in CO2.” While this would not solve 

everything, it was the absolute bare 

minimum. Additionally, Gore would 
not have rolled back environmental 
regulations in the same haphazard 
way 
as 
Bush 
did. 
Gore 
put 

environmental conservation front 
and center during his campaign and 
would have increased protections 
for water, air and wildlife. Gore 
even went so far as to say that 
environmental protection should 

become “the central organizing 
principle 
for 
civilization.” 
His 

attention toward the environment led 
almost every major environmentalist 
group to throw their support behind 
him. The Sierra Club, the U.S.’s most 
prominent 
environmental 
group, 

endorsed Gore, citing his record 
of improving air health standards, 
reducing car emissions, conserving 
America’s landscapes and decreasing 
the amount of time it took to clean up 
Superfund waste sites. 

Following 
his 
defeat, 
Gore 

focused on something bigger than 
himself. Since 2000, Gore made it 
his goal to increase awareness about 
climate change and do everything 
he can to remedy it. He has given 
thousands of presentations around 
the world about the dangers of 
inaction. In 2006, Gore released a 
documentary about climate change 
titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” 
which led to him later receiving 
a Nobel Peace Prize. That same 
year Gore started an organization 
called 
Climate 
Reality, 
which 

aimed to pressure politicians to 
support policies that protect the 
environment.

While a Gore administration 

would not have solved even close 
to every climate or environmental 
related issue, it would certainly 
have been a big improvement over 
the administration we got. A major 
difference is that climate change 
would not have been as bipartisan 
as it is now. If Gore had acted 
on climate early, it would have 
focused the debate on how best to 
solve climate change, not whether 
or not it exists. This would have 
allowed politicians to actually act 
in a timely manner and face climate 
change head-on and protecting our 
environment. A Gore presidency 
would have had a tremendous 
butterfly effect on the state of our 
present-day nation and would have 
drastically changed the situation 
we are in.

Alex Nobel can be reached at 

anobel@umich.edu.

MADELYN VERVAECKE | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT MIVERVAE@UMICH.EDU

NOAH ENTE | COLUMN

Noah Ente can be reached at 

noahente@umich.edu.

Design courtesy of Erin Shi 
 

I 

am worried about the state of 
our country. Cases of COVID-
19 continue to rise daily. Our 

president and much of the Republican 
Party continue their baseless claims 
of voter fraud. These are major issues, 
but the United States is also in trouble 
if it is unable to solve the problem of 
partisanship.

In the last 40 years, Americans 

have 
become 
more 
politically 

polarized. Along with polarization 
is the rise of negative partisanship, 
the growing importance of negative 
emotions towards the other party in 
politics. Parties are increasingly held 
together by their hatred of the other 
party. 

Both parties are guilty of this: 

in 2019, 55% of Republicans called 
Democrats “immoral” while 75% 
of Democrats called Republicans 
“closed-minded.” Each of these 
percentages have increased since 
2016. The messaging of the election 
shows negative partisanship as well. 
The “Settle for Biden” movement 
demonstrates how many on the 
left put aside reservations about 
President-elect Joe Biden to vote 
President Donald Trump out of 
office. While there was no formal 
equivalent on the right, many people 
who disliked Trump voted for him, 
often citing the Democrats as their 
reason for doing so. 

This rhetoric about the other party 

is dangerous for our country. If the 
two major political parties view each 
other with suspicion and hostility, it is 
impossible to have a dialogue about 
real issues that the United States face 
and for members of our government, 
especially elected officials, to find 
policy solutions to those problems. 
Both the left and the right contribute 

to negative partisanship by acting 

in ways that lead each side to be 
dismissive of the other. Each side 
wants to be respected and have their 
views heard; negative partisanship 
prevents this from happening.

The left often resorts to calling 

Trump and his supporters racist, 

xenophobic, and uneducated to argue 
their side. This name-calling does 
nothing but serve to cause further 
separation 
between 
Democrats 

and 
Republicans. 
Why 
would 

conservatives have any reason to 
listen to what Democrats have to say 
after understanding how Democrats 
view them? People don’t like to 
be called bad names, and “racist,” 
“xenophobic” and “uneducated” are 
all clearly negative.

The left’s tendency to call Trump 

supporters “uneducated” is one of 
the most concerning ways that it 
refers to Republicans. Liberals tend 
to dismiss those without a college 
degree solely because they do not 
have that degree. This is a brand 
of liberal elitism that often goes 
unnoticed because American social 
circles tend to contain people with 
similar education levels to our own. 
But Democrats need to understand 
they are not better than Republicans 
when they have a college degree. Only 
about 35% of Americans have a four-
year degree. Democrats will not win 
voters by being patronizing; using 
talking points such as suggesting 
that most academics are Democrats, 
the most uneducated states vote red 
and saying that Republicans vote for 
policies that harm them does not do 
anything but make Republicans more 
suspicious of Democrats.

On the other hand, the right 

engages in actions that make the 
left distrustful and angry towards 
Republicans. When Senate Majority 
Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., 
nominated Justice Amy Coney 
Barrett to the Supreme Court, 
Democrats angrily pointed out the 
hypocrisy of the nomination when 
McConnell refused to allow a vote 
on Judge Merrick Garland in 2016. 
Republican citizens rejoiced while 
Democrats 
anguished. 
Senate 

Republicans went back against what 
they said in 2016 about Garland and 
the Supreme Court to support the 
nomination. 

This type of behavior from the 

left and the right is not mutually 
exclusive. They feed into each other 
and allow each side to become more 
angry, leading to deeper divisions 
between each side. The elitism of 
the left breeds anger from the right 
that leads to blatant hypocrisy. As 
long as each side sees the other as 
the enemy, we will be unable to have 
a meaningful dialogue about our 
country. The COVID-19 pandemic 
has shown how these divisions 
prevent us from not just disagreeing 
on legislation, such as a second 
stimulus package during a financial 
crisis, but having different opinions 
on facts themselves. 

The polarization of our country 

creates anger and prevents our 
government from being able to 
work together to solve problems all 
Americans face. We must work to get 
over our biases against the other side 
and realize we are all Americans, and 
while we have dramatically different 
opinions about policy, we share 
values of democracy, life and liberty. 

Whenever we catch ourselves 

making 
generalizations 
about 

any group of people, we need to 
hold ourselves accountable and 
remember 
that 
these 
thoughts 

stereotype groups of people and only 
cause further division between us. 
This is important to practice with 
marginalized communities, and it 
is important to practice with people 
with differing political views than 
our own. 

All Americans must work to 

overcome our preconceived notions 
about those we disagree with in 
order to prevent polarization from 
overtaking the country. If we follow 
the path we are on, the trends of 
disagreement over legislation as well 
as rights will continue and lead to a 
divided country whose government 
cannot work for the people and 
whose people are unable to see what 
unites us.

Lydia Storella can be reached at 

storella@umich.edu.

