7-Opinion
S
ept. 25, 2015. One day after
achieving his dream of listening
to Pope Francis’s address to a
joint session of Congress, the embattled
Speaker of the House, former U.S.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, gathered
reporters for a surprise press conference.
While he initially performed as a strident
reformer for government accountability
when he first was elected in the 1990s,
Boehner grew into an establishment
Republican. During his run, he became
increasingly focused on making the
government function despite being met
with growing far-right obstructionists:
the Tea Party.
The far-right had vilified Boehner
at every turn for the past five years, but
their recent outgrowth, the Freedom
Caucus, pushed his final nerve and forced
Boehner to retire. Upon leaving, however,
he did not fail to take some parting shots
at those he referred to as “legislative
terrorists” who are tearing apart the
Republican Party. And, almost as a final
show of independence, Boehner’s final
piece of legislation, the Bipartisan Budget
Act of 2015, passed the House with no
Freedom Caucus votes, instead co-opting
a coalition of moderate Republicans and
Democrats in Congress who neglected
the far-reaches of their respective parties.
This act, however, was a brief veer from a
larger overarching narrative of legislative
radicalization by ideologues willing to
hijack the legislative process.
The Freedom Caucus began as
nine Tea Party members who were
emboldened by the 2014 midterm
elections to form a group of “bright junior
legislators who do not look kindly on an
established leadership that has largely
failed to achieve conservative goals it has
promised the voters.” While they view
themselves glowingly, the establishment
of the Republican Party, specifically
Boehner, viewed their cohesiveness
and activism as intransigence and false
prophecy. Despite this, their membership
has grown to as high as 40 members and
currently sits at around 36 (an estimation
because the Freedom Caucus does not
release its membership).
This original group of nine were even
further to the right than many of their
Tea Party contemporaries. They were
willing to exercise their influence to make
legislation more conservative at all costs,
including killing bills that they disagreed
with despite these bills having the support
of the majority of Republicans. While
their principles are up for debate among
both caucus members and Republicans at
large, the former largely functions as one
voting bloc and has undoubtedly caused
widespread frustration and dysfunction
in Washington D.C.
While Freedom Caucus members
cause major disruption in Washington,
their home districts’ Republicans do
not look very ideologically different
than those of the average Republican-
controlled district. Common thought
suggests that constituents’ ideology
should be embodied by their member
of Congress. However, given that
Freedom Caucus members’ policies are
significantly more conservative than
the average Republican, the ideological
similarities of Republican constituents is
baffling.
The House Freedom Caucus refuses
to take responsibility for the division that
they cause throughout the Republican
Party. They instead find enemies in
congressional leadership to blame, and
they exert this blame through not only
rhetoric but also their political action
committee: the House Freedom Fund.
This PAC, according to former U.S.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., is devoted
to “sending principled conservative
outsiders to D.C.” Functionally, they
support
mostly
far-right
primary
challengers to establishment candidates
in House elections.
In the 2018 midterms, the HFF was
affiliated with 18 primary challengers,
eight of whom won. This success rate
for both the HFF and other far-right
conservatives in Republican districts
contributes to the overall polarization
of
Congress
—
it
either
forces
establishment Republicans to move right
to avoid a primary challenger or replaces
incumbents with far-right newcomers.
This ideological purity enforcement
that the Freedom Caucus supports is
systematically taking over the Republican
Party and ultimately polarizes Congress
because of progressive liberals’ scaled-
back yet significant movement to the left.
This limits the choices of the
American people and ultimately leads
to increasing inefficiency in Congress
until the entire institution grinds to
a halt. In other words, the Freedom
Caucus and some progressive groups are
willing to sacrifice incremental action for
ideological purity, and that harms all of
us. It ruins everyday American’s faith in
government and slowly pushes us to want
to burn the place down. This mentality
led to the election of former President
Donald Trump, the birth of QAnon and
the failed Jan. 6 insurrection, which is not
going to stop unless we make it.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great
Gatsby,” my favorite scene is when a
strange car pulls into Gatsby’s driveway
after he has died, flashes its lights and
leaves. The narrator says, “I didn’t
investigate. Probably it was some final
guest who had been away at the ends of
the earth and didn’t know that the party
was over.”
While it is such a simple statement,
it makes a profound point about this
country and our core values. Our
greatest quality as Americans is
innovation, which is sourced from a
fundamental curiosity and a desire to
improve our world. However, when
hope is taken away from us, we cease
exploring because we are no longer
curious, which is when the party is truly
over.
I’ll be honest; I believe that the
Republican party faces an existential
threat. It’s neither Trump nor the
Freedom Caucus members themselves.
Republicans are threatened by so many
people turning off their televisions and
tuning out political processes because
they have lost hope, contributing to our
dangerous culture of polarization and
diminished communication.
Polarization
has
spread
into
everything from watching the news
— when we choose to consume it — to
who we choose as friends. At the center
of it all is a growing mentality that says
we cannot get along if we do not agree.
Slowly, this polarization has turned many
of us — on some issue or another — into
miniature voting terrorists who are more
willing to watch the world burn than get
along.
S
ince President Joe Biden took
office and the United States
Senate flipped blue, a lot of
Democrats have thought about removing
the filibuster, a procedure used in the
senate to delay or block the vote on a
bill, to ensure policymaking can actually
happen. The way the filibuster currently
works in the U.S. Senate is that without
reaching a 60 vote cloture threshold, 41
or more senators can hold up legislation
by filibustering. This applies to almost
all bills in the Senate and prevents
legislation from reaching the president’s
desk. If, as Americans, we are to remove
the filibuster, it must be coupled with
immense safeguards to ensure the
continuation of democracy and rule of
law.
It is no secret that the Republican
Party of today stands in stark contrast
to Paul Ryan’s GOP or the party of 10
or 20 years ago. Today’s GOP is heavily
focused on protecting Trumpism and
denying all the criticism surrounding
that crowd. We have seen that they will
go to great lengths to protect former
President Donald Trump and his views
at any and all costs insofar as they tried,
unsuccessfully, to overturn what experts
have dubbed the most secure election
in our nation’s history. If Democrats
remove
the filibuster and the current
version of the GOP ever returns to power,
there could be dire and irreversible
consequences for this country.
The first thing Democrats would need
to do to prevent this is to ensure statehood
for both the District of Columbia and
Puerto Rico. This is for two reasons: It
would tilt the Senate more to the left
and it would act in the core interest of
democracy.
D.C. and Puerto Rico both have
progressive possibilities that Democrats
can utilize, the former especially so. It
would be crucial for Democrats to gain
the extra three or four Senate seats from
these two new states to shore up their
growing majority. With these states
added, the flimsy one or two-seat majority
that has become more common in recent
years would turn more solidly blue, and,
without a filibuster, the Democrats could
ensure that policymaking is actually
accomplished.
However,
without
these
two
prospective states and their senators,
we could be looking at a Senate run by
Republicans committed to blocking
any legislation Democrats try to
promote, especially when coupled
with the filibuster. Thus, it is incredibly
important that if the filibuster is
removed, it is coupled with D.C. and
Puerto Rico’s statehood and subsequent
congressional representation.
Their statehood will also ensure that
democracy is perpetuated throughout
the country. D.C. has about 700,000
residents and Puerto Rico has another
3 million. These are individuals who
pay taxes to the U.S. government, yet
do not have voting representation in
Congress, which goes against one of the
core values of this country: no taxation
without representation. It is morally
wrong to continuously take from these
people without giving them what is
rightfully theirs. This is an argument
that Democrats can lean on if they
need to find the right framing for this
proposal.
The second biggest safeguard which
should follow filibuster removal would
be to reform voting rights and pass a
new Voting Rights Act. Democrats in
the House have taken great steps to
make this a reality by proposing the For
the People Act, which will be voted on
soon. This proposal would create more
transparency in donations, attempt to
minimize big money interests’ impact
on politics, require same-day voter
registration in many places, allow
congressional districts to be drawn by
non-partisan committees and many
other provisions to increase access to
voting for all eligible individuals.
Not only is this bill good in
theory, but when polled, a majority
of Americans had a favorable opinion
on the proposal, with 68% of those
surveyed across party lines saying
they would be in favor and only 16%
in opposition. It is clear that there is
already public support for this change
— the Democrats should capitalize on it.
All of these measures have come
in response to an unprecedented
level of voter suppression attempts by
Republicans across the country. As of
Feb. 19, the Brennan Center for Justice
found that there have been 253 bills —
majorly spearheaded by Republican
representatives — introduced to limit
voting rights in 43 states in 2021, with
some seeking to disenfranchise millions
of eligible voters. This shows the levels
to which some members of the GOP
may go in order to retain power, namely
stifling the voice of the people.
The two aforementioned measures
that Democrats in Congress could work
toward without the filibuster would
greatly change the party’s dynamics
in the coming years. The Senate would
be more firmly in the Democratic
column for the foreseeable future as
more people casting legal ballots leads
to more liberal candidates winning,
and they would have an advantage
in the two new states. Republicans
would be forced to move away from
divisive Trump-fueled hate and back
towards
their
laissez-faire
policy
platform, in hopes of recapturing their
previously moderate voter base or risk
losing power until a new generation of
Republicanism is born.
While there are potential risks
of opening the door for Sen. Mitch
McConnell, R-Ky., to regain control of a
post-filibuster Senate, passing these two
measures can ensure that actual policy
making becomes the primary goal of
politics in this country once again.
I
magine turning your passion
into your career. Maybe it’s art,
music or sports; you might con-
sider academia in areas such as sci-
ence, history or math. Whatever it is,
take a second and envision yourself at
the highest professional level of that
interest. Relish this thought.
Now imagine it’s been stripped
away from you completely and sud-
denly. No warning — it’s gone. You’d
be upset, right? For Eldrick “Tiger”
Woods and those of whose Sunday
afternoons he occupied, this is a new
reality. In a car accident in which he
plowed through a massive sign and
wrestled with 50 feet of forest off a
boulevard in Southern California, the
likelihood that we see him back on a
golf course hangs in the balance.
In emailing with my high school
teacher, he wrote about how
Woods may finally achieve peace
in giving up competitive golf.
“Tiger,” as we know him, has been
the pinnacle of the sport for the
past twenty-five years and defined
by the game since he was three
years old. With that, my former
instructor believes, comes a lack of
freedom to enjoy life’s other expe-
riences and an absence of personal
sanity that cannot be replicated by
anything else.
While he may be right about the
consuming nature of professional
sports and the toll they take on their
athletes, I reject the notion that a
competitor is better off without
competition. Within all of us, not
just athletes, inherent qualities exist
that predispose us to our preferred
environments. To depart these com-
munities is to lose a piece of our indi-
viduality — an irreplaceable strain of
our DNA.
Thus, we search for proper closure.
Often, we fantasize about saving the
day and riding off into the sunset with
many stories to tell future generations.
While this conclusion may seem ide-
alistic for many, it is this “Hollywood
ending” that gives us something to
aspire to, a pleasant thought to occupy
the vacancy of the daily grind. I doubt
totaling a Genesis GV80 in a 45 mph
speed zone is the lasting thought
Woods wants of himself.
If someone told me today that this
was the last column I’d ever write
for The Daily, I’d be utterly disheart-
ened. I love expressing my opinions
through written words and have
done it for the past five years of my
life. It’s become ingrained in my life,
though not at the same level of inten-
sity as how golf and Woods co-exist.
Hence, I’d search for another cred-
ible, successful platform to voice my
“hot takes.”
However, for the class of 2024, we
do know what this feels like. All of
our quintessential senior high school
moments went from postponed
to canceled in a whirlwind and all
we could do is watch them vanish
before our eyes. Does it bring me
peace knowing there is more ahead
in life? Possibly, but I will always feel
as though there are loose ends that
are unlikely to ever be tied up in my
hometown. Granted, starting college
in a virtual setting hasn’t helped.
Conversely, think about this year’s
graduating class and the intern-
ships they had lined up this time last
year. These pivotal opportunities are
instrumental for after college, yet they
were nearly impossible to coordinate
during the height of the pandemic.
I
want to learn, but they aren’t
teaching me. This thought
echoed in my mind as I found
myself drowning in yet another
meaningless formula.
I am an economics major, and
I’ve known that I wanted to be one
since my junior year of high school.
At the University of Michigan,
many students think of economics
as business-adjacent — we’re the
“Rossholes” who couldn’t get into
the Ross School of Business. To me,
though, it is so much more. I fell
in love with economics because I
wanted to understand people and
their decisions. I believe in economics
as a tool for social growth, and that
understanding how people behave
and act is key to creating a high-
functioning
society.
Economics
provides a way for people to learn
how we interact with the world and
with each other, which gives us the
tools to fundamentally change the
workings of society.
That said, the department of
economics at the University has
been beating this society-focused
ideology out of its underclassmen
students. Simply, the curriculum
lacks accessibility, social thinking
and a global outlook. Economics 101,
a class taken by many students at the
University of Michigan, provides an
introduction to economic theories
for students from every college,
including the Business School and
College of Engineering, as well as
students from a myriad of majors in
LSA.
The quintessential class for
freshmen, Economics 101 has the
unique opportunity to provide
students with a new outlook on
the society they are poised to
enter. However, the applications
of economics are not discussed in
introductory
economics
classes
and only rarely are discussed in
the upper-level classes. They ruin
this unique opportunity by using
cut-and-paste formulas to explain
economic theory instead of using the
most basic logical theories to ground
the class in reality. We should be
learning about the applications of
and reasoning behind economic
theory to ground students in the
practice of thinking using economic
analysis. Instead, these classes
dive headfirst into problems that
often make it difficult for students
with no economic background to
understand why the answers are
correct.
Is it really a wonder, then, why
so many students complain about
having to take economics classes
when it is never shown to apply to
their own majors and future careers.
Engineers will understandably roll
their eyes at supply and demand
even though the analytic thinking
required for economics could give
them a different way of problem-
solving that can be applicable to their
own lives.
A
h, the suburbs. Strip malls
abound.
Neighborhoods-
upon-neighborhoods
of
cookie-cutter McMansions lining
endless
perpendicular
streets,
full of minivans driven by parents
shepherding their children around.
What’s not to love? A lot.
Okay, fine. The suburbs certainly
have plenty of benefits. The main
advantage that comes to mind is the
sheer amount of space: huge houses,
large parks, wide roads, etc.
When people are (hopefully)
confined to their homes during a
pandemic, feelings of claustrophobia
often arise — especially in cities
where people have smaller living
quarters. Recently, spacious suburbs
have become more enticing to city-
dwellers. During this quarantine
period, people have been moving in
huge exoduses into the suburbs.
As the populations of already-
shrinking cities continue to diminish
faster than ever, it’s essential to
address the question: Should we
rethink negative opinions of the
suburbs? Are suburbs the answer to
our global problem of overcrowded
cities?
My answer? No. Suburbia isn’t
a productive solution: not to the
overcrowding and under-planning of
cities, nor to public-health crises we
are currently facing.
When mentioning suburbs, it’s
important
to
acknowledge
the
premise on which they were founded:
racism and capitalism. Often, suburbs
were built for white Americans in the
1940s and 1950s. Many developers
sought to capitalize on racial fears
and the white flight by portraying
living in the suburbs as more
attractive to white buyers. White
Americans with money –– especially
veterans assisted by GI Bills — were
eager to leave cities that struggled
through the Great Depression and
World War II. Cars were, and still are,
an expensive necessity to navigate
through neighborhoods and were
only accessible to the middle and
upper classes.
Suburbs
are
often
built
around
exclusion,
self-isolating
into
“acceptable”
communities.
Founded on exclusionary ideals,
removing suburbia’s past from its
present is tricky — racism is alive
and dominant in our communities.
De facto segregation, extremely
rampant in the 1940s and 1950s,
is still common today, even in the
suburbs where we live. Metro Detroit
and its surrounding suburbs are still
one of the most segregated areas in
America. Not even three years ago
in Rochester Hills, a school disctrict
that sends hundreds of students to
the University of Michigan, a Black
teen was shot at just for knocking
on a door to ask for directions. This
pattern of overt and fatal racism
makes people of color feel extremely
unwelcome in the suburbs.
It’s worth noting that the people
currently
fleeing
major
cities,
such as New York City, come from
incredibly wealthy neighborhoods,
as this study shows. The suburbs
frequently
create
barriers
for
entry and in communities where
conformity is expected and cars
are expensive but necessary for
transportation, it can feel impossible
to be accepted unless one is rich
and white. Thus, the suburbs
feel like a terrible solution to the
overcrowding of cities as they
exacerbate inequality. Currently,
suburbia is not a productive goal for
urban development.
But are suburbs safer during
pandemics? It seems intuitive that
since there’s more distance between
people, transmission should be lower.
However, that may not be the case —
actually, quite the opposite.
According to studies recently done
by Johns Hopkins University and a
slew of other publications, suburbs
are actually more unsafe than cities
since people in the suburbs have to
travel further distances, have a lack
of access to health care and take
fewer risk. Additionally, countries
reported to have the most controlled
COVID-19
outbreaks,
including
Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam,
are incredibly densely populated.
The density of their population
didn’t seem to matter in relation
to the outbreak — what did matter
was the response from public health
officials and the efficiency of their
contract tracing. All of the countries
mentioned above had efficient and
effective public health committees,
travel restrictions and smart, data-
tracking
cities,
which
enabled
efficient contact tracing. Lowering
the human density of a city isn’t a
solution to public health crises, but
increasing public health and urban
planning infrastructure is. Suburbs
currently don’t have the public health
resources nor the urban tracking
systems in place to effectively combat
COVID-19. So, what advantages can
they actually provide?
Personally, despite all of these
facts, a small part of me still longs for
the open spaces of the suburbs.
Opinion
Wednesday, March 10, 2021 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
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MRINALINI IYER | COLUMNIST
SHUBHUM GIROTI | COLUMNIST
KEITH JOHNSTONE | COLUMNIST
SAM WOITESHEK | COLUMNIST
MEERA KUMAR | COLUMNIST
Mrinalini Iyer can be reached at
iyermili@umich.edu.
Shubhum Giroti can be reached at
sgiroti@umich.edu.
Keith Johnstone can be reached at
keithja@umich.edu.
Sam Woiteshek can be reached at
swoitesh@umich.edu.
Meera Kumar can be reached at
kmeera@umich.edu.
A rant against legislative terrorism
Keep reaching for your goals — you might get a hole-in-one
Should we rethink suburbia?
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Managing Editor
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The LSA Economics department is failing us all
How Democrats can safely end the filibuster