 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
 Wednesday, December 8, 2021 — 9

ALEX YEE

Opinion Columnist

BRITTANY BOWMAN

Managing Editor

Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building

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Ann Arbor, MI 48109

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CLAIRE HAO

Editor in Chief

ELIZABETH COOK 
AND JOEL WEINER

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

Julian Barnard
Zack Blumberg

Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Elizabeth Cook
Brandon Cowit

Jess D’Agostino
Andrew Gerace

Krystal Hur
Min Soo Kim
Jessie Mitchell

Zoe Phillips

Mary Rolfes

Gabrijela Skoko

Elayna Swift

Jack Tumpowsky

Joel Weiner
Erin White

I

nflation has once again gripped 
the nation. The consumer price 

index for October indicated that prices 
rose 6.2% from the year prior. The 
University of Michigan’s Consumer 
Sentiment 
Survey’s 
preliminary 

findings for November were the 
lowest in a decade. According to the 
survey, consumers believe inflation 
is here to stay, and that President Joe 
Biden and the Democrat-led Congress 
have not effectively responded to it. 

Here in Michigan, the effects of 

inflation are slightly more palpable 
than in other parts of the country. 
According to a Detroit Free Press 
article, prices in the Midwest are up 
6.6% compared with the 5.4% increase 
seen in the Northeast. 

This is a serious problem for 

Democrats. 
Conservative 
media 

outlets were quick to coin the term 
“Bidenflation.” 
Republicans 
in 

Congress latched onto the rising prices 
to attack Biden’s ambitious spending 
plans, affectionately re-naming his 
“Build 
Back 
Better” 
framework 

“Build Back Broke.” Given the flood 
of 
post-Virginia 
gubernatorial 

election commentary suggesting that 
Democrats should be worried about 
big losses in the midterms next year, 
beating the Republican’s challenge is 
vitally important. 

So far, Biden’s response to inflation 

has been faltering at best. While 
he did acknowledge that “inflation 
hurts (Americans’) pocketbooks,” 
he also misappropriated a letter 
from 17 Nobel Laureates that stated 
his social spending would “ease 
longer-term inflationary pressures” 
by conveniently leaving out “longer-
term” in his speeches.

Assuaging the public’s fears about 

inflation is notorious for sending 
former presidents to their political 
grave. 
Both 
Presidents 
Gerald 

Ford and Jimmy Carter likely lost 
re-election because of their attempts 
to convince the country to curtail 
spending in order to reduce inflation. 

In a Politico article, former Republican 
aide Bill Hoagland was quoted saying, 
“I feel a little bit sorry for the president. 
A lot of this is out of control.” 

Economist 
Daniel 
McFadden, 

one of the signatories on the Nobel 
laureate letter, argued that inflation 
is the result of both constrained 
supply chains and “pent-up demand” 
from consumers emerging from the 
pandemic. Wrangling global supply 
chains and an entire country of people 
is an impossible task for any person, 
even a president, to accomplish.

Nonetheless, Biden needs to take 

Americans’ concerns about inflation 
more 
seriously. 
Economists 
and 

officials at the Federal Reserve are 
paid to diagnose the causes of inflation 
and whether it will be transient or not. 
Biden’s job is to listen to and engage with 
the concerns raised by his constituents. 

When 
Biden 
visited 
General 

Motor’s Detroit plant, Factory ZERO, 
recently, he delivered a lengthy speech 
to celebrate the recent passage of the 
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act and emphasize the benefits it 
would bestow upon Michiganders. He 
highlighted the money going towards 
fixing Michigan’s infamously poor 
roads, the tax credits for consumers 
purchasing 
union-made 
electric 

vehicles, the money for eliminating 
PFAS and made a shout out to all the 
Michigan Democrats in Congress who 
helped pass the bill. He did mention 
inflation, but only to bring up that a 
few Wall Street rating agencies echoed 
the Nobel Laureates and expressed 
they believed the social spending plan 
would “not add to inflation pressures.”

Roads, cars and unions all seem to 

hit the speaking points for the older 
Michigan electorate. And yet, I would 
bet that inflation probably matters 
just as much to most Michiganders. 
Bringing up the statements of a few 
Wall Street rating agencies or even a 
body of well-respected economists to 
dismiss concerns about inflation with 
the wave of a hand does not lead the 
public to believe that you understand 
their concerns. 

It is not unreasonable to suggest 

that Biden has nothing to gain from 

switching his strategy. Greg Ip of the 
Wall Street Journal points out that 
since former President Barack Obama’s 
time in office, voters’ opinions on the 
economy have been driven largely by 
partisan identification rather than 
actual economic indicators. Further 
acknowledgement of the Republican 
outcry might just energize GOP 
campaigns come the 2022 midterms. 

But at the same time, it intuitively 

feels like ignoring inflation, or at least 
shakily trying to prop up “Build Back 
Better” as an easy fix for the problem, 
is not the best plan. 

On an episode of the New York 

Times’ podcast “The Daily,” economics 
reporter Ben Casselman emphasized 
the importance of remembering that 
even if the economy looks good in 
the aggregate, the economy is not 
experienced by individuals that way.

According to Casselman, lower-

income workers might have seen 
dramatic increases in their wages due 
to the labor shortage, but they also face 
more demanding and stressful work 
environments because of that same 
labor shortage. And even if inflation 
has not increased the cost of living 
for most Americans, that certainly 
does not mean everybody escaped the 
negative effects of inflation. 

Biden needs to come down to the 

same level as the average American. 
Instead of allowing the discussion 
over inflation to center around 
policymakers’ high-brow economic 
theories, he should make a concerted 
effort to publicly acknowledge that 
many voters are more concerned 
about inflation and the impact it might 
have on their lives than the fate of the 
social spending plan in the Senate. 
Taking the time to engage with his 
constituents that are concerned about 
inflation, or addressing the nation 
on the subject, would help make 
good on Biden’s promise to serve as a 
president for all Americans, not just his 
supporters. Elections are determined 
by what voters think and feel. If voters 
feel that their leaders have neglected 
them, then the massive benefits of a 
spending bill like “Build Back Better” 
appear very little.

A

cross the United States, anti-
vaccine protestors are using 

antisemitic imagery and Holocaust 
comparisons in an offensive attempt 
to compare vaccine mandates to 
the treatment of Jews during the 
Holocaust.

Recently, 
Rob 
Astorino, 
a 

Republican gubernatorial candidate 
from New York, made headlines for 
hosting an anti-vaccine event featuring 
signs with swastikas. The use of a 
swastika was especially egregious 
because the protest was being held 
outside of the office of Assemblyman 
Jeffrey Dinowitz, who is Jewish. 
The protest centered around a bill 
Assemblyman Dinowitz introduced 
that would require the COVID-19 
vaccinations for school children.

This specific protest hit particularly 

close to home for me as it occurred in a 
community close to where I am from. 
The section of the Bronx where the 
protest was held is an area I know well, 
having worked in that neighborhood 
at my congressman’s office. The 

area has a large and vibrant Jewish 
community. The fact that protestors 
came to this specific area with their 
antisemitic imagery and protested 
outside the office of a Jewish lawmaker 
is egregious but not surprising. 

The trend of invoking the Holocaust 

to protest COVID-19 restrictions and 
mandates extends far beyond this one 
event. Since the start of the pandemic, 
there have been many outrageous 
comparisons made between COVID-
19 protocols and the treatment of Jews 
during the Holocaust.

With the rollout of the vaccine and 

the implantation of vaccine mandates, 
there have been many inaccurate 
comparisons between the Holocaust 
and the vaccine mandates. In Maine, 
a Republican lawmaker compared 
the Democratic governor’s health 
care workers’ vaccine mandate to the 
medical experiments performed by Dr. 
Josef Mengele and the Nazis during 
World War II. This incendiary claim 
tries to compare forms of torture and 
human experiments in the Holocaust 
with a safe vaccine that has gone 
through strenuous peer-reviewed 
clinical trials and has oversight from 
multiple medical bodies. 

The chairman of the Oklahoma 

Republican 
Party 
compared 

companies requiring vaccines to Jews 
being forced to wear yellow Stars of 
David to identify them as Jews in Nazi 
Germany. Many anti-vaccine protests 
across the US have seen protestors 
wearing yellow Stars of David on their 
clothes, a direct reference to the stars 
that Jews were forced to wear during 
the Holocaust. 

This comparison is unbelievably 

disrespectful and demonstrates how 
anti-vaccine advocates are trying to 
co-opt one of the most painful parts 
of Jewish history and twist it to fit 
their anti-vaccine rhetoric. The use of 
swastikas, Stars of David, and other 
symbols at vaccine protests is truly 
reprehensible and serves to minimize 
the severity of the Holocaust. 

This is clear: There are no possible 

comparisons that can be made between 
what Jews endured during the 
Holocaust and any kind of COVID-19 
restrictions. The Holocaust was one of 
the worst periods in our world’s history. 
Millions of Jews were stripped of their 
rights, their freedom and their lives. 

Concerns about inflation can be legitimate, 

Democrats should pay attention

Comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust is 
abhorrent: All antisemitism must be condemned

ISABELLE SCHINDLER

Opinion Columnist

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W

e are fast approaching a year 
of 
a 
Democratic-controlled 

government that has been plagued 
by ups and downs of many varieties. 
These include the woes of handling the 
COVID-19 pandemic, a debt-ceiling 
crisis and the legislative leviathan 
of passing an infrastructure bill and 
spending bill. President Joe Biden’s 
popularity is at an all-time low, despite 
the passage of his infrastructure bill 
after months of party in-fighting. 
If only one word could be used to 
describe the government of this year, 
it would be factionalism. Factionalism 
has defined the fight in the debt 
crisis, allowing Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, 
D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., 
to wield an intense amount of power 
while being the smallest faction, as 
well as delaying some of the biggest 
items Joe Biden and the Democrats 
ran on.

Manchin 
has 
tempered 

Democratic ambitions time and 

time again. In the fight over the 
infrastructure 
bill, 
progressives 

butted heads against the party 
establishment. 
In 
October, 

Democrats found an unlikely ally 
in Republican leader Sen. Mitch 
McConnell, R-Ky., after Sinema 
and Manchin vowed to support the 
filibuster that created the debt-ceiling 
crisis. Factionalism has hobbled the 
Democrats for nearly a year now, but 
the issues that have hampered their 
party in the House and the Senate 
may save some prospects of power 
after the midterms. It may provide 
them with strength if, and when, 
they lose the House and Senate, as 
long as they can pull it together under 
minority leadership.

The writing is on the wall: 

In the 2022 midterm elections, 
the Democrats will lose seats. 
Numerous House members are 
retiring out of fear of the outcome 
of the 2022 election. Empirically, 
this is supported, as members of 
government retire when the outlook 
for them and their party is bleak. 
We can also quantitatively support 

the already popular belief that 
the president’s party loses seats 
in midterm elections, barring any 
extraordinary turnout at the polls.

Yet some light can be shed on the 

future of a divided government: The 
ailments of the Democrats also pollute 
an incredibly fractured Republican 
Party. The GOP has recently displayed 
intense factionalism that could come 
to boil over in the upcoming midterms 
and even after. The Republicans have 
long faced in-fighting, even during 
Trump’s presidency, as those loyal 
to Trump above all else grew in 
number and rank. The bitter dispute 
continued after the election and saw 
some Trump critics, namely U.S. 
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., lose their 
leadership positions and even be 
stripped of recognition by their state 
Republican parties. 

Yet the factional disputes are ever-

growing and changing. The New York 
Times reports that there are now five 
factions within the Republican base. 
These include two Trump-focused 
factions, two factions that oppose the 
former president and a final faction 

comprised of individuals who often 
subscribe to outlandish conspiracy 
theories and associate themselves 
with QAnon.

In Congress, these factions are 

most evident in the House where 
Republican minority leader Kevin 
McCarthy, R-Calif., has found his 
hands full. McCarthy has had to try 
to defend some of the more extreme 
members of his party, as well as 
reel other ones in. U.S. Reps. Paul 
Gosar, R-Ariz., Lauren Boebert, 
R-Fla., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, 
R-Ga., have all come under fire for 
their controversial and sometimes 
violent remarks towards Progressive 
Caucus members. With McCarthy 
attempting to mitigate damage, the 
aforementioned 
representatives 

continued to heat things up. The 
factional war escalated with the 
passage of the infrastructure bill 
being supported by 13 Republicans 
in the House. Greene and other 
members of the Freedom Caucus 
began an all-out attack on the 
perceived traitors. 

This is not the first time Greene has 

come into conflict with Republican 
leadership, as she lost her committee 
assignments 
earlier 
this 
year. 

Appearing recently on U.S. Rep. Matt 
Gaetz, R-Fla.’s, podcast, Greene made 
a list of demands that McCarthy 
would need to fulfill to earn support 
from her and other members of 
the Freedom Caucus in the pursuit 
of Speaker of the House after the 
expected Republican victory in the 
midterm elections. The factions of 
the Republican Party are putting 
an immense amount of pressure on 
Republican leadership to bend to 
their whims. Leadership must tread 
carefully to maintain support and 
keep their positions, as the Freedom 
Caucus has ousted a speaker six years 
ago. McCarthy has to tread this fine 
line or else upset either moderates 
or the more extreme members, with 
both groups proving to be pivotal 
more often than not. 

McCarthy’s main goal, whether 

Greene and Gaetz and others 
recognize it or not, is and always will 
be party unity. He recognizes the 
importance of a unified party that 

is able to effectively mobilize when 
it needs to. He also recognizes the 
necessity of it for his own leadership 
ambitions. The worst-case scenario 
for McCarthy is if the Freedom 
Caucus leads a revolt and splinters 
the party apart, destroying unity 
and jeopardizing the advantage 
Republicans 
can 
gain 
in 
the 

midterms.

There has been a lackluster showing 

from a Democrat-controlled House, 
Senate, and presidency, hindered by 
factionalism and overshadowed by 
an expected catastrophic defeat in a 
year’s time. However, there is yet light 
at the end of the dark tunnel, and there 
is yet a way to see this glass as half-
full. The Democrats have something 
to look forward to in the increased 
factionalism of the House and Senate. 
Soon the Republicans will be vying 
for the House majority, and they have 
some major issues to contend with 
prior to the 2022 midterm elections. 
While factionalism has slowed the 
Democrats down substantially, it 
could cause the Republican Party to 
come undone in due time.

The Democrats’ struggle could be a prize come midterms

SAM SCHMITZ
Opinion Columnist

