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Members of the class of 2020, unable to celebrate together at school, have been watching virtual graduation speeches instead from the likes of Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah Winfrey. Shouldn’t they get advice from On Politics readers, too?
Earlier this week, we asked for your (political) advice to graduates entering the world in this extraordinary moment. You offered plenty of thoughts for how to connect at a time when we are all so far apart, divided by physical distance and partisan disagreement.
Here’s some of what you had to say:
As you graduate, the generation before you passes you a baton that is dirty and battered, that points to an unclear path for the future. But we ask of you this: Clear away the dirt from the baton, make it your own and forge a new path, knowing that you and your peers will, ultimately, generate solutions, and that we will love and support you along the way.
— Lucy Bartnick, Wayne, N.J.
Have convictions, and be passionate in them. But also be compassionate toward those who disagree. Concessions are inevitable; do your best to make them equitable. And don’t put your identity in your political affiliation — there are other places in which to find community and value.
— Brian Hawkins, Columbus, Ohio
Seek to engage in meaningful political discussions even when they feel daunting or potentially uncomfortable. Talk to your relative who has different opinions from you, talk to the friend who “isn’t into politics,” talk to someone running for local office who you don’t know yet. Foster empathy and kindness. Be open to changing someone’s mind but don’t let that be your agenda; be open to having your mind changed too. It will be these talks that keep the fabric of our democracy intact.
— Norah Hogan, Brooklyn
Vote! If you don’t use your voice, it won’t be heard. Whatever you believe, you need to vote for it. You’ve been given a chance every two years to make a difference at the national and state level, as well as locally. Don’t miss this opportunity (there are lots of people who hope you do).
— A. LaBan, Chicago
Don’t let the intimidation of people with more experience stop you from finding your voice. Experience is incredibly useful, but so are new perspectives. Sometimes there are people who have been in their position for so long that they aren’t as in touch with how the younger generation is thinking or what we believe in. Don’t belittle their experience or think that it’s unimportant — but at the same time, never let anyone convince you that your viewpoints don’t matter too.
— Rowan Bienes, master of science in forensic psychology, Arizona State University
The world we are about to enter into is fractured. Old divisions, old prejudices, old tensions flare alongside this pandemic. But we know that these fractures are neither the world’s destiny nor its potential. Each of us will find a way to make something beautiful out of the different worlds we enter as we leave this shared one. I know I am so looking forward to seeing you all in person someday soon and hearing about them.
— Mrinalini Sisodia Wadhwa, valedictorian at the American Embassy School in New Delhi
(Submissions were edited and condensed. Thanks to Isabella Grullón Paz for compiling them.)
Trump has talked a lot about Michigan. Today, he visited.
By
For weeks, President Trump and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan have criticized each other for their respective handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
But today a truce of sorts was forged as Mr. Trump headed to Michigan to visit a Ford manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti that has been temporarily transformed to create ventilators to help with Covid-19 treatment.
Ms. Whitmer, a Democrat who has been mentioned by Joe Biden as a possible running mate, spoke with Mr. Trump on the phone this morning, though she didn’t attend the event at the Ford plant. She said after the call that she hoped Mr. Trump would grant her request to declare a state of emergency for the mid-Michigan communities of Midland and Sanford, which were devastated by flooding this week.
And Mr. Trump obliged. “The governor and I had a great conversation this morning,” he said during the visit. “We signed an emergency declaration quickly.”
Outside the plant, those signs of collegiality disappeared. Several hundred people turned out to show their devotion to Mr. Trump, but their anger at Ms. Whitmer and the way she has handled the coronavirus crisis almost overshadowed their enthusiasm for the president.
Gene Dixon, a retired steel executive from Bloomfield Hills, carried a sign with a single word: “Shamdemic.” He has attended several of the rallies at the state Capitol in Lansing to protest Ms. Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, which she imposed on March 23 but has started to relax in the last couple of weeks.
“I saw landscapers who couldn’t work,” he said. “These are regular people, working people. It’s not right.” (Ms. Whitmer gave landscapers the green light to go back to work two weeks ago.)
Denise O’Connell, 59, of Hartland, a retired I.T. worker for an Ann Arbor hospital, has seen Mr. Trump several times, but didn’t want to miss the opportunity to show her support, especially now during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve got a tyrannical wench running our state,” she said of Ms. Whitmer. “It hurts me that so many people just think Trump is a bad guy, and all he wants is what’s good for America. I think he was elected to lead at this particular time. It’s divine intervention.”
Not all in Ypsilanti were fans of Mr. Trump. A handful of people waved signs with slogans like “Trump Lied. 92,000 people died,” and a dozen cars with anti-Trump sentiments painted on their windows cruised the streets surrounding the manufacturing plant. One driver included this thought in white paint: “Whitmer = My Governor. Trump = Not my president.”
A poll released Wednesday by the Detroit Regional Chamber showed that 64 percent of likely Michigan voters approved of Ms. Whitmer’s handling of the coronavirus crisis — up from 57 percent in April — while 43 percent approved of the job Mr. Trump was doing.
Mr. Trump’s approval rating in the state has been at virtually the same level over the last three and a half years, said Richard Czuba of the Glengariff Group, which conducted the poll. “No matter what the president does, he seems to have these exact numbers,” he said.
Ms. Whitmer said Wednesday that she wished the president would tone down his rhetoric and help address the twin problems of Covid-19 and flooding in the state.
She was especially distressed by Mr. Trump’s threat to withhold unspecified federal funding from Michigan after Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced she would send absentee ballot applications to all of Michigan’s 7.7 million registered voters. Mr. Trump backed off after realizing that Ms. Benson was sending applications and not the actual ballots.
“To see rhetoric like that is disheartening,” Ms. Whitmer said. “We’ve got to take politics out of this.”
(Pro tip from your On Politics editor, a native Michigander: Ypsilanti starts with “ip,” not “yip.”)
From Opinion: Class warfare, but in which direction?
In the Covid-19 crisis, and so in politics, it’s the Exposed versus the Remote, says the Times columnist Bret Stephens. “The 2020 election will hinge on who decisively wins the vote of the Exposed,” those whose jobs or lives have been put on the line, he writes. “For the Remote, an image on the news of cars forming long lines at food banks is disconcerting. For the Exposed, that image is — or may very soon be — the rear bumper in front of you.”
Those making the decisions that most affect the Exposed — namely, in favor of the lockdown policies that result in job losses — are the Remote. And the Remote also decide how exposed the Exposed will be, placing them under the rubric of “essential workers.” Stephens quotes Peggy Noonan’s 2016 column in The Wall Street Journal, “Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected”: “The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it.”
The Times columnist Michelle Goldberg disagrees. “Lately some commentators have suggested that the coronavirus lockdowns pit an affluent professional class comfortable staying home indefinitely against a working class more willing to take risks to do their jobs,” she argues.
According to Goldberg, “it’s a mistake to treat the growing ideological divide over when and how to reopen the country as a matter of class rather than partisanship.” The push for reopening “has significant elite support,” she says. “And many of those who face exposure as they’re ordered back to work are rightly angry and terrified.”
That might be where Stephens and Goldberg find union — that those making the decisions that most affect the working class are rarely of the working class, as Noonan suggested in 2016. Stephens concludes: “Those who think the world can be run by remote control will have their folly exposed to failure by those who know it can’t.”
— Adam Rubenstein
… Seriously
Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a pandemic sex symbol? If you’re on board, this underwear is for you. Also available in Newsom and Fauci.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
