How Do Young Students Affirm the Right Things? An Analysis of The New York Times and Other Student Opinion Takes on Current Issues
My sister and I, and other student activists in Kansas, are in good company. The movement for youth voter activism is growing nationwide. More young people are registered to vote in this election than in the last one.
A New York Times/Siena College poll found that likely voters younger than 30 planned to support a Democrat for Congress by a 12-point margin in next month’s elections, compared with a narrow advantage for Republicans among likely voters at large. Younger people were less likely to say they would vote.
Twelve voters in their 20s, living in states with competitive Senate or governor’s races, spoke with photographers for The New York Times about the issues they considered most important. Though President Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan had been in the news, none said it was a top issue. Instead, they discussed their views on abortion, climate, the economy and immigration — or a search for, as one 24-year-old Wisconsin woman put it, “what’s best for the collective versus the singular.” There is a person namedMaggie Astor.
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In the late 1980s, strategists at the US Army War College popularized the acronym “VUCA” as a lens for viewing a world in turmoil. It stands for “volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.” The professors wrote, “Hey, it’s crazy out there!”
What is the verdict on Biden and the Democrats? How will it affect our future and what will it tell us about our country? The case of the United States
Will it be a verdict on the leadership of President Joe Biden and the Democrats who control Congress? Will it weaken the election denialism many Republicans adopted after Donald Trump failed to win the election? How would GOP control of one or both chambers of Congress shape America’s future and the final two years of Biden’s term?
It’s clear that the two parties differ even on the issues the election is being fought over. Democrats see threats to their democracy and the overturn of abortion’s legal status as some of the reasons why they will choose their candidates.
Alice Stewart argued that Republicans have listened to voters, heard their concerns and offered solutions in order to win control of the House and Senate. Democrats focus on threats to democracy over issues like the cost of groceries and gas when they consider the real issues impacting Americans. The election is about feeding families, not fears of a fallen democracy.
Democrats believe the warnings about the future of democracy are justified. “We all understand inflation is temporary but losing our democracy could be permanent,” wrote Dean Obeidallah. He cited the “Washington Post’s recent reporting that a majority of the GOP nominees on the ballot his year for the House, Senate and statewide office have denied or questioned the results of the 2020 election. We have not seen anything like this in the history of the United States.
In a campaign advertisement for Democrats, former President Barack Obama said: “Republicans are having a field day talking about it, but what is their solution to it?” Dean Obeidallah thought that Obama had a better message for turning out Democrats.
“When there is a big fight over inflation and who should have what, we need to start fighting over who should have what.” Should corporations earn bigger profits, should workers earn higher wages and should consumers shoulder the burden of both?”
“The message is clear: As energy companies continue to rake in massive profits, energy has become increasingly unaffordable for lower-income Americans. The federal government needs to take action now to help families maintain access to affordable energy throughout the winter.” He argued that the US should follow the European Union by taxing the excess profits of fuel companies, directing the money toward consumers struggling to pay their bills.
A painful recession is on its way, warned a man from the American Enterprise Institute. The Federal Reserve Bank hiked its interest rates for the fourth time in a row this week, despite not having a new forecast of when the economy will recover. Higher rates are rapidly slowing the housing market and putting pressure on companies to cut staffing, he argued. The Feds hawkish policy stance is occurring in the current world economy that has been hard hit by inflation. The Fed’s leaders have signaled that they may start moderating the pace of interest rate hikes.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Why Barack Obama Cannot Be A Kryptonite: Predicting a Crucial Race to Win a House, Senate and Governorship
The final question Obama asked voters was: Who will fight for your freedom? Obeidallah observed, “The answer clearly is the Democratic Party, and the former President delivered that message, pointing to threats to reproductive rights and same-sex marriage by some Republicans.”
It seems that having Obama make the closing argument might not be such a great idea. “Hindsight can be rosy, but Obama’s record of helping down-ballot Democrats is … less than stellar. Obama was to blame for the loss of more seats than any president in U.S. history. It is likely that many Democrats are not interested in joining Biden on the campaign trail. But Obama may not be the savior they are hoping for. To the contrary, based on this disastrous record, he may be electoral kryptonite.”
Our readers, please note: On Tuesday, crucial races will decide who controls the House, Senate and dozens of governorships across the country. You can follow the contests that matter to you and build a custom dashboard with CNN’s My Election tool. Log in or create your free CNN account to get started.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Democracy is on the ballot: The case for abortion access measures in Michigan, Vermont, California, and California based on the January 6 incident against Paul Pelosi
When I talk to other police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6, the topic usually goes to why Americans are not interested in the insurrection. In other words, most Americans just don’t seem to care. An overt attempt to end our democracy? That is sort of…
“I’d like to believe that the violent attack on Paul Pelosi will be a turning point, but somehow I doubt it. … We are no longer talking about isolated incidents or seeing universal condemnation of violence by our leaders. The wife of the man who is third in line to the US presidency was beaten in her own home for political reasons and the right-wing media and some Republicans were happy about it.
I think that the Kansas abortion referendum made a statement about the power of your vote to decide an election. The success of this message is reflected in the victories for abortion access ballot measures in Michigan, Kentucky Vermont, and California.
About three-quarters of the states have some initiative up for a vote this year. “Democracy itself is on the ballot in 2022,” wrote Joshua A. Douglas. “Not only do we have candidates who have questioned the 2020 election or refuse to say they will accept defeat this year, but numerous states and localities also will vote on measures to change how elections are run or who may vote in them.”
The Midterms Are Vuca Elections: What Have We Learned About Donald Trump and What Can We Don’t Know About It?
Friday brought word that former President Donald Trump could announce that he is launching another bid for the White House in the next few weeks. “Democrats should not underestimate the threat that Trump poses,” observed Julian Zelizer.
The Republicans are a strongly united party. Very little can shake that unity. … the ‘Never Trump’ contingent failed to emerge as a dominant force. Liz Cheney was removed from the party.
If the Republicans win control of the House and Senate next week, members of their party will be very confident that they can put out their economic talking points for the next eight years. And given the number of election-denying candidates in the midterms, a strong showing will likely create the tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump.”
Zelizer said that Trump himself would feel emboldened. Despite the criminal investigations, Trump is a viable political figure. … It will be harder to prosecute Trump once he is a candidate. Trump is known to play the victim in order to distract the attention from the real issue: a politicized witch hunt to take him out of the running.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Midterms are Vuca Elections, Column Galand: An Analysis of Musk’s Outburst after his Sale to the Wall Street Times
For many days, the outrage about West’s attack on Jews was very low, even taking into account the businesses that severed relationships with him. Some people underplayed the impact of someone like West who was well known and big enough to make an impact on the world.
Musk has spread misinformation and laid off a large share of the workforce in his first few days as the head of the company.
“Musk’s remarkable power that US tech executives hold over our lives, from geopolitics to the health of democracy, is painfully tangible to everyone,” wrote Marietje Schaake in the Financial Times.
“Immediately after the sale was confirmed, the number of neo-Nazi and racist tweets exploded on the site. Accounts marked as being linked to Russian and Chinese state media requested that the Twitter labels indicating as much be removed. Speculation about whether Musk would reverse the account ban for extremists or conspiracy theorists had been going on for a long time.
In the New York Times, Rob Norman wrote that Musk had placed no limits on his own speech, and that it was likely he would enable inflammatory, provocative and sometimes verifiably untrue speech of others.
Advertisers worry a lot about these things because they represent the world’s biggest buyer of advertising space. In this case, advertisers’ worries could lead them to flee en masse, costing Twitter almost all its current revenue. Without that revenue, Twitter could be a calamitous acquisition for Mr. Musk, and the very future of the platform could be at risk.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Martha Hickson: The worst year of her working life, a librarian in New Jersey, and the most embarrassing time of her life: The media coverage of America’s Future Starts Now
Martha Hickson, a high school librarian in New Jersey for more than a decade, called it the worst year of her working life. Protesters showed up at the school board meeting and objected to a memoir and a novel by two different authors. They spewed selected sentences from the Evison book, while brandishing isolated images from Kobabe’s.”
They attacked Banned Books Week, an event that celebrates the freedom to read. The protesters thought it was a plot to lure the kids to be degraded, wrote Hickson.
The real sucker punch came when a protester branded me as a pornographer and groomer of children. After a successful career, with retirement on the horizon, to be cast as a villain was heartbreaking.”
The response from my employer was worse. The board sat in silence that night, and for the next five months refused to utter a word in my defense.”
Hickson’s piece was the concluding personal essay in CNN Opinion’s series on midterm issues, “America’s Future Starts Now.” America’s schools are moving forward and nine education experts weighed in with their thoughts.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html
The Revisit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Changing Face of the Latin American-Medium-East Politics: An Analysis by Arick’s
Elections in Latin America and the Middle East brought back familiar faces. In Brazil, a former President of the nationposted a stunning political comeback, defeating the incumbent, Arick’s wrote.
After the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, Brazilians have been faced with two more starkly contrasting candidates, each with an opposing political outlook. And “it’s clear that a sizable percentage of the voting population didn’t buy into either of their visions for the country.”
“Even under indictment and on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Netanyahu is still the most consequential politician on the Israeli scene today,” wrote Aaron David Miller. “For Netanyahu this election was truly existential. Had he failed to secure a governing majority, he might have had to take a guilty verdict or plead guilty to help get the legislation passed that would have driven him out of politics.
The most stable and durable political party in Israel is Likud. Netanyahu is the master of Israel and the nation is shaped by the right wing more than at any point in its history.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html
The Brady-Bündchen Divorce: A Case Study of a Supermodel in the Presence of an Unsuitable Baby
NFL quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen are divorcing, a development that is hardly unusual in the world of celebrity power couples. There is a lot of interest in the split. The “fascination with the Brady-Bündchen divorce comes from the fact that this couple’s split hits a perfect celebrity sweet spot: These are two people who are absolutely nothing like us, but who nonetheless seem to be splitting up over a familiar gender dynamic that is imminently relatable.”
“Bündchen’s public comments indicate a worry about Brady’s health playing a dangerous sport and a desire – after years of sacrificing so that he could thrive professionally – for him to spend more time with their family.”
The wife of a successful man who leaves her job to care for her children, and the husband who doesn’t like to give up his professional life for family, are both in this situation.
While at the University of Missouri- Kansas City, you will discover that a junior named Dominque is living in Kansas with her family. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinions at CNN.
There is an issue in front of us that could determine our future. We will turn out in large numbers if we are aware that we can have a say in the issues that affect us.
For some of us, that issue is the environment. For the first Gen Z member of Congress, it was gun violence prevention, which was why he became a Florida activist.
Even though the abortion issue was not on the ballot in Kansas this November, I chose to vote for it. And that’s true for a lot of people in my circle.
My friends and I all know people who have needed to access abortion. After the Supreme Court reversed Roe vs. Wade, we sat around together and discussed the “what if’s” that could one day force us to face that awful decision. We all immediately understood the impact that an unwanted baby would have on us.
In August, several weeks after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe, Kansans voted on a measure that would have removed abortion rights from our state Constitution.
How Women Learn to Vote: A Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement in the Era of Generation Z Elections and a Chance for Women Voting
I didn’t know how fortunate I was for that guidance: When I started college two years ago, I was surprised by how many of my peers didn’t know how to vote or felt indifferent about elections.
Between August and September of this year, young women accounted for 54% of new registered voters – a change from most years, when voter registrations have been fairly evenly divided by gender. I think the abortion vote has something to do with that.
Gen Z voters have grown up in a country that always protected our bodily autonomy. Having it stripped away, by individuals who don’t represent the vast majority of us, woke a lot of us up to the importance of voting. That’s a lesson we won’t soon unlearn.