Politics

WHITE KNUCKLES | Personal&Political

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It takes a long time to feel at home in another country. It takes mispronunciations, catching up on a lot of pop culture to understand the references, adapting to a different kind of humor, eating unfamiliar food and walking other roads. It takes a family in both countries, whether tied by blood or by adventures and bad days at work and difficult prelims and the question of what to do next. It takes a long time, and it happens gradually; you only realize it when it’s already happened, its making slips away in days and seasons. To me, it’s happened.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | How We Move Forward After Defeat

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In the coming days, we will begin to understand the outcome of Tuesday night’s elections and see how Donald Trump triumphed when almost every major news source was predicting a win for Hillary Clinton on Monday. The results are shocking and deeply startling to many people whose personal identities were attacked by Trump throughout his campaign. Processing this outcome will not happen overnight and the fear that he will follow through with his campaign promises rooted in hatred and xenophobia will likely remain throughout the course of his presidency. Trump has shown himself to be a highly unpredictable man and pathological liar, and the fear that I feel for my friends and loved ones in the numerous minority groups that he has shunned, criticized and sworn to further marginalize is deep and very real. For now, though, perhaps the best thing that we can do is to take the time to consider how and why this has happened.

Politics

WELCOME TO THE ZOO | 2016 Presidential Election

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With an open mind and two sides of the story, you’re bound to learn something new. Welcome to the zoo! This is a blog where both the Republican and Democratic viewpoints are represented. The blog is not meant to sway you either way necessarily, just to present both sides of the story. You may not agree with the whole article, but hey, you’re likely to agree with half!

Politics

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY | The Conscience of A Liberal

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Awhile ago, Paul Krugman ran an op-ed piece titled “Plutocrats and Prejudice”, in which he observes the division between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton during the primaries as a division between what change is best. Senator Sanders says he, along with the people, will revolutionize politics, while Secretary Clinton says she will implement progressive reforms. The question of revolution or reform was discussed previously in Western Europe and pre-Soviet Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars discussed this question in the context of what is the proper interpretation of Marx’s work. To achieve socialism, do we implement reform or do we need revolution? In the present, the goal hasn’t changed.

Entertainment

ATARISTOTLE | POLITICIANS AS SUPER SMASH BROS. CHARACTERS

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Ladies and gents, step right up. You’ve all been waiting for this one. As a follow up to my last article, Super Smash Bros. in the Black Community (a link to that article is at the bottom which may be helpful to read first if you’ve never heard of Super Smash Bros.), I’ve decided to expand on Smash Bros. and mix it in with a dash of politics, a smidgen more of humor, and a concise list of politicians to lighten up the mood as we head closer and closer to yet another historic Presidential election.

Politics

MCEVOY MINUTE | After a week full of scandal, could Trump still win?

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If after this weekend you were left wondering what the state of our political system has come to, you are not alone. After a video was released of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, claiming that he had the right to sexually assault women because he was a celebrity, the Republican Party started falling to pieces. On top of that, Trump tried to brush off his comments as ‘locker room’ talk, failing to  recognize that it is this very ‘boys will be boys’ attitude that perpetuates rape culture and teaches young boys to treat women as sexual objects. Then, during Monday night’s debate, we witnessed one of the most vitriolic displays between two presidential candidates in modern memory, in which Trump and Clinton refused to start off by shaking hands. Social media sites were rife with people voicing their opinions and expressing how appalled they are with this current election cycle.

Politics

KRAVITZ’S KORNER | The GOP’s Perilous Gamble on Trump

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If there was ever a time for the Republican Party to regret nominating Donald Trump, it would be now. The Washington Post’s release of video tapes that include Trump’s abhorrent remarks about women in 2005 underscore not only his immoral character, but also his weakness as a candidate. And following the second presidential debate, there is little sign that Trump is going to change the tone of his campaign. According to Election Betting Odds, a website that uses political betting markets to compute odds, Trump’s current chance at winning the election hovers at an abysmal 16 percent, down from 26 percent from before the video tapes were released, and down from 36 percent from before the first presidential debate. It’s safe to say that Trump would get crushed if the election were held tomorrow.

Politics

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL | Dear Undecided Voter

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Dear Undecided Voter,

Hey, I hope you’re doing well.  I am not going to make this too long, because I get it, we’re all busy people.  I just want to have a little chat. This is for all of you citizens out there who still haven’t made the ultimate choice: Trump or Clinton?  You have your different reasons — some of you view yourselves as “independents” and would rather vote third party, some of you are just postponing what you perceive to be a choice between the “lesser of two evils” and some of you just feel so frustrated with our democracy and the way that this presidential election season has unfolded that you aren’t going to vote at all.

Politics

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL | Political Culture and Clinton’s Cough

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The biggest news story from this past weekend isn’t that our nation just grieved September 11th for the 15th time. Nope, the biggest headline following this historic day is that Hillary has pneumonia. Over the past few months, the 68-year-old Democratic nominee has faced a constant barrage of scrutiny surrounding her physical health, and after her stumble and early departure from a 9/11 commemoration ceremony, it was revealed that Clinton is currently being treated for pneumonia. Even more disconcerting than the fact that Clinton still works tirelessly despite her illness and tries to conceal it from us, is our grotesque fixation on her and the hyper-scrutiny we subject her to.  Conspiracy theories ranging from seizures to an inability to support herself at a podium have surfaced, and a letter from her doctor claimed that Hillary is undoubtedly “fit to serve” as president.