COVER by maddy
The Election Guidebook: Divided States of America
CONTENT
0708 13 16 18 22 24 26 28 32 34 37 Letter from the Editors Welcome to the Election Guidebook.
By Anushka Joshi, Sam Gibbs and Eden Burkow
A Man Accused of Sexual Assult will be our President
Our Current State, What’s at Stake?
How did we get here, and where do we go from here?
To be one is to reject the other. By Jack Bekos
By Tajwar Khandaker
COVID-19: The Government in a New Light
No matter the outcome, this is our reality.
Warning, In Danger Of Collapse: Voter Turnout, The Economy, and Trump’s Re-Election Chances.
By Elisabeth Foster
Zac Emanuel
Your Silence Aids and Abets Violent Oppression
Voting
By Abeer Tijani
Too taboo, the taboo two: religion & politics.
Racial Injustice
Political Polarization
Global Empathy
The vaccine for the 21st Century By Arya Bhatia
Madame President
Is the United States ready for a female president? By Sami Rosenblatt
By Eden Burkow
The Privatized Public Opinion: Civic Literacy and Media Literacy or the algorithms? By Nikki Cohen
The American Biathlon: How Political Campaigns are Run
Not Your Baker’s Dough: Money in Our Electoral Process
So you think you can be president?
Money talks
By Zac Emanuel
By Zac Emanuel
4043 44 4649 50 5154 58 5964 66 Election Interference & Political Disruption
American citizens are not the only ones who vote in elections.
Courting Misfortune How your vote affects the court system. By Arjun Joshi
By Chloe Hirth
A Vote for Trans Women's Rights
A case study on the impacts of the Supreme Court. By Gia Ariola
Policy Piece
Gen Z Survey
The Electoral College
Republicans are red, democrats
Where we stand: Gen Z sentiments on our current state.
Which votes matter?
The Importance of Local Elections
Why I’m Voting for Trump
should we do?
By Reeve Berlinberg
By Nikki Cohen, Dani Miles, Katie Abrams, Anushka Joshi, and Commit2Eight
Voter Suppression The privilege of a vote. By Sequoia Smith
National politics equals culture. Local politics equal action. By Katie Abrams
And so should you! By Nate Odenkirk
Voting and Organizing Toolkit
From the Sidelines to the Field
Is There Still Room for Hope?
How to get you and your friends to the polls.
How to Go from Advocating and Protesting to Working for Candidates YOU Believe In.
A look into the future.
By Nikki Cohen and Chloe Keywell
By Zac Emanuel
By Michelle Austreich.
The Election Guidebook: Divided States of America Fall 2020 EDITORIAL TEAM Anushka Joshi - Editor in Chief Madison Ledger - Creative Director Zac Emaluel - Politics Editor Eden Burkow - Community Editor Sam Gibbs - Story Editor Nikki Cohen - Culture Editor AUTHORS
Tajwar Khandaker Jack Bekos Elisabeth Foster Zac Emanuel Arya Bhatia Abeer Tijani Eden Burkow Sami Rosenblatt Nikki Cohen
Chloe Hirth Arjun Joshi Gia Ariola Dani Miles Katie Abrams Reeve Berlinger Sequoia Smith Nate Odenkirk Michelle Austreich
ARTISTS
Madison Ledger Nicole Klein Chloe Keywell Kate Bowling
Sadie Paczosa Emma Lam Isabelle Lemiuex Anam Farqui
REACH US WWW.GEN-ZiNE.COM @thegenzine thegenzine@gmail.com
Letter From The Editors To our readers, Welcome to “The Election Guidebook: Divided States of America”. We created this issue in light of the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election. And though its title is rooted in the divisive nature of our country, it is not meant with pessimism. The goal of this issue is to redefine the American Dream – we are better together. As always, GEN-ZiNE strives to cultivate community, compassion, curiosity, and critical thought within the members of our generation. We know that not everyone will turn to public service or office as their line of work– but it is possible to enact change wherever you are, and it starts here with you. Generation Z has been raised in a post 9/11 world, riddled with fear, anxiety, and extreme surveillance. We grew up too quickly, losing our peers to regular mass shootings at school. We have come of age during Donald Trump’s presidency where bigotry, sexism, racism, and hatred were publicly normalized, and redefined the perception of America. And all the while, the threat of climate change looms overhead. These are the moments that defined the formative years of our generation. They have shaped the way we approach and perceive the world. We know how to raise our voices and make noise, we know how to advocate for the issues we care about, and we know how to stand up for what we believe in. We have witnessed the Parkland survivors lead a movement for gun safety. We have protested for racial justice. The face of climate activism is a 15 year old girl. We have turned our pain into purpose, and that is our biggest inspiration. We’ve been on the front lines before – but will we show up when we are called to this new battleground? We are at an intersection in time where old order splits into new order – what will we create?
As many of us are eligible to vote for the first time – in fact, 24 MILLION Gen Z’ers are eligible to vote – it is time for us to mobilize and be more informed now than ever before. This issue of GEN-ZiNE documents history. It documents how tenacious we were to make a change and elect the future that we want to see. This zine is an educational tool, with its lessons being taught peer to peer. We’ve come together to discuss and understand our governmental system, the constituents of America, and how we can do our part to get our ballots to the mailbox. #SaveThePostOffice. In a world filled with so much hatred, divisiveness, chaos, and trauma, it’s easy to want to give up. To succumb to deep-rooted history. To ask, “does my vote even matter?” But progress and change do not happen overnight (though I hope it will on November 3rd). It is a slow burn, but we can create the world that we want to live in – and that we want future generations to live in. But above all, civics is love. And it comes from a place of hope, community, and the search for something greater than thyself. The push to November 3rd is just the start of our journey as engaged citizens. The permanence of civic engagement is a part of our DNA, not a one-time thing. This is the greatest inflection point for both our nation and for ourselves. In our late teens and early twenties we constantly ask ourselves, “who am I, who do I want to become, and why am I here?” In a society riddled with individualism, I implore you to take a step back and to not just consider, but to act upon our greater community – America’s future. Systemic change is a habit that we must inaugurate into our lives starting with this upcoming election. Let the energy that surrounds your hopes and your dreams, your fears, and your anxieties channel into a single starting point – your vote.
See you at the polls(ish). Anushka, Eden, Sam
Our Current State, What’s at Stake?
How did we get here, and where do we go? by tajwar khandaker
A bizarre election, in a bizarre year, led to the presidency of Donald Trump in a moment that signaled the start to one of the wildest experiments in American history. Despite the abundance of confident punditry and forecasting that followed election night in 2016, it seems as though no one got it right- not completely at least. Those that expected the 70-year-old “Apprentice” star to embrace something resembling the “normal” role of president and shed his campaign persona were sorely mistaken. So were those who saw Trump as a Washington outsider who would “drain the swamp” and represent the “forgotten majority” in the White House. Some underestimated his anger and his impulsiveness; others overestimated his interest in upholding the duties of the office. What America has come to learn – and probably should have understood long ago – is that Trump has always been exactly the man he comes off as being. There is no deeper layer, no higher motive, no calculated grand plan. The president has proven to be every bit as underqualified for the post as his campaign indicated; his first term has produced an inexhaustible array of scandals, the most broken congressional inter-party relations in recent memory, and contributed to the mismanagement of the worst national health crisis in nearly a century. Norms and systems established over centuries by politicians, statesmen, and experts have been discarded. The decorum of the American government is in disrepair, both in the eyes of its people and those of the world. It now feels like an act of providence when we see the president handle something as mundane as a bill signing instead of dropping rap-battle threats against foreign leaders on Twitter. The bar has been lowered beyond recognition. As we approach November, we cautiously await the American people’s referendum on the Trump experiment. It is a mistake, however, to make this election entirely about him – none of this has ever been entirely about him. It’s about a deeply rooted mistrust of government, of decades of growing resentment against establishment politicians who seem to fail to grasp the needs of the American people. It’s about a country with such a complicated national identity that its own citizens can’t reconcile their competing perceptions of what America stands for with one another. It’s about a litany of other things: education, immigration, privacy, on and on. The path that led to Trump was paved with stones left over decades, by everyone from senators and presidents to judges and newspaper editors. The erosion of “American Values” that so many have decried over the past for years was not conjured out of thin air by Donald Trump – it was the inevitable endpoint of the course America has trodden for the last half-century. Those values – Democracy, equality, justice – have been preached loudly by the United States across the world for decades, often at gunpoint. Yet at home, our maintenance of these ideals has been in disrepair. America’s once thriving middle class has shrunk rapidly, as rising costs of living, stagnant wage growth, and ramshackle healthcare have crippled socioeconomic mobility for tens of millions of Americans. A flawed and overburdened criminal justice system has exacerbated the plight of communities across America, disproportionally harming minority populations. Voter suppression still silences millions in what is supposed to be the world’s greatest democracy. So, it was no surprise that Americans on opposite sides of the nation, opposing ends of the political spectrum, and of every race and ethnicity grew tired – a reality that in 2016 manifested in the form of two wildly different presidential candidates.
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were dramatically opposed, both in their platforms and ideologies. Sanders’ brand of progressive politics had remained practically the same since his entry into government nearly 40 years ago- well to the left of the establishment of the Democrat party. Trump’s right-wing tendencies, on the other hand, were reminiscent of Tea Party rhetoric during the Obama years, entrenching the Republican party further in a fiery and often nasty nationalistic position. Americans unhappy with the status-quo and establishment politics flocked to both candidates in 2016 – mostly young, multicultural, progressive voters for Sanders against an older, more right-wing, and decidedly whiter base for Trump. Both candidates, despite their drastically different directions, tapped into the sea of discontent across the country – evidenced by their successes amongst working class voters. However, in 2016, Hilary Clinton’s nomination and subsequent campaign would overlook these realities. Her platform appeared mostly an appeal to voters to continue the Obama years, offering little in the way of bold new policy. At times, it seemed as though the Clinton campaign’s central argument was simply that she was not Donald Trump. There was no great vision the candidate set forth, no rallying cry like Obama’s “Hope” for the masses to gather around. The lack of inspirational direction was an issue for the campaign all the way through, as enthusiasm lagged among young and undecided voters. Her message failed to move the voters of the Rust Belt and of the traditionally Democrat “Blue Wall” of northern states – areas where she had unexpectedly lost primary races to Sanders. The results were catastrophic; not only would Clinton fail to secure a victory in Ohio or Pennsylvania, but Michigan and Wisconsin would turn red for the first time in decades on Donald Trump’s road to victory. Many of the working-and-middle class Americans who voted for him – mostly white – saw it as a gamble.
Much of Middle-America was willing to overlook the long list of obvious problems with the candidate because they clung to the hope that regardless, he was still the first unique option presented to them in a very long time. Trump represented to these voters an outside presence willing to rip up the snooty club of the Washington elite- the same who had failed to deliver on promises for decades. Election night came, and the Democrats were stunned. Not only would Clinton lose the major swing states - she would lose two states that Democrats had held in presidential elections for 28 years in Michigan and Wisconsin. Despite winning the popular vote, she lost badly in the electoral college. Despite his razor thin margins in many states, Trump’s victory was resounding. Four years later, America looks dramatically different on the eve of the election. The severity and breadth of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to grind to a halt, with the largest economic downturn since the Great Depression and a degree of worldwide crisis not seen since the last World War. The United States, under the leadership of President Trump, has unflatteringly bungled the situation, failing to institute any kind of coherent national policy to counter the pandemic. While many of America’s peers abroad have managed to control the spread of the virus to varying degrees, the United States itself has been woefully inept in its response- resulting in bans in many countries on the entry of American visitors. Meanwhile, the administration has been repeatedly dismissing the danger posed by the virus and disputing official numbers. As American deaths continue to mount at a frightening pace, Trump’s chances in the election continue to take a tremendous hit. Though a concerning number of Americans seem to be dismissive of the virus, nearly two-thirds of the country believe that other countries have handled the crisis better than the United Statesincluding 57% of Republicans. As Republicans across the board have started to take the coronavirus more seriously in recent weeks, Trump has been forced to show more concern, even though the president still claims that the U.S. is doing a good job handling the issue. One way or another, it looks as though it will be too little, too late for Trump. Holding onto his electoral gains from 2016, on paper, seems a tremendous challenge. Trump has taken significant losses among independent voters and many centrist Republicans, while his new gains look limited. For working class swing voters little has changed for the better during Trump’s presidency. His economic policies, particularly the series of
tariffs, have hurt industries such as agriculture and steel. His attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act also went over poorly with working class voters, as did his tax cuts which disproportionately favored corporations and the wealthy. Consequently, Trump is in very real danger of hemorrhaging votes in states that were crucial to his victory four years ago. Current polling backs up the hypothesis- Biden holds a healthy margin against the president in many key states from Pennsylvania and Michigan to Florida and possibly even Texas.
But so did Hillary Clinton at this time four years ago, and she lost. Biden’s numbers are better than Clinton’s were, and his chances are certainly strong, but his campaign will have to grapple with many of the same problems that torpedoed that of his predecessor. Clinton’s lack of a strong ideological message (other than being an anti-Trump) was a drag on her campaign; the same could easily be said about the Joe Biden campaign in the present. The lack of proactivity and initiative shown by the Biden campaign thus far indicates that the candidate is content with sitting on the sidelines for the time being while Trump punches himself out. Ideally, the former vice-president will remain unscathed, able to emerge clean for election day having avoided the brunt of public pressure. However, Biden’s candidacy has too many issues of its own to avoid scrutiny, much as he may like it to. Questions around his age and health are inevitable, as are those about the sexual misconduct allegations directed toward him over the last year. Of course, the platform itself is a matter of concern to many as well. Biden is a traditionally “safe” candidate, sure to appeal to centrist Democrats, moderate Republicans, and many independent voters, but the vice president’s policy proposals do not go far enough for many. As a result, Biden has made significant moves to incorporate progressive policy into a platform that was once establishment vanilla in recent months creating a Unity Plan with Bernie Sanders and integrating some of Elizabeth Warren’s proposals with his own. Many of the possible fruits of these decisions are promising- universal childcare, stronger environmental legislation, and a tax raise for the wealthy. However, in declining to endorse a Green New Deal or Medicare for All, even in the wake of the current health crisis,
Biden continues to alienate many of his skeptics on the left. Many progressives see Biden’s candidacy a hollow promise, an engine willing to go only so far as reinstituting the pre-Trump “normal.” For millions across the country, that normal was never sufficient. During the Democratic Convention, there was a concentrated effort to cater to that concern, with the endless repetition of the promise to “Build Back Better”. Whether or not voters buy it is another matter- the discontent of millions requires more than some alliteration to solve. The Democrats have publicly bemoaned the leadership vacuum with Donald Trump in the Oval Office; Biden has an opportunity to start filling that void by being present and vocal now. The DNC was a strong first step in that direction, as the former vice president offered perhaps the best speech of his career accepting his nomination for the candidacy. Biden cast himself in a presidential light his campaign hadn’t managed to conjure until the convention- speaking clearly and assertively, ostensibly leading from the pulpit. This was essential for a candidate that had long been painted as too old, too addle-minded, too out of touch. The people needed to see him not only campaigning, but leading, with a clear theme for the future he proposed. Biden delivered at long last, projecting an image of leadership, accountability, and competence for his potential administration. His choice of Kamala Harris as his running mate the prior week may have been an equally significant moment in the timeline of the campaign. The junior senator from California offers an incredibly mixed bag for critics and supporters to pick through, as criticisms of her record as California Attorney General mar her image to many, despite her strong political skillset, prosecutorial success, and status as potentially the first woman (of Black and Indian heritage no less) to be vice president. The selection carries more weight than most; there are strong indications that Biden plans upon being only a single-term president. As a result, Harris’ selection is not only for the role of VP but perhaps by extension for the Presidential candidacy in 2024. The Harris-Biden union offers a well rounded ticket to voters- a white man and a woman of color, experience and energy, the empathy of an elder statesman and the zeal of a young prosecutor. With his vice president in tow, it is time for the Biden campaign to lock in and push for the remaining days of the race. Doing so successfully involves leaving behind the complacency the Democrats showed in 2016, when they assumed they could pull off the victory despite the discontent of many potential voters. Biden cannot make the same mistakes. The voters of the Rust Belt and the Blue Wall will need answers to their concerns – Biden will have to address them in a way that Clinton did not. There is a large pool of potential voters available to pull upon for the cause of defeating Donald Trump. It behooves the Biden camp to ensure that they’ve properly appealed to all of them rather than a select few. Much like Clinton, Biden may find it challenging to get people out to vote, a result of both lacking enthusiasm for his campaign and an overconfidence in the result by potential voters. Biden’s ability to draw voters to the election is even more important than it already would be due to the apparent instability of the voting process in November. With the coronavirus still raging across much of the country, conducting normal in-person voting seems highly inadvisable, if not impossible, and states and local governments are scrambling to establish functional protocols and systems for carrying out the election. The chaos is stoked by the executive branch’s intentional hindrance of vote-by-mail practices across the country, as Trump publicly and regularly declares that mailed votes will lead to a stolen election. Vote-by-mail undoubtedly has logistical challenges, but it’s been a part of the election process for years in many parts of the country. No evidence shows higher risks of voter fraud with mail-in voting, and many regions that use it have seen better voter turnout. The fight over the voting process will take place both in Washington and in lower levels of government across the country. The result will likely be a patchwork system of voting nationwide, with some regions voting exclusively by mail, some in person, and some with a combination. It’s still hard to gauge what turnout will look like in November, but the idea that the more people vote the better Biden’s odds will be is a popular one. The president, hellbent on restricting mail-in voting, believes this himself. Although this had been pretty clear to most observers for months, Trump made sure to put it in words himself. In early August. The president admitted to withholding USPS funding for that reason, proudly declaring “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots [...] If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in