Resolutions

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

POLITICAL

REVIEW 30.2 | February 2019 | wupr.org

RESOLUTIONS featuring: Taxes, Tinder, and the Terror of My Twenties Triple-Edged Sword Yandex: The Final Front Against Google

Table of Contents Resolutions

National

International

6

AOC: From Resolutions to Red Lipstick Megan Orlanski

8

A Resolution Against Genuine Resolve Connor Warshauer

21

Electability is Voters' Priority Issue in 2020 Garrett Cunningham

22

Plastic Anchors and Double Helixes: The Case for Default IUDs Jon Niewijk

25

Evaluating Candidates' Housing Policy Proposals Michael Fogarty

27

Two Years of Shutdown in Northern Ireland Alexander Newman

9

Boycotting Rhodes Ishaan Shah

12

Taxes, Tinder, and the Timely Terrors of My Twenties Nicholas Massenburg-Abraham

14

Resolutions That Stick Christian Fogerty

15

Triple-Edged Sword Akshay Thontakudi

28

Rivers, Free Cities, and Condominiums Zachary Sorenson

18

Advertising's Insidious Role in Social Media Influencing Ryan Martirano

29

Yandex: The Final Front Against Google Daria Locher

32 19

Is This the Best an Ad Can Get? Daniel A. Berkovich

Venezuela: It's Complicated Rohan Palacios

34 20

Year of Empowerment Caron Song

Memories from Micronesia: Diving Chuuk's Ghost Fleet Ryan Mendelson

Editors' Note Executive Director: Sabrina Wang Editors-in-Chief: Michael Fogarty Dan Sicorsky Design Director: Maggie Chuang Staff Editors: Hanna Khalil Ryan Mendelson Jon Niewijk Daniel Smits Features Editors: Megan Orlanski Ishaan Shah Assistant Design Directors: Catherine Ju Leslie Liu Programming Director: Rohan Palacios Web Editor: Conor Smyth Treasurer: Garrett Cunningham Front Cover: Annie Zhao Theme Spread: Leslie Liu Feature Designs: Michael Avery Maggie Chuang Catherine Ju Leslie Liu

Dear Reader, We’re two months in to a new year. And so what? Many of us are sure that 2019 will be no different: we’ll live through war and peace, joy and despair, good news and bad. And yet as soon as the ball dropped on New Year’s, we all—as individuals, communities, and nations—pledged to be better, to do better. Will 2019 finally be the year? Will world leaders finally resolve bloody conflicts? Will we overcome racism? Fix our flawed institutions? Address poverty? Make it to the gym?

“Resolve” is a powerful verb, referring both to the act of finding a solution to a problem, and also to deciding firmly on a course of action. We resolve to do all sorts of things: commit to relationships, cook more often, take care of our minds and bodies. Disputes, conflicts, and arguments—of which there is no local or global shortage—must also be resolved, and someone must do the resolving. We all want to fix conflicts. We all want to progress. We all want to resolve. The trick is to actually do it.

Our writers took the theme in an impressively diverse set of directions. Christian Fogerty considers what makes a personal resolution stick, while Akshay Thontakudi explores how different meanings of the word “resolve” are reflected in news events from last year. Connor Warshauer muses about the role of resolve “in the game of nuclear deterrence.” Nick Massenburg-Abraham, in a piece about Tinder and much more, wonders, “Have I become who I resolved to be when I was a child?”

Our national and international writers also impressed. Daria Locher considers why an alternative to Google dominates in Russia, while also noting how the Russian state uses the search engine to suppress dissent. Daniel Berkovich adds his take on the controversial Gillette ad that purports to address toxic masculinity, reminding readers that “we shouldn’t be fooled again.” Ryan Martirano argues for more transparency in social media advertising, and Alexander Newman suggests that the U.S.’s recent shutdown pales in comparison to an ongoing impasse in Northern Ireland. And the crisis in Venezuela receives the attention it deserves from Rohan Palacios, known for flying his pages overseas.

Far from all resolutions are covered in this issue. And far from all the problems affecting our world are mentioned in these pages. What did we miss? Write to us at editor@wupr.org, or visit wupr.org/join, to add your voice to the mix.

At WUPR, we resolve this year to continue growing as an outlet for writers, thinkers, and artists. We resolve to keep serving, and publishing, you.

Sincerely, Michael Fogarty & Dan Sicorsky Editors-in-Chief

WU Political Review

AOC Megan Orlanski, features editor Artwork by Leslie Liu, assistant design director

From Resolutions to Red Lipstick

A

few weeks ago, I was sitting at the counter of a small kitchen in the Bronx while Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made black bean soup in an Instant Pot and told me about her transition into office.

Well, it didn’t exactly happen like that. But Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did go on Instagram Live to talk to her followers as she made dinner, pausing to respond to comments and read what questions her viewers had asked her. It felt like a regular weekday evening, and as she spoke about a new recipe she was trying while talking about the issue of cash bails for defendants, I almost forgot that

6

she represents New York’s 14th Congressional District.

It was refreshing to see a member of Congress who connected directly with people and shared her journey to the hallowed chambers of our nation’s legislative branch.

Since that Instagram Live video, I have continued watching Ocasio-Cortez’ daily updates on her Instagram Story. During one update, she documented how the incoming class of freshman representatives attended workshops and a “boot camp” to learn the how legislation is written, introduced to each House, and voted on.

Ocasio-Cortez showed us how elected representatives have to choose a phone to use for official business and how there is a lottery system to choose one’s office in the House. The minute details of holding federal office had been brought right to my phone and to the more-thantwo million followers on her personal account.

Resolutions

that the number of registered voters following political figures has doubled between 2010 and 2014. Still, Ocasio-Cortez strongly represents youth politics with her uniquely direct use of social media to communicate with her constituents. Just as social media influencers use live streams and Instagram stories to talk to their fans “one to one”, Ocasio-Cortez ensures that her social media output gives her viewers the impression that it is solely her own voice communicating on the screen, not the carefully curated posts made by professional teams of digital marketers. This notion that Rep. OcasioCortez’s posts are written and produced by her alludes to her overall message of being a downto-earth politician that is both independent and capable of creating her own content and communicating it effectively.

From using her Instagram Story to explain why the government shutdown dragged on to giving a mini-tutorial on press-on manicures as she rode the Amtrak from Washington D.C. to Manhattan, Ocasio-Cortez uses her social media platforms not only as an outlet but also as a bridge to her constituents. Through her posts, Ocasio-Cortez shows how she is really not that different from the rest of us, a message that often doesn’t get conveyed by other legislators.

The ways in which Ocasio-Cortez shares her daily life with her viewers, with events both large and small, is emblematic of her overall message: there is not just one way to become a Congressman, or woman, for that matter.

The Center for American Women Politics reported that 30 years ago, during the 96th Congress, only 3.6 percent of the Representatives in the House of Representatives were women.

Today, over 23 percent of Representatives are women. Although there is still a disproportionate amount of men in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez is the face of a new wave of diversity, not only for women but also for people of color, as the 116th Congress proved to be the most diverse incoming class the nation has ever seen.

Social media has come to take a central role in political campaigns and the political landscape as a whole, with Pew Research Center reporting

Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez’s Director of Communications, said in an interview to the Rolling Stone Magazine that the goal of the representative’s content is “to shed as much light on the process and to be as open and transparent as possible, to give people an insight into what a freshman Congressperson is like, to give them some insight into what their government’s like, and hopefully make [politics] seem less foreign and unapproachable.”

before deciding to run for office as an attempt to address the problems her minority-dominated community faced.

On January 3, I checked Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram updates and watched as she was sworn into the 116th Congress. She wore a white suit as a nod to the color of the Women’s suffrage movement. She accessorized with hoops and red lipstick to stand in solidarity with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who was advised to wear neutral tones during her Senate confirmation and wore red lipstick and hoops as an act of defiance. Her inauguration no longer felt like I was watching some distant political figure repeat a custom that had been done thousands of times before. It felt like someone I knew was turning a new page in congressional and American history. This was a page where a young Latina woman from the Bronx can beat a 20-year incumbent Congressman, proving that we the people decide who represents us, and that an individual can break the mold of past precedent create a new wave for the future.

Regardless of whether you agree with her policy or not, I do believe that Ocasio-Cortez has made the often opaque and elusive process of running for office and eventually being voted into office clearer for her audience. She has also made her stories accessible to people of all abilities, adding in English captions for people who are hard of hearing. Ocasio-Cortez has taken her position as a young woman, the youngest woman to ever get elected to Congress, and uses her journey to show that others can reach the same destination, regardless of what path they are currently on.

Ocasio-Cortez’s social media platforms also serve to destigmatize the often-stuffy process of congressional life, and the federal government as a whole. She is a prime example of someone who wasn’t on the conventional political trajectory. She is a graduate from Boston University who bartended at a taco restaurant

Megan Orlanski '22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at morlanski@wustl.edu.

7

WU Political Review

A Resolution Against Genuine Resolve Connor Warshauer

I

n the game of nuclear deterrence, resolve holds a position of particular importance.

A nation’s ability to convince other states of its willingness to use its arsenal forms the bedrock of instilling a mutually assured destruction mentality in its foes. Resolve can accurately be considered a necessary tool in achieving this objective; demonstrating resolution to use nuclear weapons in the event of an attack may be the only way to deter rogue nations from aggressive action.

The deterrent power of resolve arises not from an aggressive first strike posture, but from an asserted and proven determination to launch retaliatory nuclear missiles in response to an attack initiated by an enemy. But retaliatory nuclear strikes raise considerable ethical concerns. At the point after an enemy has already launched nuclear weapons, retaliatory strikes may have no military value. Of course, this assertion fails to hold true in cases when the nuclear aggressor is a state with a relatively small arsenal, like North Korea. If a country with the capacity to wipe out the entire United States, like Russia, initiates a nuclear conflict, however, retaliating serves no real military purpose. Once the missiles are in the air, the conflict has for all intensive purposes ended and America has been destroyed.

In such a case, it seems that a President or other military official has no just grounds to respond. If it’s too late to save the United States, there seems no persuasive reason to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Russians in response. Some might argue that our enemies would in some sense “deserve” to be killed as a kind of tit-for-tat punishment for killing Americans. Nuclear weapons do not simply kill those who made the decision to launch, however. Rather, in order to punish Putin for his atrocious act, the United States would have to destroy hundreds of thousands with him.

While I’m inclined to reject punitive justice in nearly all cases, surely nobody would defend a view of punitive justice as being so important as

8

In order to punish Putin for his atrocious act, the United States would have to destroy hundreds of thousands with him. to justify massive additional innocent deaths in its name. An objector might further contend that because governments represent their people, all citizens in an aggressor country become complicit. Even in a democratic country, this conclusion is suspect; the minority groups who did not vote for those in power should bear no responsibility. In authoritarian countries like Russia, the claim that citizens bear responsibility for the atrocities perpetrated by the tyrannical government that rules over them deserves no serious consideration.

A more plausible defense of retaliatory strikes might be to appeal to the military value of maintaining genuine resolve. The military necessity of projecting resolve may only be possible if leaders genuinely resolve to retaliate to future strikes, granting a kind of post facto justification to retaliatory strikes. Some moral philosophers have suggested that bad acts may be justified if they result necessarily from the formation of good intentions and motivations. For example, we say that mothers who adopt a strong motivation to protect their children have acted rightly.

If this good motivation causes a mother to sacrifice strangers to save her child, this act would not be thought of as bad because it was actually entailed by the good action of forming a protective motivation concerning her child.

I suspect this strategy would be the one taken by the vast majority of defenders of retaliatory nuclear strikes. It seems intuitively correct to say that if displaying resolve requires a genuine intention to follow through, and displaying resolve is good, following through cannot be bad. I’m intrigued by this possibility. The

philosophical reasoning seems strong and potentially persuasive, although I’m not willing to place myself firmly on one side of the debate. That being said, I think this defense of nuclear retaliation has a more serious empirical problem. It relies on the premise that projecting resolve requires genuine resolve, and little evidence seems capable of supporting this claim.

Projecting resolve simply requires that Russia or other adversaries believe that we will retaliate to a nuclear strike. Given how adept people are at lying and acting, American leaders should have no problem putting on an effective show of resolve. This show need not completely assure Russia that our resolve is genuine, nor could it ever. Rather, it must only convince Russia that the possibility of a retaliation is great enough that the potential costs of a nuclear strike would be greater than the benefits. Given that US intelligence services frequently promulgate mistruths to our adversaries and foreign policy always requires some level of deceit, feigning genuine resolve does not seem to be so impossible a task as to justify the human rights travesty that would result from retaliating to a nuclear strike. This position remains vastly unpopular.

According to the Roper Center, only 22 percent of Americans said that nuclear weapons should never be used. Yet despite this overwhelming consensus, there does not seem to be any particularly persuasive argument denying the moral evil in even a retaliatory strike.

Connor Warshauer ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at cwarshauer@wustl.edu.

Resolutions

Ishaan Shah, features editor Artwork by Michael Avery, staff artist and Maggie Chuang, design director

BOYCOTTING RHODES I

n 2000, Professor Kwaw “Andreas Woods” Imana stepped up to the podium to give the valedictorian speech at Morehouse College’s graduation. Morehouse is a private all-male historically black college, and it has produced the most black male Rhodes Scholars in the world. To the audience’s surprise and raucous support, Professor Imana revealed during his speech that he would not be accepting his own award. He spoke: “In a time when we honor our most prolific black scholars, our most prolific black academic achievers, with the names of one of the most racist and insidious murderers of black people that the Western world has produced, let us know that we have forgotten who we are…Cecil Rhodes wrote and I quote "the native's blacks must be treated like a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with these black barbarians and establish an order with the right race as the ruling class.” And we honor this man. And we

hear institutions brag and boast that they had this many Rhodes Scholars, they had that many Rhodes Scholars. If we recognize who we are as a people, there will be a better chance of giving a person of Jewish descent a Hitler scholarship or to give an elderly black man from the backwoods of Mississippi a Ku Klux Klan scholarship than to honor me or any black person with the Cecil Rhodes scholarship.”

According to the Rhodes Trust’s website, the aim of the Rhodes Scholarship is "identify[ing] young leaders from around the world who … would forge bonds of mutual understanding and fellowship for the betterment of mankind.” Why does Dr. Imana reject this vision? Should his anger be our anger?

Fourteen years later, the Rhodes Scholarship receives the same recognition that it did when Dr. Woods first applied. We have yet to debate whether it deserves its place.

9

WU Political Review

The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest and most prestigious scholarship in the world, bringing together a global collective of young students to pursue a master’s or bachelor’s degree at Oxford at no cost. The scholarship was created in 1902 through Cecil Rhodes' will, which used his wealth to establish the Rhodes Trust to administer the scholarship. In his will, Rhodes hoped that the scholarship would unite “English-speaking peoples throughout the world and [encourage] in the students from North America who would benefit from the American scholarships.”

Today, the Rhodes Scholarship shapes the American cultural and academic landscape. In Wikipedia articles, a person’s introduction almost always pays tribute to the award of a Rhodes Scholarship. Every introduction of an academic or esteemed figure at a conference or lecture, on a podcast, or in the byline of a news article pays heed to the scholarship. In America, the Rhodes Scholarship plays a particularly important political and social role.

Many famous politicians, academics, writers, and scientists studied under the scholarship including former President Bill Clinton, newscaster Rachel Maddow, and surgeon-writer Atul Gawande. The United States also receives the lion’s share of Rhodes scholarships with 32 reserved spots out of 100, more than double that of any other country or region. In comparison, India, a former colony of the Commonwealth with a population of 1.2 billion, has five Rhodes Scholarships, and Southern Africa, the region that Cecil Rhodes pillaged in his colonial exploits, has merely ten.

Despite the scholarship’s prestige and global renown, Cecil Rhodes' name continues to anger people throughout the world. To understand the visceral

The Rhodes Scholarship and Trust are institutionally incompatible with the development goals of South Africa. reaction that the name Rhodes receives, one must understand the history of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes is known by critics as “the godfather of apartheid.” Using funds from the British imperial government in his British South Africa Company, Rhodes bought most of the world’s diamond mines as part of the De Beers diamond company. He later obtained a Royal Charter, which allowed him to broker with Matabele Chief Lobengula to gain exclusive rights to mine gold in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, territories of modern-day Zambia and Zimbabwe. After no gold was found in Mashonaland, Rhodes waged a proxy war to conquer the Mashonaland territory and integrate it into the British Empire. By 1890, Rhodes was the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (present-day South Africa), and he instituted the Glen Grey Act, which severely limited land ownership rights for native Africans and disenfranchised them while preserving voting rights for white Afrikaners. In his time in South Africa, Cecil Rhodes began to drain South Africa’s natural resources in the British Empire’s interest.

He did so with the labor of the native Africans who were subjugated under what was the precursor to modern apartheid.

The Rhodes Scholarship and the Rhodes Trust attempt to correct for Cecil Rhodes’ colonial past. In 2002, the Rhodes Trust partnered with the Mandela Foundation to offer thirty Mandela Rhodes Scholarship to build leadership and excellence in South Africa by studying in South African universities. Many of the Rhodes Scholars in the last twenty years have pursued master’s degrees in Migration Studies, Development Studies, Comparative Social Policy, African Studies, and Refugee Studies; Rhodes Scholars are allowed and encouraged to be openly critical of Great Britain and Oxford’s colonial history while studying at the institution. The Rhodes Scholarship committee even accepted the anti-Rhodes activist, a leader of the South African “Rhodes Must Fall” movement, Ntokozo Qwabe, who accepted the scholarship and continued to study at the university.

A student admitted to Oxford College between 2015–2017 A student admitted to Oxford College between 2015–2017 who was British-Black

10

Can the Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford even correct for the colonial past of Cecil Rhodes? How can one build leadership, excellence, and infrastructure in South Africa when the goals of the scholarship are to create a global collective of young scholars to study at Oxford, a British institution? The Rhodes Scholarship and Trust are institutionally incompatible with the development goals of South Africa. However, the priorities of the Rhodes Trust and Oxford lie inevitably in developing the legacies of their own British institutions, with the majority of the supported scholars studying in the U.K. at Oxford. There are more American Rhodes Scholars (32) than Mandela Rhodes Scholars (30) who study at South African universities. Oxford itself is also an overwhelmingly white institution. Eight of the 38 Oxford colleges admitted two or fewer Black British students between 2015 and 2017. This includes Balliol College which has 655 students and Magdalen College which has 573 students. White British applicants were twice as likely to be

Resolutions

percent of rhodes scholarships awarded

percent of the world (based on country’s population)

40%

30%

20%

a

a in ch

di in

le

a

ba sy da no ri n/ a/j pa or th le da ec st n om in / m ja e on m w aic ea a lt & h ke so ny ut a he rn af ri ca ge rm an y ea st af ri ca pa ki st an un ite d st at es w es ta fr ic a

na

bi

These four countries hold 62% of the Rhodes Scholarships, and are over-represented based on their populations.

ca

ra ia

ay sia

sa ud

ia

al

al m

a m

au st r

bi

e za

bw ba

at es

m

ir em ab

un

ite

d

ar

zi

l ae isr

ng ho

ga

po

ko n

g

re

d an sin

al ze ne w

be

rm

ud a

10%

Based on their population, these countries are under-represented in the scholarships they are awarded.

admitted to undergraduate courses as their black British peers: 24% of the former but only 12% of the latter gained entry. Is the Rhodes Scholarship just a program that brings people of color to a white-dominated institution to ease criticisms of Oxford’s colonial legacy and lack of diversity?

only has forty scholarships. In the future, Rhodes Scholars from the Global South may more heavily carry the burden of diversifying Oxford itself, an institution whereas of 2017 only 1.8% of students identify as black and 8.3% identify as Asian.

Thinking about the legacy of Cecil Rhodes’ scholarship made me consider my own frustration with wanting to protest colonialism while having few legitimate means to do so. Must people of color, as largely the children of colonialism, passively accept the power of established colonial institutions and take out our pent-up anger of having our histories erased, rewritten, and hidden on the people around us? At times, it can feel as if these institutions, the Rhodes Scholarship and Oxford among others, are the only institutions that can arm us with the skills, connections, and creative potential to promote meaningful change in the world. It is difficult for people of color to pursue socially ambitious work through historically exploitative institutions without feeling like they “sold their soul,” without feeling as if they betrayed their own conscience by giving their talent to an institution historically designed to marginalize them.

As I looked deeper into the Rhodes Scholarship, I was increasingly convinced that I could not support or study under such a scholarship in good conscience. I initially viewed my actions as a personal decision, but given the close tie that the Rhodes Scholarship has to the American elite, I believe that American college students can exert a strong influence on the direction of the Rhodes Trust. By abstaining from applying from the scholarship, we practice educational divestment. We can refuse to offer our talents and our backgrounds as fodder for bolstering the scholarship’s reputation amidst the inadequacy of its actions to correct for its troublesome past. While other students choose to study under the scholarship in hopes of reforming it for the better, it can be just as strong of a message to boycott applying to the Scholarship. Boycotting would create a public discussion about Rhodes Scholarship funding and whether its mission to create a global community of scholars is being adequately fulfilled. It could also could force the trust to prioritize developing educational opportunities for Southern Africans, providing reparations to decrease inequities between Southern Africa and the developed world.

It can be hard to assess who is the true beneficiary in the relationship between the Rhodes Trust and its scholars. While the scholars are given a unique educational opportunity that is fully financed by the Rhodes Trust and an extensive alumni network of world-renowned figures in every field, the trust continues to establish its institutional legacy and its place in academic, social, and political circles through the work and influence of its recipients. While the Rhodes Trust touted that the program was going global in 2018, the majority of Rhodes Scholarships continue to go to students from universities in the Global North (60) while the Global South

Ishaan Shah '20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ishaanshah@wustl.edu

11

things just magically fell into place for the wellmeaning, independent, stable young adults I crossed paths with in my childhood. Both naive and tragically self-centered (give me a break, I was a child), I thought very little about the challenges that faced them as they settled into adulthood. And even if I did realize that I might face similar challenges when that time came for me, I figured things were so far off I didn’t have to worry about much of anything at the moment. I asked the inventory of surface level questions for my future self that would ultimately give me an image to aspire to. That ignorant bliss carried me through my teenage years, until suddenly I was 16. Then 17. Then 18. Now 19. And in just two months, I will enter the phase of my life that was once for me a much anticipated destination— my twenties.

I

Restless and anxious in bed at night, I’ve recently begun to do some reevaluating of the strides I’ve made in my life thus far. I’ve ultimately come away from those late night sessions in silent solitude with a few questions. Have I become who I resolved to be when I was a child? Have I manifested the many financial, personal, and social successes I imagined for myself as a young twentysomething? Am I the apple of my childhood’s eye? ’m curious—what does your Tinder bio say (if you have one, of course)?

Perhaps it’s a witty one-liner from your favorite episode of Parks and Recreation that shows you’re into situational workplace television, or a lyric from your favorite Migos song, which I suppose just says you’re well acquainted with Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist. Whatever it is, it gives the world of eligible Internet daters a taste of who you are at the given moment, at least as much as you would like a potential suitor to know about you before you’ve met. But more importantly, what you’ve written says a lot about what you prioritize through your interests, identity, and sense of humor - of all the many things you might have chosen to write, you landed on an uncomfortably sexual double entendre. How’s that been working out for you?

Sometimes it can feel a little ridiculous to sum yourself up in the confines of a 500-word character limit, barely scratching the surface of your essence. Much of what you choose to include comes from a mental image of yourself at a very superficial level, summed up for the consumption of the swiper. That idea at the time of writing your bio might seem spontaneously

constructed. But I would argue we are subconsciously reevaluating our superficial identities at all times of the day. Who are we now? What do we want to do when the weekend rolls around? What do we prefer to snack on between classes? What do the people we interact with on a daily basis think of us? These, of course, aren’t the specific considerations of a Tinder Bio Laureate, but they come from a similar place in our constructed sense of self.

As we all were, I was conducting this analysis through a more juvenile lens as a middle schooler with big dreams - not for who I was in that present time and place, nor for a Tinder bio - but instead for who I thought I would be as I entered true adulthood. My twenties. A time of limitless exploration and complete destruction of my inhibitions. I pondered enthusiastically all that would be when I wasn’t attached to the whim of an authority, say, my parents, guardians, and teachers. Who would I be? What would I like to do on weekends? What would I prefer to snack on between classes? What would the people I interact with on a daily basis think of me?

I imagined I would have my life all figured out: personally, financially, and socially. I thought

My resolutions for my future self back then were superficial and wildly inflated. I would be in a relationship worth all the writing room drama of a television series on the CW. I would be financially independent and well on my way to building wealth as a young pop music and film megastar. I was constructing my bio in the confines of a rigid frame of mind, the foundation of the idealistic worldview of my youth. It curried excitement then, but it’s made for a great deal of undue disappointment in the modern day. In the metrics of a younger me, I fail miserably. I don’t even make the cut-off.

My previous mention of Tinder takes greater relevance here. Young dating as a person with compounded minority identities in monolithic spaces has presented social and emotional challenges I never anticipated. Especially in the digital age, it has become easy to exist behind my phone, talking to people in whom I have no real interest, or going on dates that end in the idiosyncratic awkwardness of knowing we probably won’t see each other again. It’s not very much fun dealing with the fears of living and dying alone.

Melodramatic, much? Who can blame me? Our society values a particular kind of relationship as the basis of the family unit, a pillar of one’s personal success, and an ode to one’s ability to create meaningful emotional bonds. To struggle in an area of such immense importance in the societal imagination would give anyone immense amounts of stress. I’m sure many of you can now or have been at some point able to relate.

As I gain a greater sense of independence and earn my autonomy in a world that promised it to me by this time, I feel scammed out of assets I do not have. Life is quickly approaching in ways I never felt prepared to expect. It seems like there is so much pressure for me to have things figured out in a more permanent, effective, and utilitarian way. Former anticipation becomes real world expectation, and the equation is not at all balanced.

I deal with universal issues in the saga of modern society’s aspiring young adult. But

one that checks off all of the boxes in notions of success. As we enter our twenties and venture out into society at large, this becomes very real—sometimes too real.

Now faced with more realistic financial burdens, I am navigating the challenges of financing college as a low-income, guardianless individual in a system that was not built or intended for people like me at its inception. Recently, another actuality has kicked in concerning my extensive financial aid package—taxes. No one can adequately prepare the young idealist for the firm grip of the governmental hand reaching into your pockets and taking a cash tip for its services. Not only am I an underprivileged student, but I am now being taxed for that reality. Not the fate of a wealth-building young entertainment and media icon, if you ask me.

that still doesn’t keep me from catastrophizing and personalizing those issues to the point of creating my own isolated sense of failure. I look back and want to tell my younger self that I have met some of my greatest long term resolutions, but sometimes, it feels like I just haven’t. The expectations of success that get pushed out through the idealistic viewpoint of our media and institutions of greater cultural influence do little to appease young people’s greater anxieties as they enter the real, independent world. There are billions of ways to lead a life, accounting for each individual on the planet alive or long gone.

But we are all pushed to create the ideal bio, the

To combat those anxieties, I try to dig deeper, beyond the superficial levels of my identity, to find someone that lives autonomously and with the grain of his truest self. While the expectations here seem to be abounding, college is also helping me to become better equipped to think of myself in this deeper way, beyond the level of the 500-character limit. Tempering comparisons. Easing the emotional impact of my mistakes. Allowing my life to unfold as it naturally will, and not forcing it to tread the road of my idealistic younger self. As society’s issues begin to impact me more closely socially, politically, and economically, especially given these times of increased tension, the ability to have more trust in the process of my own life will take on greater meaning and increased importance.

Now, as you approach your life and begin paying closer attention to the bio that encapsulates it, don’t be so obsessed with developing the most consumable and idealistic idea of yourself.

Aspire, instead, to go with the flow of things.

Resolutions, especially the ones we’ve created as younger and more naive versions ourselves, are meant to be broken. Screw societal standards.

It’s more fun to mess up sometimes, anyway— makes things interesting ;-)

Nicholas Massenburg-Abraham ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at nick.m@wustl.edu.

WU Political Review

Resolutions That Stick Christian Fogerty, staff writer | Artwork by Michael Avery, staff artist

M

y resolutions come to me as they please. I don’t set my sights firmly on one when the New Year comes around.

Instead, they take a bit of time to crystallize out of thin air – kind of like brainstorming ideas for a WUPR piece. I’m here to advocate for letting resolutions come to you. I’m here to prove to you that buying a Planet Fitness membership on January 1 will not confirm the future existence of your own six-pack. Rather, I want to convince you that it’s best to let change happen and realize that it’s been happening right under your nose. So keep this article under your nose for the time being. Maybe something will happen.

It took me until January 3 to realize that it was 2019. The two prior days were spent looking at the ocean and thinking about nothing until something crept in. The Gulf Coast looked sublime for about 25 seconds during the sunset, but it was ultimately inseparable from the 30 Dunkin' Donuts shops in the surrounding square mile. The notion of escaping civilization to find solace in nature had been on my mind and Florida made it clear to me that this desire isn’t as clear-cut as it seems. On January 3 I came out of this trance with the fully-formed resolution that this escape would never be possible. I didn’t tell anybody or write it on my Facebook timeline.

It was perfect for a long, winding, vague post that nobody would read all the way through, but I decided to keep it close. And for these reasons, I know it will stick.

The coastal edges of Florida made my mind move a little slower, but mostly in a therapeutic way. I’ve been going there every New Year to escape a little bit, finding a few brief moments of solace. Each time I go, the natural underbelly of the landscape is the same, dotted by both serenity and anxiety. The palm trees sway peacefully until I realize they’re invasive species. Lily pads float in a pond under my resting gaze until I fear the potential presence of an alligator looming in the damp grass. I find myself wishing I could land on either side of an internal conflict and remain content with my decision. But each New Year slowly unearths something even more confusing about the world until I find myself straddling the line between bliss and fear even more

14

precariously. It isn’t until a resolution comes to me silently that I am at peace—not because I picked a side, but because I found another previously unknown option.

with time. They are usually the result of some long soul-searching that has finally converged on a solution. And it is for this reason that they stick.

If we lift up the artificial demarcations of days, weeks, months, and years, we can stare the process of resolution directly in the face as it truly is. Especially looking out on the ocean, all of these time markers and their corresponding labels fade into insignificance to reveal the more permanent things. Every year when I go back to Florida, I immediately notice the Wal-Mart, gas stations, and pizza buffets. But over time I recognize the permanence and beauty of the landscape underneath. Both these elements coalesce in my mind at the same time, but I’m careful to separate the two. They are similar to resolutions in that they can be split apart to recognize the permanence of one and the impermanence of the other. The latter is the rigid resolution: e.g. start working out, learn programming, or drink less caffeine. The second category lies deeper under these harder resolutions and it is for this reason that they are impossible to summon at will. Rather, these softer resolutions naturally work themselves into life and become known

I know in the back, or maybe even front, of your mind you’re confused with my mystical attempt at profundity and are likely to toss it aside as pointless abstraction. And I don’t want to say that New Year’s resolutions are completely pointless fodder. But I’ve found that the resolutions that stick aren’t the ones that could be mindlessly posted on my Facebook timeline, but rather they are the ones I make in private, when the time comes. They are unlikely to take the form of a bodybuilding physique or marketable technical skills. But the changes that come from them are more gratifying. So don’t get upset if you stopped hitting the gym after a few weeks; there could be something more valuable that sticks with you just around the corner.

Christian Fogerty ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at c.fogerty@wustl.edu.

Resolutions

TRIPLE-EDGED SWORD S TRIPLE-

EDGED S SWORD Akshay Thontakudi, staff writer Artwork by Leslie Liu, assistant design director

omewhere in the world, a new alarm is set at 5 a.m., beckoning its owner to use those precious hours to make good on their resolution of going to the gym. In a city, a cautiously optimistic face is seen at a food bank or local YMCA, unsure but confident in making a difference in the community. Yet if you check back in a week or three, you likely won't find either of these nameless people doing squats or helping package canned beans. One of the first and hardest lessons that we learn is that motivation is fleeting. Waking up early for the first day of a New Year’s resolution is easy. But success is a sustained effort that requires an extensive and consistent force to push through the excuses, fatigue, and Akshay Thontakudi fears.

One ofLeslie the ugliest Artwork by Liu truths comes from knowing that all greatness, no matter the scale, requires this resolve. It can come in many forms, but the underlying thread that connects them all is its bitter medicinal value.

2018 was painted with flashes of grit, determination, and purpose. Here are some of its hues.

RISK RISK

RISK

E

omewhere in the world, a new alarm is set at 5 a.m., beckoning its owner to use those precious hours to make good on their resolution of going to the gym. Somewhere in an urban city, a cautiously optimistic face is seen at a food bank or local YMCA, unsure but confident in making a difference in the community. Yet if you check back in a week or three, you likely won't find either of these nameless people doing squats or helping package canned beans. One of the first and hardest lessons that we learn is that motivation is fleeting. Waking up early for the first day of a New Year’s resolution is easy. But success is a sustained effort that requires an extensive and consistent force to push through the excuses, fatigue, and fears. One of the ugliest truths comes from knowing that all greatness, no matter the scale, requires this resolve. It can come in many forms, but the underlying thread that connects them all is its bitter medicinal value. 2018 was painted with flashes of grit, determination, and purpose. Here are some of its hues.

Every action youyou take hashas inherent risk.

Jamal Khashoggi risked upsetting an very action take inherent risk.

Jamal Khashoggi risked upsetting entire government with his views and publications, and ultimately put his an entire government with his views and publications and ultimately put life life on the lineline for his beliefs. his on the for his beliefs.

Throughout his his career, his views. views.

Throughout career, Khashoggi Khashoggi had had always always been been outspoken outspoken of in his He believed notnot be be neglected in Saudi Arabia, and He believed that thatwomen womenrights rightscould could neglected in Saudi Arabia, was was critical of the Warwar on Yemen.

In 2003, as editor-in-chief of Al and critical of Saudi's the Saudi's in Yemen.

In 2003, as editor-in-chief of Watan, hehe allowed with Al Watan, alloweda acolumnist columnisttotocriticize criticizeIbn IbnTaymiyyah, Taymiyyah, aa scholar scholar with authoritative influence influence over over the the development development of of the the Salafi Salafi Movement Movement and and authoritative Wahhabism, major major tenets tenets of of Islamic Islamic faith faith in in Saudi Saudi Arabia.

Arabia. The The resulting resulting backbackWahhabism, lash ousted ousted him him from from his his position, position, and and he he plunged plunged into into aa self-imposed self-imposed exile exile lash in London.

In his first brush with the regime, he risked his esteemed position. in London. In his first brush with the regime, he risked his esteemed position.

Returning again again in in 2007, 2007, perhaps perhaps to to make make amends amends or or reduce reduce tensions, tensions, he he Returning once again again took took up up the the mantle mantle of of Editor-in-Chief editor-in-chief at Three years years once at Al Al Watan.

Watan. Three later, poet poet Ibrahim Ibrahim al-Almaee al-Almaee published published aa fierce fierce criticism criticism of of the the pillars pillars of of later, Salafism in Watan, forcing forcing Khashoggi Khashoggi to to resign resign in in order order "to "to work work on on perperSalafism in Al Al Watan, sonal projects." projects". His His second second brush brush with with Saudi Saudi officials officials had had the the same same conseconsesonal quences, but but this this time time with with lingering lingering displeasure. displeasure. quences,

Evenposthumously, posthumously, Even Jamal Jamal Khashoggi riskedso Khashoggi risked himself himself his ideas would his ideasso would take hold take hold and blossom. and blossom.

Khashoggi, in in aa departure departure from from his his previous previous ventures, ventures, attempted attempted to to start start Khashoggi, aa satellite satellite news news network network in in Bahrain Bahrain with with the the goal goal of of provided provided aa balanced balanced view of of Gulf Gulf politics. politics. He He once once again again was was thwarted, thwarted, this this time time by by the the Bahraini Bahraini view government, after hosting an interview criticizing the monarchy and disgovernment, after hosting an interview criticizing the monarchy and discussing Shia Shia oppression. oppression. In In the the span span of of 11 11 hours hours Jamal Jamal Khashoggi Khashoggi had had cussing feuded with with yet yet another another government government and and paid paid the the price. price. feuded

Tensions between between Khashoggi Khashoggi and and the the Saudi Saudi government government seemed seemed to to brew brew Tensions over the the years, years, but but the the tipping tipping point point came came after after his his criticism criticism of of Donald Donald over Trump. Branded Branded as as aa Saudi Saudi dissident, dissident, the the government government banned banned him him from from Trump. television, and even after moving to the Washington Post in the U.S., he television, and even after moving to the Washington Post in the U.S., he was haunted by Saudi led cyberbullies. was haunted by Saudi led cyberbullies.

On October October 2, 2, 2018, 2018, Jamal Jamal Khashoggi Khashoggi entered entered the the Saudi Saudi Arabian Arabian consulconsulOn ate in in Istanbul Istanbul and and was was assassinated assassinated for for his his views views and and beliefs. beliefs. His His final final ate article, published published after after his his death death was was titled titled "What "What the the Arab Arab world world needs needs article, most is is free free expression," expression", aa hopeful hopeful plea plea for for press press freedom. freedom. Even Even posthuposthumost mously, Jamal Jamal Khashoggi Khashoggi risked risked himself himself for for the the possibility possibility that that his his ideas ideas mously, would take take hold hold and and blossom. blossom. would

3 15

For all that Dr. Ford sacrificed, she stated that she had no regrets about her decision.

W

hen Brett Kavanaugh was on the short list for the highest court of the land, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had a choice to make. Under the promise of confidentiality, she made contact with The Washington Post and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. A mere eleven days after President Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, Dr. Ford met with Eshoo and disclosed the alleged sexual assault that occurred when they were in high school. Convinced by Dr. Ford's credibility, Anna Eshoo escalated the matter to Senator Dianne Feinstein. In a letter to the senator, Ford unfolded the events that occurred on the night of the assault. Above all, Dr. Ford prized her anonymity and entered an agreement with Feinstein.

Throwing off the cloak of anonymity, she sacrificed a nameless identity to display the darker character of the Supreme Court nominee. In one swift motion, she turned her and her family's life upside down. Throughout the hearings and the FBI investigation that followed, Ford was under constant attack by the media, other congressional members, and even the president himself. Personal threats flooded her home and phone, requiring a constant security presence. Any semblance of stability was gone as she ended up moving four times to stave off danger. And her career and passion, teaching and conducting research in psychology, has been halted indefinitely amidst these challenges.

During the initial confirmation, Dianne Feinstein held true to her commitment to Ford's anonymity and did not raise any objections. News began to trickle, however, that the senator was withholding key information about Kavanaugh from other members of the Democratic Judicial committee.

The trickle moved into a full blown gush as the media tried to find the source of the anonymous allegations on Kavanaugh. The stakes were much higher this time, and once again Dr.Christine Blasey Ford had a choice to make.

Brett Kavanaugh is now a Supreme Court justice, despite showcasing a lack of levelheadedness during the hearings that would be expected of an impartial judge. And although Dr. Ford's bravery has opened the dialogue about sexual assault, the question still lingers. What was it all for, if nothing really changed?

4

T

here was a 15-year-old boy enrolled in JROTC who had hopes of joining the military after high school. His name was Peter Wang, and he was fatally shot while holding open a door so other classmates and staff could escape from the shooter. A week later, he was awarded the Medal of Heroism, and granted posthumous admission to West Point during his funeral.

There was a 35-year-old man who wanted to work with kids since he was seven, and became a geography teacher who doubled as a cross-country coach. His name was Scott Beigel, and he was killed after unlocking his door to let students into his classroom to avoid the shooting outside.

There was a 14-year-old girl who was the captain of her soccer team, and dreamed of making the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team. Her name was Alyssa Alhadeff and she was shot 10 times while trying to hide under a table from the danger outside. Three weeks later, the women's national team invited friends and family to honor her with national jerseys printed with her name.

There was a 37-year-old man who was a football coach, seen as a pillar of the community by kids and adults alike. His name was Aaron Feis, and he was killed while shielding students from the hail of bullets.

And there were many more like them.

injured. The misery didn't stop there, though. The mass shooting sparked a new wave of debate on gun control, and as it reached elevated heights, conspiracy theories began floating around the internet. Some claimed that the shooting did not occur at all, while others posited that the entire event was staged by "crisis actors." The roots for these theories began to stretch deeper, with outlandish claims that the students, like David Hogg, who was targeted by conservative media, were paid by George Soros or Antifa.

The toxic environment was a breeding ground for all manner of hate to be hurled at the victims and their families. Students and parents alike were sent death threats on Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms. The weight of losing loved ones, classmates, and friends combined with the outright denial of the events that unfolded seemed insurmountable.

Yet through all the agony they felt from the losses they endured and the attacks they received, the Parkland community continued fighting. Their vocal calls for stricter gun control laws and tighter manufacturing requirements sparked a movement across the nation and the world, demanding an end to senseless gun violence. The following month, the March for Our Lives demonstration took D.C. by storm with an outpouring of support and sibling marches planned both in the United States and in other countries worldwide.

They Marched for their Lives in one of the largest protests in U.S. history, and they're still marching.

On February 14, 2018, the deadliest school shooting since Columbine occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. 17 were killed, 17

They Marched for their Lives in one of the largest protests in U.S. history, and they're still marching.

The past year showed many ugly faces. But underneath this black veneer, there were people with admirable qualities who fought for what they believed in. Ones who steeled their will and sharpened their resolve, angling to make a difference. And most of all, there are glimmers of hope.

Turkey, journalists from the Washington Post, and other national entities are continuing the investigation into Jamal Khashoggi's death. With the spotlight now turned on Saudi Arabia's brutal methods, more countries are denouncing them and halting trade. For all that Dr. Ford sacrificed, she stated that she had no regrets about her decision. And there is hope that her bravery inspired others to come forward, talk about their own experiences, and lead the way for reform. Facing overwhelming pain, the students of Stoneman Douglas High School channeled their emotional turmoil into a nationwide movement advocating for gun control. Because of their actions, the push for change is still as strong as it was in March.

All three of these vignettes show people who fought, lost, and ached for their beliefs. But they all made a difference. They all had resolve.

Akshay Thontakudi ‘19 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

He can be reached at a.m.thontakudi@wustl.edu.

5

WU Political Review

Advertising’s Insidious Role in Social Media Influencing Ryan Martirano

T

he screen illuminates, and dopamine is released. We eagerly bring the device to our face and we begin to light up as well.

We swipe through dozens, even hundreds of digitized pieces of information. We scroll through the typical baby photos, the glamor-clad celebrities, and an ad or two. There goes another ad, a shot of someone’s untouched breakfast, a childhood friend. An ad again. You believe in what you’re seeing. You trust that it’s honest and transparent.

Sixteen of the United Kingdom’s most influential social media stars avoided possible jail time by pledging to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that they would be more transparent about endorsements. The celebrities, with millions upon millions of followers between them, include the likes of pop stars Ellie Goulding and Rita Ora, models Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Alexa Chung, and online personalities such as YouTuber Zoë Sugg, known as Zoella.

The CMA can be understood as the UK’s form of the United States Federal Trade Commission.

These consumer protection agencies seek to ensure that any advertisement that consumers are being subject to reflects the honest opinions of the sponsoring advertiser. Consumer protection laws require that advertising parties disclose that they’ve been paid or incentivized to promote a product. An endorsement on social media by a celebrity or influencer can help brands amplify online traffic and can lead to boosted sales and brand recognition. The formal commitments of these influencers have placed even greater importance on the necessity for transparency and disclosure, and has thrown online endorsements onto the mainstream media stage.

The ping of an alert, and we’re drawn back in.

We fall into the fantasy, into the unobtainable lives of those we consider relatable. We feel like we know them, like they could be some distant relative we don’t see anymore. A best friend who moved far away but whom we are still able to keep in touch with across the Internet. They

18

We need to hold those who influence our beliefs and culture accountable, and we need to be made aware of the incentives behind their endorsements. become part of our lives. We want to know what they have to say, and we honestly care for their input and advice. They are people we can lean on. We can escape with them into their shimmering vacations and listen to them describe the triumphs and shortcomings of their days.

A personal connection is formed through the perceived intimacy of screen-to-screen contact.

When a brand endorsement is not disclosed to an influencer’s following, there is a breach in ethics as it pertains to the recommendation of a product under false pretenses. The followers believe that the influencer is genuinely a fan of the product, that their opinions are not swayed by external sources and that they are being honest with them. Due to the relationship that these influencers have with their followings, ones that are based upon relatability and openness, their endorsements may not be seen as an advertisement. This is dangerous. Transparency in online influencing must be enforced because we need to be aware of how and why information is being disseminated to us. We need to be able to know how we are arriving at our opinions and if they are based on honest beliefs or paid endorsements.

The mystique of the internet is still seen in the ignorance that traditional media has towards online platforms and their widely celebrated social influencers. Just as there is mystery surrounding the truth of what is being posted and shared online, there is a more general ambiguity towards the presence of online celebrities in popular culture. When YouTuber and beauty ambassador James Charles’s visit to Birmingham left

the United Kingdom’s second largest city gridlocked, the mainstream media was left puzzled.

Confused and perplexed discussions occurred across British air waves, and media outlets were seen publicizing articles with headlines such as the Daily Mail’s “WhoTube? Virtually unknown US vlogger and his 8,000 screaming fans bring Birmingham city centre to a shock standstill with extra police drafted in amid crush fears as he opens cosmetics store.” James Charles is one of the largest influencers on YouTube with an audience of more than 14 million subscribers and channel views surpassing 1 billion. To refer to him as “virtually unknown” speaks to a widespread lack of diligence and regard for the severity of celebrity influence.

In taking legal action against top social media influencers in the UK, the CMA established the celebrity of online personalities as something that could insidiously cause manipulation in their followings. Today, it’s colorful eyeshadow palettes and trendy watches that are being pushed under the guise of superficial trust, but tomorrow it could be ideology and political belief. According to Business Insider, Indonesian political players are already paying influencers to spread propaganda for the country’s upcoming elections this year. We need to hold those who influence our beliefs and culture accountable, and we need to be made aware of the incentives behind their endorsements.

Ryan Martirano ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at rtmartirano@wustl.edu.

National

Is This the Best an Ad Can Get? Daniel A. Berkovich | Artwork by Avni Joshi, staff artist

M

en’s razor company Gillette sparked controversy recently after releasing a promotional video taking a progressive stance on the issue of toxic masculinity.

The advertisement illustrates the consequences of male aggression and sexual harassment, and calls on the men of today to ditch excuses like “boys will be boys” and instead shut down such reprehensible behavior in order to set a better example for the men of tomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, this message was not well received with older and more conservative demographics: conservative pundits like Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter rebuked the company’s choice, and nearly two-thirds of baby-boomers said they are less likely to purchase a Gillette product after viewing the ad. On the other hand, a majority of millennials and members of Gen-Z have said the ad increased the likelihood that they would buy from Gillette. Prominent liberal figures, like Martin Luther King’s daughter Bernice King and CNN commentator Keith Boykin, have also shown public support for Gillette’s message.

But despite the excitement from both sides of the political spectrum, this endeavor is not parent company Procter and Gamble’s first rodeo in ‘woke’ advertising. This multinational conglomerate is also behind the #LikeAGirl campaign for Always, where young girls are encouraged to be confident in their own abilities, and the “All Strong Hair Is Beautiful” campaign for Pantene, which sought to expand the representation of African Americans in hair product commercials.

Procter and Gamble is not the only corporation recently taking a stronger, more public stance on progressive issues, though. Two years ago, in the face of President Trump’s inauguration and anti-immigration rhetoric, a Super Bowl commercial from Budweiser featured the story of the company’s cofounder enduring prejudice upon immigrating to the United States. And in September of last year, Nike stood in solidarity with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s divisive decision to kneel in peaceful protest during pre-game national anthems, much to the pyromaniacal dissatisfaction of some of the company’s more conservative customers.

The woke advertising trend extends back much farther than these recent efforts, however. For decades, cigarette manufacturers would craft advertisements with progressive and feminist themes to attract new demographics. As early as 1933, an advertisement from the cigarette company Chesterfield reads, “Women began to smoke [when] they began to vote”; in 1968, a Liggett and Myers cigarette ad depicts a smoking woman ignoring a man with the line, “Never interrupt an L&M smoker.” In 1991, a Virginia Slims ad celebrates the increasing financial independence of women with the catchphrase, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” These efforts were extremely successful, as consumption of cigarettes by women began increasing in the 60s and 70s. However, success for cigarette companies quickly translated to suffering for the women being targeted by these ads: as tobacco consumption increased, women’s rates of lung cancer and emphysema began to rise as well.

Nevertheless, the sentiments in these cigarette companies’ advertising campaigns were indeed progressive: women should celebrate their right to vote; they shouldn’t submit to interrupting men; and they should be proud of their financial independence. But ‘progressive’ is not the same as ‘genuine.’ If these companies truly cared about women’s wellbeing, they would have told them to stay as far away from cigarettes as possible.

We shouldn’t be fooled again.

While a razor is not as directly dangerous as a cigarette, corporate monolith Procter and Gamble has participated in some nefarious and illiberal activities. The Guardian reports that, in 2011, the European Union fined the company over 200 million euros for price fixing, a practice in which corporations collude to maintain a specific price and thus deprive the consumer of the advantages of a competitive, free market. In 2016, Amnesty International discovered that Procter and Gamble profits off of palm oil industries with abusive practices including child labor, hazardous work conditions, and underpay of employees.

It is technically possible that Gillette is genuinely tackling the issue of toxic masculinity while also actively engaging in child labor, but it seems unlikely. What seems more likely is that this corporation, like the ones who marketed cigarettes to women, is trying to profit off of the popularity of progressive politics. And, of course, I’d prefer any world in which progressive ideas—even those with phony underlying intentions—enter traditional media. The message in the advertisement is a good one, and we are allowed to support it independent of the industry’s more unfortunate practices. But while we cherish a progressive shift in traditional media, we must also remember that this shift is more likely a surreptitious appropriation of social trends than a genuine passion for social justice.

Daniel A. Berkovich ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at dberkovich@wustl.edu.

19

WU Political Review

Year of Empowerment Caron Song, staff writer

E

very morning during my elementary school days, my dad would wake up extra early to pack my lunch. He knew I loved the classic Chinese dish of tomato and egg stirfry, so the whirr of the kitchen exhaust fans coming from downstairs was music to my ears. He was always gone for work by the time I made it to breakfast, but my lunchbox was always on the countertop waiting for me. It was a daily ritual, and I cherished it. While the other kids were hyping up their slices of cheesy pizza and mounds of greasy fries, I was perfectly content with bringing my thermos of Chinese food to the cafeteria. Or so I thought.

The memory of this particular day has been ingrained in my head because, quite frankly, it really changed how I perceived myself.

Lunchtime had finally arrived, so I found my friends in the cafeteria and joined them. The first time I had cracked open my thermos of food around them, they were genuinely curious about what I was eating. Soon they didn’t even bat an eyelid as I used chopsticks to scoop up rice. I felt right at home and never thought about how weird it was to be the only kid in a predominantly white school using chopsticks.

My food was especially mushy looking on that day, but no matter how amorphous it looked, the stir-fry was always delicious. It was delicious until some boy passed by, saw my lunch, and in the most obnoxiously loud voice said, “Ewww, what are you eating?”

I know that elementary schoolers don’t exactly have filters and he actually just thought my food looked disgusting, but at that very moment, I wanted to hide. I was ashamed because I, with my Chinese food and oriental utensils, was different. Everyone had their PB&Js, hamburgers, and Lunchables, and my thermos stuck out like a sore thumb. When I went home that day, I begged my parents to let me buy food from the cafeteria. “All the cool kids buy their food,” I desperately pleaded; I’d much rather have been cool than Asian.

In hindsight, I really managed to fool myself into thinking I had embraced my Asian-American

20

When I went home that day, I begged my parents to let me buy food from the cafeteria. “All the cool kids buy their food,” I desperately pleaded; I’d much rather have been cool than Asian. identity. Why? I embraced the most stereotypical aspects of what “being Asian” meant and fell into every Asian stereotype because that’s all I knew, and that’s what I believed my classmates expected of me. I belittled grades that weren’t an A. I exclusively focused on making math my best subject. I joined orchestra. I told everyone I wanted to become a doctor. Was this the level of “cool” that I was permitted to achieve with my yellow skin? Perhaps some people found me interesting and maybe even entertaining, but all I was doing was making a fool of myself. I’m not going to lie. It felt good that people automatically assumed I was smart, good at math, and played all sorts of instruments. But that feeling was shrouded by self-loathing. I was constantly playing the race card to boost myself into something that I wasn’t because I believed that was the only way society would accept me. That was the only way society could see past my yellow skin and “love” me for who I am.

Once I entered college, I started to understand what my Asian-American identity meant to me. No longer is it a tool for me to justify my actions and beliefs. Instead, I choose to cherish it because it has nurtured me through its vast ever-growing culture, taught me through its painful label as “token minority,” and most importantly, it has given me pride because of the multifaceted people I have met who proudly call themselves Asian-Americans. Undoubtedly, it still is a source of insecurity at times, but I don’t want to treat these problems the same way I treated my tomato and egg stir-fry back in elementary school by sacrificing what I love; after all, empowerment comes from taking a stand for yourself, not for society or anyone else.

Looking back at 2018, this past year has seen some of the most prolific moments in Asian American history. From immense Hollywood representation such as Crazy Rich Asians’ majority Asian-American cast and Domee Shi’s debut as Pixar’s first Asian-American short film director, to unparalleled feats accomplished in sports with Mirai Nagasu’s historical triple axel and Chloe Kim’s win as the youngest woman to earn gold in snowboarding during the Winter Olympics. Now, we begin 2019 with the most Asian-Americans= congress in history. But you don’t need the world to turn its eyes on you when you shine. Sometimes all you really need is some tomato and egg stir-fry tucked away in your backpack for lunch.

Caron Song ‘19 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. She can be reached at songcaron@wustl.edu.

National

Electability is Voters' Priority Issue in 2020 Garrett Cunningham, treasurer

T

he 2020 Democratic primary field is crowded. There’s a black female frontrunner, a gay mayor, a black senator, progressive white women, a Hispanic housing secretary, an Asian American businessman, and white men who range from centrist dad to socialist grandpa.

With 11 announced candidates and 12 still deciding, voters have their work cut out for them.

At this point in the race, polling data on individual candidates are difficult to interpret. However, a mid-December CNN poll asked Iowa Democrats about the most important quality in a 2020 presidential candidate. The majority of caucus-going Hawkeyes chose "can beat Trump” over options such as "shares [my] positions.”

More recent polls have arrived at similar conclusions. In a late-January ABC News/Washington Post poll, 43 percent of Democratic respondents said it was more important to them to choose a candidate that had the best chance of beating Trump than it was to choose a candidate that is closest to them on the issues. An early-February Monmouth University poll found that 56 percent of Democratic respondents would rather have a candidate with whom they do not agree on most issues but was stronger against Trump than the 33 percent who said the opposite.

So, while candidate-level polling is mostly suggestive, the priority of the Democratic primary electorate could not be more apparent: Democratic voters, first and foremost, want to oust Trump.

This finding is probably not too surprising.

According to FiveThirtyEight (as of February 1), Trump is one of the least-popular presidents ever as measured by two-year net approval rating, clocking in at -16 percent.

Since the task of removing the president has become Democratic voters’ foremost concern, the electorate will be focused on picking an

“electable” candidate that has the best chance of defeating Trump. However, what makes a candidate electable is far from clear.

For instance, one voter might tell you that the electable Democratic candidate is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who could energize progressives and perhaps the establishment base.

Another might say that the electable candidate is Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who outperformed her state’s partisan lean (her margin of victory in the 2018 midterms was over 24 points, while Clinton won by just 1.5 points in 2016) and could appeal to ideological moderates. Another voter might tell you that the electable Democratic candidate is Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Beto O’Rourke, or Joe Biden – simply put, white men.

Basically, voters are often not sure about what makes a candidate electable, as electability can often act as a proxy for individual biases. That is an issue because ambiguous concepts like "electability" can have adverse effects on the outcomes of elections.

First, it can distort the policy preferences of the electorate. If Democratic voters perceive moderate policy positions to be more electable, then progressive voters who compromise on their preferences might be left unsatisfied by the resulting government’s moderate policy. Political scientists refer to this phenomenon as strategic voting – when a voter supports another candidate more strongly than their sincere preference in order to prevent an undesirable outcome.

Strategic voting can also shut out individuals from underrepresented groups. For instance, voters who would otherwise vote for someone like Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA; likely the current frontrunner) might choose not to, fearing that a black woman would not perform as a well as a Joe Biden in the general election. The result of this scenario is a cycle in which female and minority candidates are continually underrepresented in politics because they are currently

underrepresented in politics, and thus their electability is called into question.

An electability-minded electorate would benefit from, yes, more (responsible) horserace coverage. Horserace coverage of elections is the focus on campaign tactics, polls, forecasts, demographics, and other data. Historically, the practice has been criticized for “ignoring the issues,” like healthcare, the environment, or the social safety net. Yet, if voters’ primary issue is electability – the horserace itself – there is a strong argument to be made for newsrooms to provide this information.

As we become an increasingly data-driven society, we are afforded a more empirical approach to covering politics and electability. Despite what statistically illiterate pundits may claim, polls are as accurate as they have ever been. This is true even of 2016, when the average polling error was 6.8 percent, compared to the historical 5.9 percent in all late-stage election polls since 1998, per FiveThirtyEight.

While we may never be able to accurately define “electability,” we can operationalize it using exit polling data and perpetual polling by organizations like Gallup, YouGov, and Pew. Questions like “Is Bernie Sanders struggling to appeal to the African American community?” or “Who are the Obama-Trump voters, and which candidate has the best chance of winning them back?” are potentially answerable, and newsrooms ought to report on these types of questions and answer them if the electorate is as concerned about electability as it says it is.

After all, do voters really want Joe Biden? Or do they just want Trump to go away?

Garrett Cunningham ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at cunningham.garrett@wustl.edu.

21

WU Political Review

Plastic Anchors and Double Helixes:

Jon Niewijk, staff editor Artwork by Catherine Ju, assistant design director

“I

t felt like someone was shocking my cervix with a taser.” That’s how Molly, a Cosmopolitan interviewee, described her intrauterine device (IUD) insertion. But Molly also said that she wants to “marry” and “make a shrine” to this cervix taser. Many other women feel the same way, probably because for them, the pain of an IUD is the best reproductive option they’ve ever had. Because that second X chromosome is a permanent sign, warning “get ready, this is going to hurt.”

burn her and Adam would suffer would give her nervous system a greater shock of agony and a greater wave of trauma for her brain to release more negative hormones, and that these physical and psychological symptoms would persist longer. Sometimes I look in the mirror and thank God I got Adam’s side of the bargain.

There is unavoidable inequality in how humans

that second X There’s a lot of hurt to get ready for. Some of that pain is so foundational that it is impossible to “be ready” for. A 2009 study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that women “experience greater clinical pain, suffer greater pain-related distress, and show heightened experimental sensitivity to pain compared with men.” When God told Eve that he would “greatly increase your pains in childbearing,” he left something out: that every blow or gash or

22

chromosome is a permanent sign

experience pain. But much is avoidable, like how women wait longer in emergency rooms and are less likely to be prescribed effective pain medications, even though they feel more pain. This failure to fully recognize female pain is especially egregious when it comes to sex. 30 percent of American women surveyed by the NIH reported pain during vaginal sex; that number is 7 percent for men. Read that again. For nearly one third of women, sex—an activity humanity religiously pursues and glorifies above all others—simply hurts. When a University of Michigan study asked men and women to provide imaginary scales of sexual satisfaction, the difference was stark. For most men, “bad sex” represented a lack of satisfaction (i.e. orgasm-less); for many women, “good sex” was sex that did not hurt.

warning get ready, this is going to hurt.

Both men and women accept or ignore this pain disparity. In ABC’s official 2004 “American Sex Survey,” none of the survey’s 67 questions made any reference to pain. It’s not just ABC; no one

National really talks about it. The same NIH study found that women almost never told their partners that they were hurting them. Women’s escape route of choice was to fake an orgasm; in other words, women feel the best way to stop sexual pain is to pretend they enjoy it. When they do speak up, it often does not help. Conditions that cause dyspareunia – severe female pain during sex – take an average of 9.2 years to be diagnosed. Compare that to the diagnosis process for erectile disfunction: one doctor’s visit and a verbal self-report.

The one type of female pain society does recognize is, of course, pregnancy and childbirth.

Many women choose this pain and don’t regret it; but for many it’s not a choice at all. The overwhelming cause of this unplanned pain is that men are seemingly incapable of not impregnating people. Condoms are 99 percent effective and even “pulling out” is 95 percent effective.

But for couples that cite these methods as their only form of birth control, 15 percent still end up getting pregnant. This is because men often do not wear their condoms or pull out when they should. The reason they usually cite is that these methods reduce the quality of sex. For them, upgrading the quality of their sex from good to great is worth the risk of getting women pregnant. And while women have agency in these situations just like men do, in-the-moment psychological pressures often make it unlikely that they’ll say no to risky sex.

In short, women’s pain does not get the recognition it needs. This lack of recognition means that there is a paucity of remedies for it. Those that exist are not perfect and, given the inequalities conferred by genetics, probably never will be. That does not mean that solutions to fixable problems are not worthwhile. But the best solutions recognize and work with the fact that unalterable issues exist.

during sex, and bleeding. 18 users died. By 1985, AH Robins had faced 400,000 lawsuits and paid $3 billion in settlements.

This bad publicity and the ensuing panic all but eliminated Americans’ demand for IUDs. By 1986, there was only one version left on the market. Even when safe and effective models became available in the late 1990s, there was not much interest; bad publicity usually trumps good science, and that’s a shame.

In the case of the IUD, it’s especially a shame because most women scared off by the Shield stories opted for the pill or condoms instead. For most women, the side effects of the pill were and are demonstrably worse than IUDs. Early versions of the pill had hormone levels that were ten times higher than they are now. Medical journals linked these hormone levels to higher rates of health risks like heart attacks and breast cancer among users. Although modern birth control pills do not have these effects, they still often cause headaches, mood swings, nausea, weight gain, and soreness.

However, the most significant downside of birth

control pills is that they’re pills, which women often struggle to take consistently. This inconsistency means that despite the pill’s 99.9 percent individual effectiveness (i.e. how likely someone is to get pregnant if they take the pill every day), the population effectiveness is only 91 percent.

In other words, in a group of 100 women on birth control, 9 will still get pregnant. Given that over 9 million women in the U.S. currently use the pill, that 9 percent fail rate results in a staggering number of unplanned pregnancies.

Modern IUDs are free of these issues. Since IUDs are always in place, there is no risk of forgetfulness. 99.9 percent of women that use IUDs never get pregnant. There are also benefits beyond effectiveness. Mirena, the most popular model of hormonal IUD in the U.S., actually reduces negative symptoms of the menstrual cycle.

Despite the painful insertion process, IUDs involve less female pain than any other reproductive option. More women should use them.

“More” would ideally include all IUD-compatible women that do not want to be mothers yet.

Given the cost ($800-1200 in the U.S.), rampant misinformation, and access issues surrounding

according to the CDC in 2011, the number of unintended pregnancies in the U.S. was

for comparison, the population of St. Louis City is

Back to the cervix taser.

The IUD emerged in the early 1970s as an aftershock of the birth control pill’s seismic introduction. As with early versions of the pill, the first IUDs had a lot of problems. The Dalkon Shield, whose manufacturer, AH Robins, had to take off the market in 1974, was especially flawed. Many Shield users experienced severe infection, pain

the population of New York City is

23

WU Political Review

IUDs, government intervention, or even compulsion, is the best way to achieve this increase.

look at the disparate

The suggestion that women be required to have things inserted into their bodies is not exactly what any feminist movement has fought for. For some women, their particular bodies respond better to birth control than IUDs. Some women experience lasting, excruciating pain from insertion, and lasting psychological damage as a result. Compelled IUD policy is already part of recent history in China. As part the regime’s population control policies, women were forced to have IUDs inserted that were deliberately tough and dangerous to remove. 30 percent of Chinese women still have those devices inside them. Any future government that involves itself in IUD promotion must be careful to make sure its female citizens never undergo what those Chinese women suffered.

erectile dysfunction

number of clinical trials for treatments related to...

dyspareunia:female

pain during sex

However, it possible to construct a system that protects women’s minds, bodies, and rights.

condition Start with some period, say between ages 17 and 18, when the default requirement would be for women to get their government-funded IUD insertion. This would happen after testing to make sure it is medically safe and not prohibitively painful for them to have an IUD. Additionally, women could apply to be exempt from insertion for religious or various other personal reasons; it would not be difficult to get an exemption. For example, intense fear about the insertion process would be a valid reason. The government would have to make sure no one is denied an exemption because of their race or ethnicity; after all, the U.S. and many other countries have a long history of targeting minority groups with unfair reproductive policies. After the insertion, a woman could go to a government center and get her IUD removed whenever she wanted; the removal process is safe and less painful than insertion. So, at any point in the process, women would have the option to retain their ability to get pregnant.

Such lax exemption laws would seem to make the original IUD mandate pointless, if women have a nearly unlimited ability to circumvent it. The answer lies in corporate pension plans.

Research in behavioral economics has shown that people are much more likely to do something when they have to exert a conscious effort

24

to say “no,” even when that effort is minimal. For example, employees opt into 401k savings plans at much higher rates when they have to check a “no” box as opposed to when they have to fill out the extra bit of paper work to say “yes” to opting in. The simple act of making a choice more intentional can produce significant outcomes.

That’s what pregnancy should be: an active choice, not an accident because of forgetfulness or an irresponsible male partner who will bear few of the consequences.

This system should appeal to people all over the political spectrum. Pro-lifers would see the abortion rate tank by over 90 percent; after all, there’s usually not much reason for someone to abort a baby they planned for. Religious conservatives would be comforted by the opt-out choice, which would protect their religious rights if they conflicted with IUD use. Economists would rejoice, since unplanned pregnancies create an enormous burden on safety net programs, as well as taking productive women out of the workforce before they’re ready. Those in favor of reducing inequality would see significant progress, because both parents and their children have higher economic mobility and

lower poverty rates when children are raised in a planned environment, which will often have two parents present. Even people worried about declining birth rates should be optimistic; the money an IUD program would save by reducing the burden on safety net program could be repurposed to provide lucrative financial incentives for households that have children.

All these are important benefits. All of them would be insufficient to tip the scales in favor of compulsory IUDs if those devices did not, above all else, improve women’s lives. Because that’s what this is about: women. How to make their lives better and fairer despite the immutable burdens conferred by their DNA. How to help them navigate a society that ignores, does not care about, and often worsens those burdens.

What is not someone’s fault may well be their problem. A moral and compassionate society should be help them solve that problem.

.

Jon Niewijk ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at jniewijk@wustl.edu.

National

Evaluating Candidates’ Housing Policy Proposals Michael Fogarty, editor-in-chief

H

ousing affordability is on many people’s minds as rents in cities like San Francisco, New York and Seattle have skyrocketed in recent years. Renters are paying increasingly high proportions of their incomes in rent as housing price growth has outstripped both inflation and wage growth. As a result, these cities are becoming too expensive for low-income workers.

The fundamental problem is that demand has consistently outstripped supply in the cities where the affordability problem is most acute.

San Francisco is a salient example. Since 2010, home prices have more than doubled, while the number of units of housing in the city has increased by only five percent. This has caused several interrelated problems: lower income people are forced to pay increasingly higher portions of their income, which makes it even harder to save or pay for medical expenses. Additionally, rapidly rising rents leads to displacement, forcing workers to live farther away and commute, which contributes extra greenhouse gas and particulate matter emissions.

Several of the candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination have put forth detailed policy proposals to address this issue. Last summer, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced the Rent Relief Act, which would give a tax credit to renters who spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent for the amount spent on rent above 30 percent. The credit would scale from 100 percent of the difference for renters making under $25,000 a year down to 25 percent for those making between $75,000 and $100,000 a year. For example, a family making $40,000 a year and spending 40 percent of their income on rent would get a tax credit for (0.4-0.3)*$40,000*0.75 = $3,000.

Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) introduced a similar bill, the Housing, Opportunity, Mobility and Equity (HOME) Act, which would give renters a tax credit for the full difference between their

Warren’s proposed zoning reform incentives don’t go far enough. rent and 30 percent of their income, capped at the area fair market rent (a measure of “fair” housing costs based on area economic and housing market conditions). Both these proposals are, broadly speaking, a rent subsidy. They are essentially a cash transfer to low income people who face a high rent burden.

While these policies would directly address the issue of housing affordability, they are misguided and do not reflect a nuanced understanding of the issue. While there are plenty of policy areas where more resources can do a lot of good, dumping more money into the housing market can have unintended consequences. The fundamental problem, which the rent subsidies don’t directly address, is that there just isn’t enough housing in cities like San Francisco or New York.

San Francisco shows that housing supply can remain almost constant even when there are drastic increases in housing prices. Despite the fact that home prices have doubled in the past decade, restrictive zoning laws and local “not in my backyard” politics make it difficult to get new housing projects approved in the city.

The problem is that in housing markets like San Francisco, a rent subsidy (whose practical impact is to increase demand for housing by increasing renter's purchasing power) will translate almost exclusively into price increases, while inducing very little new construction. This price inflation would erase most of the gains to low-income renters and make higher income renters worse off. The only beneficiaries of the

policy would be landlords, who would pocket the increased rents.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has proposed an alternative that takes a different approach.

Her American Housing and Economic Mobility Act calls for building new affordable housing units, as well as extending anti-discrimination protections under the Fair Housing Act. An independent analysis by Moody’s finds that the project would create over three million new units of housing and decrease rents by 10 percent.

Warren’s bill also addresses the problem of local land use restrictions that limit housing density and inhibit the construction of new housing. Her bill creates a competitive $10 billion grant program for which cities must reform their zoning laws to apply. This would go a long way towards reducing artificial constraints on housing supply that have contributed to the housing affordability crisis.

Warren’s bill reflects a correct analysis of the underlying problem and directly addresses the root causes of housing affordability. However, her proposed zoning reform incentives don’t go far enough. Instead of using grants as a carrot, the government should instead make federal housing funding contingent on zoning reform, much like how the federal government coordinated states around a drinking age of 21 by tying federal highway dollars to the policy.

Having many candidates produce specific, detailed policy early in the campaign cycle helps sharpen the debate on key issues in Democrats’ platforms. Engaging in thoughtful policy debate now puts them in a better place to implement their agenda when they get the opportunity.

Michael Fogarty ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at michael.fogarty@wustl.edu.

25

Have a story to tell?

WUPR always invites new writers and artists.

To get involved in our next issue, visit wupr.org/contribute.

International

Two Years of Shutdown in Northern Ireland Alexander Newman

T

he 35-day shutdown in Washington seemed to last an eternity, but it was a blink in comparison to the current government shutdown in Northern Ireland. On January 7 of this year, Northern Ireland celebrated the embarrassing two-year anniversary of its government shutdown, with no end in sight.

It is now the longest government shutdown in world history. Why has it gone on so long, and is there a way back on track?

Northern Ireland has experienced decades of violence and conflict between two factions: nationalists, who want to leave the United Kingdom and join Ireland, and loyalists, who want Northern Ireland to remain in the UK. These groups have been fighting each other for years, marked by numerous acts of terrorism. In 1998, to broker peace and give Northern Ireland greater autonomy, the UK Parliament created a devolved government in Northern Ireland. However, the objective was not just to grant autonomy, but to balance power between unionists and nationalists. To do this, Parliament created a very unusual system. Northern Ireland would be governed by the Northern Ireland Executive, headed by two individuals with equal power and status: the First Minister and the deputy First Minister. One is required to be a unionist, the other a nationalist. This arrangement allowed both sides to have a say in governance, and would hopefully force the parties and ministers to work together. After all, the rules say the country cannot run with just one First Minister.

However, this arrangement also had a great weakness. The Northern Ireland Executive was headed by two equally powerful politicians who were required to be bitter political foes. Disagreements could quickly result in a stalemate. To counteract this, the UK Parliament maintained the ability to establish direct rule over Northern Ireland. In times of political crisis, Westminster can suspend Northern Ireland’s government and assume control until a compromise is negotiated. Since intense disagreement and gridlock is common

On January 7 of this year, Northern Ireland celebrated the embarrassing two-year anniversary of its government shutdown, with no end in sight. in Northern Ireland, direct rule has been enacted several times.

Two years ago, these elements came together to create an unsolvable disagreement. The two largest parties in Northern Ireland are the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—a loyalist party, and Sinn Féin—a nationalist party. The loyalist-aligned parties have held the majority in Northern Ireland since the creation of Northern Ireland’s government. In late 2016, investigations discovered that a renewable energy policy in Northern Ireland had enabled fraudsters to take hundreds of millions of pounds from the government. The program, which had been going on for years, had been overseen by the DUP’s Arlene Foster, who became the First Minister. She refused Sinn Féin’s calls to resign.

In retaliation, Martin McGuinness, the deputy First Minister and leader of Sinn Féin, resigned.

Since Northern Ireland must be governed jointly by two First Ministers, the resignation automatically forced Foster from her position. When the DUP nominated Foster to retake her position as First Minister, Sinn Féin refused to nominate a successor to fill McGuinness’ vacancy. This prevented the formation of an executive and began the long government shutdown.

So, why hasn’t Parliament simply assumed direct rule? In June 2017, early in the shutdown, Theresa May called for a nationwide snap election, and she expected that this election might resolve the situation without the need for intervention. Instead, a shocking result occurred: May’s Conservative Party lost its majority and

now needed to rely on the support of the DUP to maintain control in Westminster. As a result, direct rule is politically unfeasible. The DUP is opposed to many policies that are law elsewhere in the UK, such as same-sex marriage and legalized abortion. Direct control would potentially implement these policies in Northern Ireland.

To maintain power in Parliament, Theresa May must forego direct control and allow Northern Ireland’s government to remain shut down.

Is there a way to end this gridlock and bring back the Northern Ireland Executive? It seems unlikely, at least for the coming while. Northern Ireland would be fundamentally affected by Brexit due to its border with Ireland. The currently open border could be subject to any number of impactful new trade and movement regulations, depending on the outcome of ongoing Brexit negotiations. Until the uncertainty of Brexit has been resolved, the opposing parties in Northern Ireland will struggle to negotiate.

Even once the fate of Brexit becomes known, a compromise may still be far off, since the political effects of any Brexit outcome will likely introduce new problems to negotiate. Even when this government shutdown is eventually resolved, as long as the nature of Northern Ireland’s politics and its unique form of government remain the same, there will almost certainly be another shutdown looming in the distance.

Alexander Newman ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at newmana@wustl.edu.

27

WU Political Review

Rivers, Free Cities, and Condominiums Zachary Sorensen

I

n some parts of the world, you can be in two countries simultaneously.

The section of the Moselle river that follows much of the border between Luxembourg and Germany isn’t owned by either country, nor is it divided along the middle—instead, it is shared by both sovereign nations. The border is more of a permeable membrane than a line of separation.

It is what is called an international condominium between two countries, a rare arrangement meaning that both countries ultimately share sovereignty and responsibility over the river. This relationship has persisted more or less since the Vienna Congress of 1815. The arrangement has allowed for a level of shared use and cooperation that a conventional border would not.

An international condominium is a measure to resolve disputes over territory in a peaceful way without the issues that partitioning would create.

While condominiums are typically implemented to resolve territorial disputes over water, where the main concern is transport, they have also been applied in disputes over populated areas.

Specifically, they have been used following major border movements to protect diverse communities that would otherwise be destroyed by harsh borders and divisions along lines of sovereignty and nationality. There is still a place for these agreements to ensure peaceful, equitable solutions to inter- and intranational conflicts that recognize the reality in areas of dispute.

A modern example is Brčko District within Bosnia and Herzegovina, which comprises a condominium between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (primarily populated by ethnic Bosniaks) and the Republika Srpska (primarily populated by ethnic Serbs). Both spaces represent constitutional entities within the broader country. Brčko was a major source of contention in the Bosnian War due to its strategic location connecting two halves of Serb-held territory (what would become the Republika Srpska) and

28

its large Serb minority. As a condominium, it was formed as part of UN arbitration four years after the end of the war. This process resulted in a multi-ethnic district under the sovereignty of two ethnically distinct entities over which an international supervisor presides. Thus far, it has been a successful resolution, but, as a 2014 article in The Guardian notes, the fate of Brčko

Shared ownership can be more desirable than perennial conflict, or simply more natural than sharp divisions.

District is uncertain. It is unclear if the district, having only been formed in 1999, it is unclear if it will survive the ethnic divisions that divide the rest of the county.

The idea of condominiums as a way to resolve conflict over contested territory remains somewhat on the fringe of political reality—it requires a level of cooperation from the interested parties that is difficult when entrenched ideas of nationality are in play. Free cities like Danzig (Gdansk) and Fiume (Rijeka), created following WWI ,lasted only nineteen and five years respectively before being annexed by one or several powers.

Nevertheless, condominiums have been proposed as solutions to several ongoing international conflicts. For example, some people, like John V. Whitbeck in the Journal of the Middle East Policy Council, have advocated for “joint undivided sovereignty” in Jerusalem for both Israel and Palestine. During a 1995 visit to

Harvard, Palestinian National Authority president Yasser Arafat voiced support for something similar, asking “Why not Jerusalem as the capital of two states, with no Berlin Wall?" The question would then become how to govern and administer such a relationship, though Whitbeck advocates for a “mixed court” solution were disputes between Israelis would be resolved by Israeli authorities, and disputes between Palestinians resolved by Palestinian authorities. Disputes between Israelis and Palestinians would be resolved by a combination of a Palestinian Judge, Israeli Judge, and an international “tie-breaker” if needed.

Of course, such a solution seems elegant from a detached perspective, but it is far messier for those Jerusalemites who would need to live with such a solution. This solution is also highly unlikely considering the region’s lopsided power dynamic, but it is still an interesting proposal in what seems like a quagmire of competing sovereign interests.

An international condominium relies on either it simply being a convenient relationship, as in the case of the Moselle river, or a high degree of international support and intervention as in the case of Brčko. Naturally, such international support would need unusual, exceedingly dangerous circumstances (like the Bosnian War) in order to be formed. Regardless, in a modern era where the idea of an absolute sovereign entity is virtually non-existent considering the influence of international bodies such as the UN and the European Union, it isn’t unreasonable to think that nations couldn’t adjust the concept of their sovereignty for the sake of a peaceful resolution.

Ultimately, shared ownership can be more desirable than perennial conflict, or simply more natural than the sharp divisions we see in our world.

Zachary Sorensen ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at zacharysorensen@wustl.edu.

International

urrently, there are only two countries where Google is not the dominant search engine: Russia (Yandex) and China (Baidu). Baidu’s success in China is due to the country’s limits on freedom of speech, which led to Google’s withdrawal from the country in 2010.

However, in every other country in the world (even in North Korea, according to the website Statcounter), Google holds an average of 93 percent of the search engine market share. The logical question, therefore, is how the Russian provider Yandex has managed not only to compete, but overcome, Google in Russia.

Let’s quickly dive into the two search engines' histories: both were created by college students in their dorms and released onto the web in 1996.

Google’s creators named their online indexer after “googol,” meaning infinite, while Yandex’s name origin is uncertain. It either came from the

amalgamation of the word “Index” and the pronoun “I” in Russian being the letter “Ya” to create Ya-ndex; or a shortened form of the expression “Yet Another Indexer.” Google’s original slogan was “Do no evil,” and Yandex’s was “Everything is found (here).” In July 2017, Yandex added to their original slogan “Number 1 search engine in Russia” when they surpassed Google in the national search engine market share.

However, Yandex does not hold a huge competitive edge over Google: as of December 2018, only 54 percent of Russians preferred Yandex while 43 perccent were loyal to Google. On Android phones, however, Google is currently ahead 66 percent to 33 percent. In Russia, two out of every three mobile phones users have Android phones.

The high percentage of Google Android users is mostly due to Google’s control of the Android operating system and their previous ability to

pre-install their own company’s applications onto Android phones. So, what is the driving force behind the third of Android users who disregard their conveniently installed search engine and loyally download Yandex in its place? On a larger scale, what draws more than half of search engine users to use a local provider over the most popular one in the world?

To begin with, in terms of the search engines, Yandex’s priority match provides more relevant information, given their narrower audience and available search results. Google is forced to provide a wider scope of results to cater to its international audience. Both Google and Yandex have this priority match system, using algorithms that base results on proven relevancy by previous users, content of the website, location, and more. Given the difference in diversity of users, the percentage of total webpages relevant to Russian users

29

WU Political Review

is significantly fewer than to Google’s international audience. For example, while information about American football is available on Yandex, it generally is not what Russians are looking for when they search “Cowboys.” Ergo, why every result on the first page of Google for “Cowboys” is about the Dallas Cowboys, while less than half of the first page of results on Yandex are about the American football team.

Another limiting factor is Russian being the primary language of Yandex’s results: only 2.6 percent of the internet’s content is in Russian while 25.4 percent is in English, according to the website Statista. While Google has to comb through countless languages and international relevancies, Yandex focuses on its 2.6 percent of the internet and then implements its priority match to make its results even more relevant. Moreover, in addition to the actual results shown, looking for specific information is faster on Yandex, given a user’s ability to skim the first six lines of a website and/or read a summary of the webpage without

30

opening the link, while Google only provides two lines on the results page. While results pop up infinitesimally faster on Google, not needing to open up the links to get the desired information makes Yandex’s search engine a more efficient use of time.

Beyond their search engines, both Google and Yandex now provide a wide variety of specialized products ranging from translators to physical technology. There is a surprising amount of product overlap between the two tech giants: over thirty of their services serve the same purpose.

However, Yandex generally focuses on facilitating access to information already in existence (e.g. to jobs, movies, food, traffic, people, realty, live television, coupons, textbooks) as well as copying other successful enterprises (such as Yahoo Answers, Pinterest, Google Translate, and social networking). In contrast, Google’s products are focused on innovation: designing collaborative connective platforms (Docs, Sheets, Chat, Classroom) and better physical devices and

platforms (such as virtual reality glasses, tablets, telephones, phone coverage, and Wi-Fi).

This could be due to the intention of the two providers: while Google constantly invests capital and time into breakthrough technologies, Yandex simply strives to be the best provider of resources in Russia. And it has succeeded in countless sectors: local maps and transportation resources are dominated by Yandex; its online store has made Amazon unknown in Russia; and Yandex.Taxi’s merge with Uber in June 2018 has made the latter functionally irrelevant.

Now, do Russian internet users truly believe Yandex is the better of the two? I conducted an online survey to directly determine resource preferences of local college students. Out of 30 respondents, 75 percent preferred Yandex, and only three used resources from both. The survey also substantiated the connection between Google and Androids, but the most startling finding was the reasons provided for their preferences.

International

I found that their reasons for using Yandex or Google fell into four general categories: design, convenience, access to information, and cultural relativity. While only three survey respondents specifically cited Yandex’s specific relevance to Russia, the grand majority used the word “удобный,” meaning “convenient, suitable” as the main reason for their preference. 22-year-old Oleg justified his Yandex preference in saying that “Yandex is more directed towards Russians and gives more detailed, precise information in our country.” This is unsurprising given the scope of the priority match systems, but it also plays into the theme of national pride surrounding the success of a Russian-originating company.

Yandex isn’t only relevant, but also important to Russians. This search engine created for their nation’s needs ties national pride and loyalty into its mission. This led one of the survey respondents to reply succinctly, “[I choose] Yandex, no need to think about it.”

Russia has had an uneasy relationship with the

West for centuries – and Google is a clear symbol of the West expanding into the global conscience.

Yandex as a Russian creation catering to a national audience has a convenient market isolation common to Russian companies. The significance of this isolation has become clearer in the Russian President Putin’s increasing encouragement of Yandex in Russia. He celebrated the company’s twentieth anniversary with Yandex’s CEO in September 2017 and has helped the company win an anti-trust war against Google, forbidding Google from pre-installing its apps on Android phones. Given that “convenience” was listed as the top reason for search engine preference, inconveniencing Google users in this minor way appreciably helps Yandex keep its majority market share.

The influence of the Russian government on this information provider remains uncertain, but Yandex maintains that its search results are determined by algorithms without any manipulation. Unfortunately, this is blatantly untrue. As a result of government pressure and legislation in

2014, Yandex shows only government-approved news sites on the first page of results. In 2017, the Russian government amped up its censorship with legislation enforcing bans of sites on the national blacklist. While Yandex complied, Google did not, resulting in a $10,000 fine. In the same way that Google pulling out of China significantly reduced Chinese internet access, Yandex’s compliance with these two censoring measures allowed it to stay in the good favor of the Russian government to similarly detrimental consequences. If Yandex continues to dominate the search engine market in Russia, Russians could experience widespread information suppression in the near future.

Daria Locher ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at daria.locher@wustl.edu.

31

WU Political Review

Venezuela: It's Complicated Rohan Palacios, staff writer | Artwork by Alex Ngo

W

hen Juan Guaidó, the previously unknown leader of Venezuela’s legislature, invoked a constitutional clause to declare himself president, he set off an international firestorm. Almost immediately, American Vice President Mike Pence called sitting president Nicolás Maduro “a dictator with no legitimate claim to power” and affirmed American support for Guaidó. The last months have seen tens of thousands of Venezuelans rally throughout the country, pitting Guaidó’s supporters against Maduro loyalists. All this is occurring against the backdrop of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the region’s history. Over three million people have fled the country to escape violence and to access affordable food and vital medicine. My family’s ties to Venezuela have always made the situation especially poignant. Growing up, I imagined a conflict with clear ‘good’ and ‘bad’ actors.

Over the years, learning more about Venezuelan history and society has forced me to confront a far more nuanced reality, one that is virtually unrepresented in American political discourse.

Understanding what is happening in Venezuela requires understanding the career of Chavez, Maduro’s late predecessor whose “Chavismo” movement has dominated Venezuelan politics since the late 1990s. Chavez first captured the public imagination in 1992 when he led fellow military officers in an unsuccessful coup. After being pardoned and released from jail, Chavez returned to the political arena and in 1998 won the presidency in a landslide declared a “Bolivarian Revolution.” His unapologetic populism, which would crystallize into socialism, and explicit commitment to integrating marginalized communities into the democratic process energized Venezuelans, who were exhausted with the corrupt, pro-business political establishment. Even many members of my grandfather’s relatively well-off family voted for Chavez, hoping that his movement would usher in an era of dynamic and just governance.

With Chavez in office, the government rerouted state resources into expansive welfare programs.

Investments in public health and education pulled millions out of poverty. According to the World Bank, the percentage of people living in

32

poverty fell from 56 percent in 1997 to 31 percent by 2001. The number of practicing physicians rose from under 2,000 to over 20,000. Millions of poor Venezuelans invested time in government-funded literacy programs. In addition to his anti-poverty measures, Chavez renewed belief in government. In 2006, the Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro found that Venezuelans expressed more satisfaction with their democracy than any other Latin American country except for Uruguay. That same poll found that 56 percent of Venezuelans believed their local elections to be “clean” versus a regional average of 41 percent. Restoring faith in government is an underappreciated legacy of the Chavista government. Carlos Andrés Perez, the president Chavez tried to oust in 1992, was removed from office and arrested in a massive embezzlement scandal. Andrés Perez had already been unpopular for enacting cuts to public spending and using the military to violently suppress protests in Caracas, killing between 276 (the official figure) and 3,000 protestors. Fundamentally changing how Venezuelans engaged with government was a high point of Chavez’s revolution.

Following reelection in 2001, Chavez took advantage of his popularity to radicalize the government’s agenda. A presidential decree broke up large commercial farms and turned them over to peasant cooperatives. The government expropriated the assets of various foreign oil companies, which were soon put under the control of political appointees. Steel, telecommunications, and utilities were all nationalized through similar processes. State operators proved inept and

corrupt. Venezuela soon began to suffer from shortages of water, food, and power.

As dissent grew, Chavez took measures to consolidate his power. In 2002 and 2003, oil industry workers went on strike to protest Chavista mismanagement and were met with mass firings.

As production collapsed in multiple sectors of the economy, spiking oil prices and predatory loans from China allowed the government to hide from reality by pumping money into subsidized imports to make up for domestic shortages. When oil prices fell after Chavez’s death, Venezuela’s GDP plummeted and hyperinflation ran rampant, leaving the country in debt without an escape route.

The most disappointing aspect of the Bolivarian Revolution might be its failure to stamp out the systemic corruption of the political class that Chavismo sought to replace. The state-owned oil company (PDSVA) simply stopped publishing financial statements. Other state-run industries were managed in similarly opaque ways by unaccountable government-appointed executives.

Starting in the mid-2000s, billions of dollars disappeared from state coffers. A Cato Institute study found corrupt practices “exploding” in every level of government. Mismanagement of the PDSVA was such that the company sometimes produced nearly 50% below capacity.

Mass firings and the promotion of Chavez allies to key positions drained the company of capable employees while a lack of oversight empowered executives to loot the company.

Journalist Juan Carlos Zapata coined the term “boliburgesía” to describe this rising class of oligarchs allied with the Chavez regime. The Chavez and Maduro families, for example, are believed to have amassed considerable wealth in the form of land, cars, and even gold. Former executives of state-run companies led lavish lifestyles, including multi-million dollar homes in Florida at the expense of Venezuelans. While these new elites got rich from corrupt business practices, an incomprehensible currency-exchange system gave cover for other government and military officials to make small fortunes on the currency black market.

International

regimes around the world. Given Venezuela’s lucrative development potential, it is hard to imagine that American oil firms are not involved in the administration’s decision-making process.

Like the politicians using the socialist angle for political gain, these corporations have a vested interest in shaping public opinion on Venezuela.

In the United States, pundits and politicians have been fighting ideological wars over Venezuela for years. These debates resemble the vitriolic rhetoric surrounding the Cuban revolution. In 2005, Televangelist Pat Robertson even called for Chavez’s assassination on his TV show. That comment was an extreme case. More often, right-wing American politicians and journalists use Venezuela as a cudgel to kill enthusiasm for progressive policies. In addition to the constant White House messaging, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis claimed that his progressive opponent, Andrew Gillum, wanted “to turn Florida into Venezuela.” The Republican National Committee sent out a fundraising email last summer describing then congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “mini-Maduro.” It is not just politicians looking to score electoral points.

Recent essays from columnists like the National Review’s Victor Hansen or the New York Times’ Brett Stephens exemplify how American conservatives conflate their political opponents with the failed revolutionaries in Venezuela.

Yet claiming that investing in public healthcare and education or raising the minimum wage have brought Venezuela to its knees ignores the corruption and mismanagement that have characterized the last eighteen years. Ironically, these criticisms of Chavez and Maduro actually let them off easy. Instead of holding the leaders to account, conservative critics imply that they were just misguided passengers, swept away in the inevitable failures of socialist and progressive policies. The attacks seem to be a strategic choice to obscure policy debates in the United States where progressives have nothing to do with the situation in Venezuela today.

To be clear, the White House’s interest in Venezuela does not stem from an affinity for democracy or the Venezuelan people. The United States provides military aid to dozens of illiberal

Initially, the Bolivarian revolution represented a David-and-Goliath struggle between the exploited masses of the Global South versus the imperialist interests of the Global North. When Chavez moved toward authoritarianism, many of his international supporters began to distance themselves, yet fears of a return to imperialism still informs the position of the American left.

American sanctions—particularly those targeting PDSVA—have compounded the problems of the Venezuelan people. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has continued to impose new sanctions on the PDVSA which will almost certainly wreak further havoc by constricting the government’s ability to subsidize food and fuel. Most public statements from politicians on the American left have treaded a cautious line between condemning Maduro’s repressive rule and avoiding endorsements of American intervention. Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Tulsi Gabbard, and Congressman Ro Khanna have condemned Maduro’s repressive tactics while warning against supporting American involvement in regime change. Their concerns are warranted, given the US’s history of bloody, non-democratic interventions in Latin America.

As recently as 2002, an unsuccessful coup backed by the Bush administration strengthened Chavez’s hand and radicalized his rhetoric. Still, it is possible to oppose intervention without legitimizing a corrupt regime that has dropped most pretenses of democracy.

I remember being at a metro station returning from school when I heard Chavez had died. I celebrated it without thinking twice. To me, Chavez was the reason my grandfather would not return to Venezuela. I blamed him for my extended family’s dispersal from Venezuela to Spain, Mexico, Panama, and the United States. I saw Chavez as the cause of the catastrophe. After learning more of Venezuela’s history, I understand that

acknowledging many Venezuelans experienced Chavismo in very different ways is critical. His lasting popularity shows that he was speaking to real, entrenched injustices. In American politics, those who speak loudest on Venezuela, like Governor DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio, and Trump advisor Mauricio Claver-Carone, represent the conservative-skewed diasporas of Venezuela and Cuba which, for the most part, detest Chavez and his legacy. Although Maduro has none of Chavez’s charisma or revolutionary reputation, he still heads a vast patronage network in Venezuela. His position entails loyalty from a significant portion of the population, including crucial members of the military.

While international recognition may have burnished Guaidó’s legitimacy in the diaspora, further intervention might serve to undermine his legitimacy with millions who remain skeptical of American interference. A transition of power should not be shaped by rigid ideologies or business interests. Instead, it should be driven by the principles of de-escalation and self-determination for Venezuelans. When watching events unfold in Venezuela, keep in mind the agendas that are trying to pitch particular perspectives and policy prescriptions.

Rohan Palacios '21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at rpalacios@wustl.edu.

33

WU Political Review

Memories from Micronesia: Diving Chuuk's Ghost Fleet Ryan Mendelson, staff editor | Artwork by Ryan Mendelson

I

magine, if you will, traveling over twenty-four hours on three different planes, observing through your jetlag one sunset while somehow landing nearly two days later.

Your final destination is a small airport, barely four rooms large. Dazed and discombobulated, you haul your bags from the baggage bin to the airport’s driveway, where two men are waiting with a van to pick you up. In between brief exchanges, you hear them speaking a language wholly unfamiliar. You drive 30 minutes, barely cresting 18 miles per hour across a pimpled, jagged stretch of not-quite-road, jolting violently with each flooded pothole. You finally arrive, shaken, at a small resort, though not for long. You traverse the deserted hotel grounds, blindly following the van driver with your suitcases under the black night sky.

When the clock strikes 10pm local time, well after sunset in these parts, you hop onto a small metal boat with two outboard motors and another crew of two men. As the boat inches slowly away from the dock, one of the crewmembers carefully illuminates the water out in front with a small handheld spotlight, panning back and forth to ensure safe passage. As you settle down and prepare yourself for another sluggish, dimly lit crawl, the spotlight is turned off, and the captain goes full-throttle into the black abyss, flying across the water towards a tiny gleam of white light far in the distance. The gleam, as it turns out, is a former whaling ship. And it will be your home for the next week.

Such were the circumstances I found myself in last August. I had arrived in Chuuk, also known as Truk Lagoon, one of the four states comprising the present-day Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The language spoken by the local crewmembers in the van and boat was Chuukese.

The former whaling ship I was on was the SS Thorfinn, which had been specially reconfigured as a diving liveaboard, founded and run by Lance Higgs, a Canadian expat who relocated to Micronesia over thirty years ago. This ship would be my home base for the week I spent there.

34

When I awoke the morning after I arrived, I gazed upon the lagoon from the top deck of the ship, gawking at my surroundings. Looking out from the upper deck, the only visible sights were the smooth surface of the sea and a few lush, green mountains jetting out of the blue below and shooting up towards the sky like a hand to God. Aside from the howl of the wind, there was an overwhelming sense of calm. This was not always the case. For a brief moment in 1944, Truk Lagoon was likely the most violent place on the globe.

Chuuk was formerly the largest and most significant Japanese naval base in WWII’s Pacific Theatre. It was considered by the American military for years to be impenetrable, known as the Gibraltar of the Pacfic and likened to Pearl Harbor in size and scope. It was in 1944 that the American island hopping campaign finally reached the lagoon. In the early hours of February 17, the US commenced Operation Hailstone, an aerial offensive on the Japanese Imperial Navy’s Combined Fleet at Chuuk. Bullets and bombs set it alight as hundreds of planes and dozens of ships from the American side sought to bring down the Japanese fortress. As February 18 came around, the base had been crippled. The Japanese had lost over 40 ships, over 250 aircraft, and over 4,500 men.

Today, there is no obvious indication from the surface that Chuuk was the center of a key WWII offensive, yielding thousands of casualties in less than two days. At sea level, there is almost no discernible visual suggestion that a battle ever occurred. The buoys marking the shipwrecks are located, rather oddly, fifteen feet or so below the surface, invisible except to the experienced eye of a local guide. The only clue of the war’s legacy is the squared-off outline of Etten Island airfield, now completely overgrown with foliage. Small homes and local residents have since replaced the planes and Japanese soldiers. It is not until you plunge below the surface of the lagoon that you’re faced with the sobering remnants of wartime destruction.

The term "Ghost Fleet" becomes scarily apparent underwater. The ships remain in largely the same condition as they did when they went down in ’44, rife with artifacts. In some wrecks you can find fuel barrels, artillery shells, and unexploded ordinance; in others, you gaze upon disconnected cables and hoses in engine rooms and the corroding gauges and levers once used to operate them. You can swim through mazes of mangled ladders used by the crewmen to run their vessels. Dining ware and sake bottles lie just yards away from plane parts, truck frames, and even tanks.

The remnants on the seafloor reflect a military operation of elaborate scope. The San Francisco Maru, a passenger-cargo ship built in 1919, was laid to rest at even keel with three light tanks still on deck and trucks in one of its cargo holds. The Hoyo Maru, a 475-foot tanker, capsized when a bomb exploded on impact, leaving its hull and propellers pointed skywards. In the engine room of the 510-foot Heian Maru, Chuuk’s largest wreck, the skull of a deceased crewmember greets divers as they swim along.

The Ghost Fleet is a symbol of death and destruction. And yet, in the decades after the attack, the wrecks have since become artificial reefs, supporting a healthy and vibrant marine population. Coral has encrusted the colossal metal gravesites, providing a lush habitat for a host of sea life.

It is difficult to describe the feeling of this place.

During my week there, I observed something strangely poetic yet profoundly unsettling about the remnants of so much destruction juxtaposed with the idyllic beauty of the vast Pacific.

As I carefully folded myself through the narrow spaces where crewmembers went down with their ships, I was simultaneously surrounded by the wartime destruction yet so far removed from it. After just one week, I had dived on over fifteen ships and barely scratched the surface of what remains in the lagoon. The unique opportunity left me with a crystallized set of memories of

International

One of three light tanks aboard the deck of the San Francisco Maru. Depth: 165 feet.

The Thorfinn.

Empty sake bottles in cargo hold.

Tire and miscellaneous supplies in cargo hold.

the ghost fleet and postulations about what the attack must have been like.

The case of Chuuk is a testament to how wartime events are selectively remembered or forgotten. As Americans, we recall only the most decisive movements in wartime. We remember Pearl Harbor as an act of tragic aggression that pulled the United States into WWII. We learn of D-Day, when the Americans supported the allied invasion on the shores of Normandy, turning the tables in the war against the Axis powers. We are reminded of the bloodshed on Iwo Jima, with Joe Rosenthal’s famous photo of Marines raising the American flag. But battles and offensives like Hailstone are often swept away.

With the passing of time, the fate of Chuuk and its people is uncertain. As metal erodes and superstructures collapse, it will only be so long before engine rooms and cargo holds will be inaccessible to divers. It may soon be too dangerous to enter the wrecks, and the already

limited number of tourists will dwindle. Because of Chuuk’s extremely remote location, it is unlikely that a beach or ecotourism industry will ever emerge. In addition, the FSM has extremely limited resources and relies heavily on the United States for economic aid. Climate change will pose a threat to those that live on low-lying land. As the remnants of the attack decay, awareness of Chuuk will fall, and memories of the destruction will fade. Chuuk will be a place where few but the World War II scholar, the avid diver, and the occasional curious mind will ever learn about. Few will wonder what it must have been like on those shores during Hailstone and how it affected the Chuukese people. It remains a sad truth that behind all wars lie battles that go unremembered, and lives and lands affected by these battles risk being left behind. Although the legacies of Hailstone and other similar engagements fail to claim a significant place in the textbooks, they deserve our consideration and memory just the same.

Skull in engine room of the Heian Maru.

Ryan Mendelson ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ryanmendelson@wustl.edu.

35

Looking to get published?

To get involved, visit wupr.org/contribute.