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Political Review

Jane Drinkwater

Junior
Political Science

Minor in UX Design.
Won’t judge your politics, might judge your music. Joni Mitchell die-hard.

More from this author
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Letter to the Editor

By Jane Drinkwater
December 06, 2024 04:43 PM
Hi! How’s the future? I’m writing this letter at the end of October, but by the time it reaches you, it will be at least November 6th. You have lived through plenty of things I have yet to experience, including Halloween, the BYU vs. UCF game, and the United States presidential election. This, of course, gives you the upper hand. Please try not to rub it in.
1 Min Read
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April 2024

On the Left Track: Are Progressives Finally Moving the Needle?

By Jane Drinkwater
August 28, 2024 03:12 PM
Since I started paying attention to American politics in high school, one trend has dominated the news cycle, the conversation, and the day-to-day realities of government: the Republican Party keeps moving to the right [1]. Since the Tea Party’s emergence in 2009, research has repeatedly shown the Republican Party rapidly growing more conservative [2]. Once this ideologically extreme wing of the Republican party realized their power to move the needle, they swung the whole pendulum to the right.
4 Min Read
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March 2024

America Has a .gov Problem

By Jane Drinkwater
March 07, 2024 02:48 PM
On a freezing December day in 2020, I realized the government had a technology problem. My mission companion and I had dropped by a friend’s house for a visit, but noticed sounds coming from a car in the driveway. Sure enough, our friend and her 15-year-old daughter were sitting inside, surrounded by piles of blankets and enough food for several days. As it did for many people, COVID-19 brought dramatic upheaval to her life, and she ended up unable to pay her bills. Technically, anticipating several weeks of bitter cold, the state of Indiana had passed a bill that would allow people like her to have emergency energy assistance. The assistance required her to fill out an online form–an interesting choice, considering that the program was aimed at rural people unable to pay bills, the very folks least likely to have reliable internet. When she went to the library to fill out the form, she found that she couldn’t submit the form due to problems with the sign-in process. The help for which she should have qualified was inaccessible.
3 Min Read
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December 2023

On Religion and Representation

By Jane Drinkwater
February 12, 2024 01:31 PM
One of these things is not like the others: 100% of Utah’s federal representatives are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 90% of Utah’s state officials are Church members, and 60% of Utah citizens are Church members [1].
3 Min Read
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November 2023

Restructuring the Gun Control Conversation

By Jane Drinkwater
February 12, 2024 09:02 AM
In the US, the gun control conversation feels set in stone. We’ve fallen into a pattern: inevitably, a high-profile gun death leads to an outcry from the pro-gun-control crowd, to which anti-gun-control advocates respond with an amendment that’s existed since 1791. Partisan gridlock and interest group funding has made it hard to pass national legislation on guns, but our conversations share part of the blame. For as long as I can remember, arguments regarding gun control have relied on the same statistics, laws, talking points, and stories. These stale discussions seem unable to make a dent in the American gun violence epidemic–so what should we be talking about? For more productive discussions (and hopefully, solutions) I propose we make the following three changes to our conversations about guns in America.
5 Min Read
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October 2023

Red, White, and Blonde: How Taylor Swift and Dolly Parton Bridge the Political Divide

By Jane Drinkwater
February 09, 2024 01:34 PM
When it comes to politics, Americans are increasingly polarized: data suggests that we’re finding less to agree on and getting angrier in our disagreements. [1] This political divide is also bleeding into the rest of our society, thanks to our reliance on sociocultural cues to define political positions. Open TikTok, for example, and you’ll find a host of tips for sussing out someone’s politics based on attributes that are non-partisan at face value. He drives an F-150? Probably voted for Trump. She shops at Trader Joe's? Progressive.
4 Min Read
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