November 2023

Dear Reader,

I’ll never forget an experience I had with a good friend of mine a few months ago. We were walking down the street when a huge RAM 3500 with two American flags propped up in the bed came barreling past us, blaring “God’s Country” by Blake Shelton. My friend looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “Geez, I wonder who he voted for in 2020.” The implication was obvious—he must have voted for Trump.

Affordable housing, the Holy Grail of urban living, seems to be an elusive goal. It is a talking point for politicians across the ideological spectrum. In attempts to create affordable housing for low-income individuals and families, many states look to rent control as a vehicle to affordable housing. Many turn to rent control as the knight in shining armor, but I wish to remove the shiny armor and expose the chinks in these economic polices. There certainly are policies that state governments can enact that help provide affordable housing, but rent control isn’t one of them. Government-imposed rent control is not the savior for low-income individuals and families.

Sexism happens all over the world, but in Latin American countries, there has been a culture of “machismo” that has seriously hindered women in ways that differ from sexism in America and other countries. Machismo is the idea that men have overbearing control and dominance over their wives and children. His role as the head of the house demands that all in the family submit to his will, a behavior that unfortunately manifests often as domestic violence. Although there are admirable traits of machismo such as bravery and honor, it’s the aggressiveness, violence, and dominance that is harmful. This mindset has led to the abuse and death of women, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Mexico.

As a self-proclaimed die-hard David Tennant fan, I often think about the relationship between fans and celebrities. Have I watched many movies and TV shows that feature David Tennant? Of course. Do I religiously follow David Tennant’s life, mirroring his political and social opinions? No. While these examples outline two vastly different levels of fandom—being a casual fan versus being a worshiper—the underlying principle of both is the amount of time devoted to listening to, watching, and identifying with celebrities. Celebrity worship, which I define as the extreme identification with and idolization of celebrities, negatively impacts individuals’ self-identification and increases polarization within interpersonal communications.

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.

Embracing the spirit of the autumn season, I took to watching Gilmore Girls and recently finished the series that follows Rory’s life from high school through college as she navigates her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and her own ambition. A pivotal moment comes in the final episode, where watchers find Rory rejecting a marriage proposal from her college boyfriend so she can pursue her own journalism career. Her place, she believed, was in the professional world–marriage and the traditional family life would prove to be a distraction and disadvantage. This decisive juncture in the show serves a compelling entry point for a broader discussion about the nuanced narratives surrounding women’s roles and the feminist movement.

When foreigners think of American society and politics, they most admire our technology, military, entertainment, and universities [1]. When thinking of American people, others might describe us as proud, independent, hard-working, and diverse. Americans, to my surprise, rank highly in one highly-desired trait: patience. In fact, ScienceFocus ranked us as the third most patient country in the world behind Sweden and the Netherlands. That ranking was based on our willingness to put off more consumerist desires [2]. Patience is a virtue, and it even seems to characterize our foreign policy from the past. We’ve been willing to engage in wars without immediate results based on core values such as freedom and democracy. Around 2015, President Obama embraced “strategic patience.” [9] As of late, we’ve strayed from such patience, wanting quicker results from our military investments abroad. Unfortunately, the past two administrations hastily ended engagements in the Middle East, hurting our country’s image and ushering in disorder. Against the backdrop of worse alternatives, the United States should choose to be patient with our involvement in foreign conflicts.

Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest movie directors of all time. Although it has garnered mixed reactions, I love Nolan’s movie Tenet. I’ll admit, Tenet challenges everyone’s cognitive ability via visual chaos. But, let me hop onto my crumbling soapbox for a quick defense of this chaotic Christopher Nolan film. Tenet explores the implications of humanity's obsession with overpowering nature. Overpowering nature tends to improve our own well-being, but occasionally this is not the case (think atomic bomb). Paradoxically, those who are in a position to produce something that will overpower nature and are aware of the potentially negative consequences will move forward with creating that product.

Flashback to this time last year, BYU Political Review released its November 2022 issue. An intelligent and highly influential writer (it’s me… I’m the writer) discussed age and how it impacted American politicians. Mitt Romney must’ve seen that article sometime between then and now, because on September 13th, he announced that he was not seeking reelection. [1] All jokes aside, I was completely blown away by Senator Romney’s speech. Not because I’m a liberal and am anxious to see a conservative leave office, but rather because I thought he spoke so profoundly on age, leadership, and generational representation in politics. He spoke so maturely and was keenly aware of his role, at his age, in shaping American politics. This article examines various parts of his speech and provides additional commentary meant to further explore his statements.

In the New York Times article “The Failure of Progressive Movements,” Senior Writer David Leonhardt explains that some recent progressive movements—#MeToo, BLM, and Occupy Wall Street, specifically—have all fallen short of systemic change. Why? It’s easy to compare the hierarchical structure of the Civil Rights movement, dutifully commanded by MLK, to the anarchal BLM administration hodgepodge; the specific grievances of the Stonewall Riots to the imprecise, uncoordinated interests of Occupy Wall Street; or the coordination of Women’s Suffrage to the internal schisms [1] of the #MeToo movement that never really left the internet. These are all useful comparisons that contrast the flailing strategies of modern progressive movements to the efficacy of past movements. I believe there is one more critical comparison needed to highlight where contemporary progressivism fails: The American Revolution versus The French Revolution.

Theoretical political ideologies have always had a place in the history of political development. When one looks back, it is easy to track these ideas and how they influenced our philosophers, founding fathers, civil rights leaders, teachers, and parents. John Locke, Plato, Aristotle, Fred Hampton, FDR, Napoleon, Che, and even Kurt Cobain each in their own right contributed to both the theoretical and applied political landscape. Punk is not only a genre of dress and tune but a political ideological movement. While punk today is associated with aesthetics of baggy clothes and loud music in the mainstream, in its foundation it is a political movement surrounding the leftist tenets of anti-establishment, anti-capitalism, feminism, and individual freedom.