The Future is Another Country
As we approach April 29 – Trump’s one-hundredth day in office – the problem of fake news, and how to combat it, continues to dog us. Although it was undoubtedly a buzzword that perfectly encapsulated 2016 (and, I would argue, has more staying power than ‘post-truth’), fake news is hardly a recent problem.
In 2017, America may again need to be mindful of both dangerous potential futures and telling ancient precedent. The surprising election of President Donald Trump brought historical precedent flowing back to the minds of many Americans.
On January 31st of this year, CNN hosted a Town Hall with Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).[1] During the event, NYU-student Trevor Hill shifted from his prescreened question to a more substantive one.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) recently made national headlines and late-night punchlines when he suggested low income people should stop buying iPhones to afford healthcare. In the District of Columbia, however, Chaffetz is primarily known for his attempts to block DC legislation and programs.
Growing up in an Irish Catholic family, my family embodies many of the stereotypes one thinks of around St. Patrick’s Day. The cousins Patrick and Danny Boy. The fond childhood memories of pubs and Irish music, most often played by a family friend who immigrated to the United States and became, you guessed it, a police officer.
When the water protectors (or, if you support the Dakota Access Pipeline, protesters, rioters, and troublemakers) formed the Sacred Stone Camp in April, they faced an insurmountable challenge: a semi-built, big corporation and bank backed, stakeholder supported “black snake” (or, if you support Dakota Access, pipeline) that was slowly creeping underneath their land and near their water source.
Everyone involved in TAHR is dedicated to a simple principle: that the past is relevant to the present. We hail from a wide variety of personal, political, intellectual, and disciplinary backgrounds both in and out of academia. The issues of today were formed historically, and the only appropriate solutions to those issues are ones informed by a comprehensive understanding of how they came to be.
