Vox Limax: UCSC Talks Trump

This piece is the inaugural installment of "Vox Limax" a new section of the Sustainability Newsletter featuring student perspectives on sustainability and related issues. Vox Limax features the opinions of students, staff, and other contributors that may not reflect the opinions of the University of California.

The first actions of President Trump and his cabinet have fired up the sustainability community and Americans as a whole. This month we have seen a renaissance of political action in Santa Cruz and across the nation from marches, to teach-ins, to a flurry of letters, emails, and phone calls to representatives. With this at our attention, we set out to ask slugs this question:

What are your plans to support or oppose the Trump administration?

“If this executive order does come to fruition I will advocate for Planned Parenthood to become funded by the state of California so that President Trump will not intervene with this.  Because Planned Parenthood is simply more than just an abortion clinic. It provides many opportunities for women to prepare better for childbirth. This as well as advocating to my own local representative, his name is Congressman Steven Knight, to voice my opinion on certain issues and provide facts.”

“My advice to any person who wants to contact their representative: call the office. Do not email them. Emails will just go to spam. Contact the office locally, voice your opinion, leave your name, and know specifically where your representative is in your district. Because towns themselves can be broken up into different districts.”

“Go to Sacramento if you really want to voice your opinion. Talk to the California Senate and the Assembly. And then they'll really hear what you have to say. If you come prepared with the proper information, research, statistics, eyewitness accounts, then you will really have a substantial argument that will cause the the politicians to listen to you.” - Noahchoudhuri (1st year, Computer Engineering)

“My current plan is to continue my education and not let it become disrupted by this. To become a science teacher in a red area. I feel like my personality is pretty innocuous at first glance and maybe I won’t ruffle feathers, but also teach new things and change minds.”

“In the more immediate future I’m trying to figure out what House seats are up for grabs in the midterm elections. I’m currently still registered in my home town and that’s a red area of California.” - Anonymous

“I like the Trump administration, unlike many people on this campus, so I'm okay with it personally. I think it's a much needed change in our democratic system. Our government goes through these swings every eight years. You look at Bush - it was Bush for eight, and then it was Obama for eight, and now it’s red again. It’s gonna be blue in eight years. It’s just what happens.  I think this is gonna be a good four years, my man!” - Cyrus (2nd year, Undeclared)

“The whole point is to get people who are like-minded and also feel as fiercely as you do to get together regularly and use each other as support in writing letters or making phone calls. You can set goals to make phone calls every week, and that actually sounds like a pretty helpful thing to do. But in all honesty, taking care of ourselves and getting together with people with like minded values.” - Katie (4th year, Environmental Studies and Economics)

“I support his foreign policy. I also like his immigration policy, because I think immigration should be legal. Number three, I support his plan to bring jobs back because I think outsourcing is really killing the U.S. manufacturing. And number four, fighting ISIS instead of dictators. Removing Saddam Hussein and removing Qaddafi in my opinion, was a really stupid policy. What should have been done is the fighting terrorists and at least having cordial relations with people who at least keep some kind stability in the Middle East. So personally I’m not against dictators for the Middle East, it’s better than terrorists.” 

“So, what would be a way to support or oppose it? With university atmosphere, it’s impossible to say these things, number one. And number two, Nancy Pelosi’s house is like two blocks away from my parent’s house in San Francisco. So, basically, with my congressional representative basically saying that she will do everything in her power to oppose the new administration, it’s kind of like Californians don’t have a voice. Or at least Bay Area people don’t have a voice. Maybe if I lived in Nevada I’d have more of a voice. Feel more comfortable, you know?” - Anonymous

“Shelter inside my house, and let the little voices inside my head talk to me.” - Steve (Shuttle-bus Driver)

“Make art that engenders empathy in people. Teach people that other people are human too.” - Chris (4th year, Theater)