The Red Folder

Archived from September 9, 2024. 

Key stories for the week, brought to you by Lindsey Zhao and the Red Folder team.

Reading for the sake of reading sucks. Telling yourself to read to win a round is nice but ineffective. This condensed news brief helps you understand current domestic and international issues, analyze the news, and gives you opportunities to read more.

Publishing since January 2024. 

Domestic Stories

4 key domestic stories for the week:

1) What Pennsylvania Can Tell Us About November Lindsey Zhao

As the United States approaches what will likely be one of the most pivotal presidential elections in our history, a mere handful of states may determine our path. This year, political analysts expect 7 states- Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin- to be the most important voters. While Biden saw a significant gap in polling between him and Trump in many of these states, including North Carolina and Nevada,  Harris has closed the gap since assuming the candidacy. 


One in particular could offer an interesting glimpse into the future: Pennsylvania. Both candidates recognize this. While Kamala Harris is spending $160 million in other states, she’s dropping an additional $150 million on Pennsylvania alone; Donald Trump is spending nearly $132 million in the state, with another $32 million allocated for the rest of the country. He is allocating less than $10 million for the rest of the aforementioned swing states. Both politicians clearly regard Pennsylvania as one of the most important swing states to win- with very few truly competitive states this season, Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes could prove crucial in tipping the balance. Counting all the solid red and solid blue states, Harris and Trump are locked with 220 electoral votes each, needing 270 to win the presidency. Pennsylvania has the most electoral votes out of any battleground state. 


Pennsylvania has a history of predicting election winners. For the past two elections, Pennsylvania has been won by the eventual winner by just tens of thousands of votes, but they have predicted the last four presidents. No Democrat has won the White House without Pennsylvania since 1948. 


Most polls, including one from the Guardian, show an extremely tight race in Pennsylvania, one that is within nearly all polls’ margins of error- the Guardian, for instance, has Harris at a slight lead over Trump- 48.9% to 47.2%, but CNN finds them deadlocked at 47% each. Because of this wafer thin division, one Politico analyst called the race “a knife fight in a phone booth”. 


In the roughly two months leading up to Election Day, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are seeking to improve their standing in the state. Because Joe Biden narrowly beat Trump in 2020 Pennsylvania because of his victory in PA suburbs, Trump is attempting to capitalize on his base of rural Pennsylvanians, as well as appealing to suburban Black voters. While Harris wants to emphasize her role in fighting for abortion rights, capping the cost of prescription drugs, lowering childcare and grocery expenses, and more, Trump is emphasizing her previous support for a fracking ban, something that could undermine her popularity in a state known for its gas production. 


The stakes couldn’t be higher. Pennsylvania will absolutely be crucial in ensuring either Harris or Trump gets enough wind in their sails to pass the 270 electoral vote threshold in November, and become the next President of the United States. 


Read more here:

2)  Familial Betrayal or Political Pragmatism? Lindsey Zhao

Having family low-key hate on your successes is nothing new to a lot of people. For our nation’s foremost politicians, it's at a whole other level. The saying that blood runs thicker than water? Definitely not true when it comes to presidential politics. 

Since Vice President Kamala Harris has reinvigorated the 2024 presidential race, a number of endorsements for either Harris or former President Donald Trump have flooded in from high-profile celebrities, politicians, and even family members. For now, we’ll focus on the family- and if they might have a role to play in swaying the race. 

After Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was announced as Harris’s running mate, a picture began circulating on social media of several middle-aged and older Americans standing in front of a Trump 2024 sign, all wearing shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Walz’s for Trump”. It quickly went viral, with even Donald Trump reposting the image on Truth Social in support of their message. They said they were cousins (albeit distant) of Tim Walz, with their grandfathers being brothers. 

In a statement to the AP, Walz’s sister, Sandy Dietrich, said she didn’t recognize the people in the photo and said that while they may truly be the Nebraska side of the Walzes, she and her brother hadn’t interacted with them at all during their childhood. 

Separately, an apparent endorsement for Trump coming from another Walz family member is Gov Walz’s own older brother Jeff Walz, who heard about his brother’s appointment as Harris’s running mate through the radio. A registered Republican, Jeff Walz had donated $20 to Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. While the NY Post previously found Facebook comments from Mr. Walz that said there were “stories (he) could tell” that implied his brother wasn’t “the type of character you want making decisions about your future”, he later clarified those comments. He was talking about young Tim Walz’s tendency to car sickness. Mr. Walz has since stated he wants to stay out of influencing the public opinion, although he has made it clear he disagrees with his younger brother’s policies. 

Donald Trump has jumped at the chance to imply there is something deeper behind Walz family members’ disapproval of Gov. Walz- maybe even something malicious. Some political analysts suggest, however, that it may also be a strategy employed to distract from Trump’s string of family members and associates that have endorsed his political opponent. Notably, his niece and nephew Mary and Fred Trump have not only publicly criticized him, but also each released a book detailing the trauma they experienced in the Trump family, including how Mr. Trump allegedly belittled and bullied them, even going as far as saying that disabled people “should maybe just die.” The Trump campaign has denied all attacks. 

Perhaps the most expected family cross-endorsements has been that practically every single Kennedy family member has publicly denounced RFK Jr. and his endorsement of Donald Trump following his recent drop from the race. More than a dozen Kennedy family members had endorsed Biden before he dropped out of the race. His sister, Kerry Kennedy, has already endorsed Kamala Harris and plans to campaign for her in Arizona.

While having the family of a political candidate endorse the opposing politician may be a blow to the ego, there is little evidence that suggests it is a common tiebreaker for many voters. However, in a race as close as what we’re seeing now between Harris and Trump, any endorsement (or lack thereof) could reshape the race.

Read more here:

3) Red, White, and Blood Boyana Nikolova

The question of gun control is one that almost never leaves the US Congress. When the issue does escape the confines of Capitol Hill, however, it goes straight to the nation's schools. US lawmakers have yet to realize that their stalling may be at fault, but the rest of America is watching closer than ever before.


Just 4 days ago, the 45th major school shooting of 2024 took the United States by storm. Unfathomably, a student at Apalachee high school in Georgia is the latest perpetrator.  Within 60 seconds, 14-year-old Colt Gray had both opened fire against his classmates and teachers and taken the lives of 4 of them. This number doesn’t even begin to entail the suffering and trauma that has captured the city of Windor, nor the indescribable mourning and raw frustration victims’ close ones are experiencing.


But with a case as tragic as this, what pointers do policymakers and officials have before the next major headline also details a shooting? There’s countless, the first being the use of emergency alert systems in schools. Within the single minute of shooting that had taken place, 26 teachers at Apalachee high school had already notified local law enforcement via their staff IDs. After the school partnered with CENTEGIX, a company that produces security-related wearable tech, they reinforced all teachers with IDs that allowed them to notify authorities in the case of an active shooting by simply pressing a button. Of course, they never believed they would have to use it.


For Apalachee, prebuilt security meant that a significantly deadlier shooting had been avoided. But additionally, with multiple school resource officers that took initiative and recalled charging at Gray, the situation was contained hardly minutes after it started. By the time authorities had arrived, the shooter was even all ready to be detained. Needless to say, ramping up school security systems shouldn’t have to be the answer to mitigating gun violence. The conditions from which these crimes stem and the assembly of gun control laws that armed these perpetrators must first be addressed.


Primarily, crime rates aren’t chosen at random. Poverty, unemployment, and drug addiction rates all strongly correlate to increases in crime and when a given neighborhood struggles to control these issues, unlawfulness can quickly spiral out of control. It's time to address this. With more open resources, sufficiently funded rehab centers and schools, and by breaking down the stigma surrounding requesting help, cities can ensure that they aren’t laying down the blocks for more terror, but instead, are rebuilding positive, healthy, and crime-free communities.


Of course, it wasn't ever that simple. Gun control laws play an even larger role in determining the scale of violence. However, when they aren’t updated to respond to the needs of the nation, everyone gets hurt. As assault weapons have gotten deadlier with new technological advances, so have the thousands of annual shooting incidents in the US. Despite this, very few revisions have been made to ensure that regulations today can stand for the same impact they were intended to have when first instituted.


Surprisingly, a dialogue on renewing gun control laws has been pushed for years. Hardly any progress has been made, unfortunately. Now, after the most recent reminder that gun violence is of concern to every American, lobbyists are back to work. Groups such as the Brady Campaign have taken to their platforms to call anti-gun Americans back to the streets and hopefully, reinvigorate a dying movement.


There’s just one more factor behind recent shootings to consider: the influence of a shooter's own parents. After a fatal school shooting in Oxford high school in 2021,  both of the perpetrator’s parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter, accused of enabling their son’s behaviors and not taking sufficient steps to prevent him from eventually arming himself and killing his classmates. This new precedent in charging parents for failing to safeguard guns and rifles from their children has even spread to the Apalachee case.


With the father of Colt Gray officially being detained alongside him, it is clear now that parent arrests are no longer the rare sightings they were in the past. They’re a new normal. One that could possibly be enough to further prevent deadly shoot-outs.


Gun violence has and will continue to be a multifaceted issue, but the response of our national and local governments needs to be varied as well. Put simply, gun control laws must not still be seen as necessarily good or evil, or black or white. 


At least not when they are stained with red.


Read more here:

4) A New Health Crisis Paul Robinson


Virtually everyone in the American South agrees that summers have gotten much worse in recent years. The reason is climate change; as the world fails to introduce any impactful policies, it is only getting worse. While people may be disconcerted at this fact, the same cannot be said for mosquitos, the animal which kills more people than any other, and may only be getting more dangerous in the United States.


The largest problems with mosquito-borne illnesses have historically been sub-Saharan Africa, where temperatures are hot year-round and healthcare systems are notoriously bad. The United States has not had health scares before on the same scale, and, to be clear, it is not having one now. There is reason to be concerned though. Cases of Eastern equine encephalitis, better known as EEE, have been reported at a much higher rate in recent weeks than in prior years. The disease is quite rare, and far more people contract the more famous West Nile virus than EEE. It is quite serious, however, and around a third of people who get it die.


EEE has no effective treatments or vaccines, a large reason why it is such a problem even in a developed nation like the United States. The largest number of cases have been reported along the East Coast, where the disease has been previously reported. However, the Midwest has also recently reported cases of the disease, indicating that the range of mosquito species which carry the disease is increasing. Hotter summers, as well as an increase in precipitation and natural disasters in some regions of the country, likely contributed to this. EEE can also be found in some Southern states, such as Louisiana and Arkansas.


Again, contracting EEE is quite unlikely for most people. But the fact that it is a possibility, given the serious consequences of catching the virus, has been enough for health warnings to be issued and public facilities to be closed in several states. Right now, these actions are mostly concentrated in New England, where the virus is most widespread. As it becomes more prevalent in other regions, though, more public health measures may need to be deployed in order to protect Americans from what is, at its root, the lack of climate action.


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