I'd encourage anyone who feels disheartened with the political process to look farther down the ballot. Find out who your local candidates are, and find out what they stand for. Understand what issues are affecting the people in your community, and understand what steps candidates are taking to fix them. While change happens at every level, local change is what you're most likely to feel the effects of. 

Of all the ways the confirmation process of Amy Coney Barrett would be potentially stalled in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell likely wasn’t expecting a physical incapacitation on the part of his fellow lawmakers. In the span of a few days, three Republican senators, including North Carolina’s Thom Tillis (NC), Ron Johnson (WI), and Mike Lee (UT) all tested positive for COVID-19 and have subsequently stepped away for the time being.

“I think that the administrators put in thought for some online courses but not for others. I personally feel like they could have handled things much better by making a decision earlier on whether they were going all online or not,” says Madeline Miller, a UNCW sophomore. “If they made the decision earlier it could have given the teachers and students more time to prep for going online, which could have helped us have a more successful school year.”

The United States has endured a lot this year. Americans have witnessed natural disasters, police brutality, school shootings, and an ever-increasing partisan divide. While all of these events existed prior to 2020, this year we faced an additional challenge: a global pandemic. With more than 200,000 deaths in the United States alone, COVID-19 has made a permanent mark. The coronavirus pandemic has caused a rise in social unrest and economic disruption, leading to an even more tense nation.

All of these issues share a commonality: powerful governments are involved. They either directly cause problems or refuse to address them appropriately. This trend is especially pronounced whenever an unchecked government, especially an authoritarian one, abuses its power and violates the rights of its civilians to push its personal agendas.

So the question worth asking is, how do we enact change and strike a balance between saving lives and protecting Second Amendment rights?

Barrett is undoubtedly the epitome of everything Ginsburg fought against, despite conservatives enthusiastically cheering her on. She is highly educated and well-spoken, yet glides through the doors of law that Ginsburg busted down for her, failing to protect the freedoms of other women.

There are questions regarding how this will affect the 2020 presidential race, as this is said to be an advantage to those on the right. Trump’s top pick, Amy Coney Barrett, was formally nominated in the White House Rose Garden on Saturday, just one day after Ginsburg was lying in state at the U.S. Capitol. The formal Senate confirmation hearings are to take place beginning on October 12, as there seems to be a mad dash by the GOP to place her on the high court as soon as possible.

This transition is intended to give students some extra space but it has also caused some uneasiness throughout the on-campus community. Below are arguments in favor and against UNCW’s decision from The Seahawk’s contributing writers, Hannah McDonnell and Hannah Horowitz. 

To tackle this serious challenge, they will need to base decisions not just on science, but also the economy. Former Democratic candidate and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, for instance, managed to win the support of millions of young Americans by proposing a “Green New Deal”. It aims to ban all fossil fuels and radically reshape society in just 10 years. But such a policy would be too expensive to work and have massive implications, Fox News warned in February 2019.

All of this evidence calls into question whether the lockdowns in the U.S. were really that effective. The jury is still out on this matter, and much remains unknown at this time. However, the argument for more lenient interventions has become much stronger over the past few months. Some of the lives saved by mass shutdowns will just end up being postponed deaths, and consequently America will continue to lose progress and inch back to square one.

Unfortunately, U.S. President Donald Trump has failed to execute a strong peacemaking plan. While he held summits, for instance, they were more or less intended to show off to the world rather than actually committing to easing tensions. U.S. Democratic nominee Joe Biden, on the other hand, appears to be much more prepared to make real progress on this significant issue.