I attended the Current Events Convo on January 17th in Smith-Steeb. The event was headed by Sam Stelnicki and the topic was “What You Missed In the News”.

This was probably my favorite current event convo so far. We covered a wide range of topics related to international happenings, from the yellow vests to Brexit to Chechen human rights issues. While we sadly did not get to play Kahoot like we had in previous current event convos, the presentation was plenty interactive. As always, Sam did a great job of encouraging discussion. There was a solid turnout, and we did have some good discussions about the issues.

I always have a solid base of knowledge on current events, but I took away more than usual at this event. I hadn’t really thought about Brexit being that controversial of an issue, aside from it being decided by slim referendum. I had formed the opinion in my mind, at least, that the British people wanted to leave the EU and therefore they should. The videos we watched made me realize that this is much more complicated than just the general will, particularly to how it affects the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland particularly, since the two states contentious but currently open border would probably need some sort of demarcation or barrier should Northern Ireland no longer be part of the EU. The small climate change update we got was shocking but also encouraging. I often forget how dire of a need we have to combat climate change. It was encouraging to see that other countries will continue to implement coordinated global reforms even without the help of the United States.

I personally find the yellow vest protestors very interesting. Macron’s relatively narrow victory in the 2017 election showed that France had a lot of discontent brewing beneath the surface. These yellow vest protestors, though, are not the same as the disaffected voters who propelled Marine Le Pen from fringe candidate to runner up. These protesters are unhappy with what they see as Macron neglecting the state of the middle class. Since being elected, Macron has cut taxes on the wealthy and loosened labor restrictions in order to boost the French economy. Discontent with globalization’s effect on the French economy had bolstered support for Macron’s opponent in the election. In keeping with his platform though, Macron has also raised fuel taxes. The increased fuel taxes have been the biggest gripe of the gilet jaunes, many of whom commute to work.

I was surprised to learn that Macron’s biggest moves seemed to be straight out of the American conservative playbook. My limited understanding of Macron was that he was a quasi-socialist who had drifted to the middle, like a more policy-focused Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It feels like he’s trying to wear too many hats: focusing on economic growth while also being pro-environment. While those two goals aren’t mutually exclusive, they’re diametrically opposed in ideology. Macron appears to have gambled that he can keep both promises by catering to business but also be able to point to reduced fuel use. This may have backfired on him though, because hitting the middle class in their wallet – particularly in a society that’s relatively homogeneous like France – is like kicking a hornet’s nest.

The impending US withdrawal from Syria, which was briefly touched upon in the current events convo, was also a topic of discussion in my Air Science (ROTC) class. It will be interesting to see how this affects the stability of the Middle East overall.