Being Blue at PSU

By Tim Klaum You may have noticed in the past few months that, rather suddenly, movie and television productions have been shutting down at a moment’s notice and not picking back up. And while some shows have continued, almost all others (aside from news talk shows) have not. While the big studios, with all of their money and power, will try to convince you that it’s not that bad, trust me. It’s that bad. Early this year, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began fighting for a fair deal of their contract, asking for a higher base wage (to match the cost of living in 2023) as well as residual payments for writers and more protections for them. The studios were unable to grant these very basic requests, and thus the WGA voted to go on strike. All writing for major productions, from studios such as Disney, Paramount, Universal, and others, immediately came to a halt, and those same studios tried to continue without their writers. Then, later in the summer, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFT...

By JT Thomas Helloooooo College Democrats! Did you miss me? That’s right! After my lengthy sojourn across the Pond I’ve returned to you, my beloved captive audience. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is JT and I’ll be serving as your Communications Chair for the 2023-2024 school year. For this iteration of Being Blue at PSU, we’ll be continuing with our theme from last year, bringing you a mixture of fun, whimsical pieces (which are still in some way connected to Democratic values) and more traditional articles based on important political issues. Let’s start things off on a fun note, shall we? Last year for our first post of October, I wrote a review of Casey McQuiston’s 2019 bestseller Red, White and Royal Blue. The novel itself is fantastic; McQuiston manages to seamlessly integrate a sensual, steamy queer romance with a compelling storyline full of real world issues. So, imagine my surprise and delight when I heard that Prime Video was working on a screen adaptation of ...

By Samuel Ajah It's no secret that the United States' history is a mosaic of centuries of systematic, cultural, and societal oppression that has hamstrung generations of non-white people. While today's America is marginally better than in the past, we still struggle to face the ugly reality that we are not the classes, race-less, genderless utopia that we think we are, especially in left-leaning political spaces. It's not hard to see while we are making extraordinary progress, we are still nowhere near where we should be, whether that's due to infighting, failing to take the insurgence of fascism seriously, or ignorantly failing to be a comrade over an ally, a comrade in my opinion, never deserts a comrade. A partner is only helpful when it's beneficial to them or when they think it's in their best interest; in addition, allies can betray one another for their selfish purposes, whereas comrades are eternally loyal to each other and the causes they support. F...

By Tim Klaum This past weekend, 30 of our members went on our annua Washington D.C. trip, and we were able to spend three days learning so much about our nation and its capital's past, present, and future. Let's dive into a recap of what we did! First off, a massive round of applause for Sydney Robinson, who planned the trip, along with everyone else who made it possible. We couldn't have done this without you, and I know we're all so incredibly grateful. After leaving early Friday morning, most of our cars made it to the capital around noon for a day of jam-packed history. First, we met with End Citizens United, a group working to do just that, and get corporate money out of the political sphere in order to make elections fairer. The meeting was incredibly informational, and we learned so much about each of the little steps forward and back it takes to tackle something as big as a Supreme Court decision. From there, we headed up to the Capitol to learn about its histor...

By Rafael Lara Matos The Pennsylvania State University administration failed its students by allowing the "Stand Back and Stand By" event to happen. IN acquiescing to the founder of the Proud Boys, the administration attempted to build social capital with its students by inviting speakers who actively campaign on destroying trust. This is only the latest failure from administration that has alienated the student body from itself and ultimately created a crisis. Community building is one of the goals of inviting speakers, and in creating community it allows the University to better represent students and their interests like governments do. And as "citizens' distrust not of government, but of each other leads to democratic disintegration" (Allen xvi), the same can be expected to happen to the University administration. Speakers such as the Proud Boys rely on division, something the University cannot and should not promote. If it continues to even simply ignore th...

By Deepa Kadidahl We frequently hear the phrase "representation matters. Growing up, I rarely saw other Indians in American media. Every time I would see an Indian person in a TV show or movie, I would either feel a sense of pride at being represented or a sense of embarrassment when they reflected mere stereotypes of Indian people. Successful representations of Indians and other South Asians as seen in the Netflix series Never Have I Ever can be quite enjoyable to watch and have allowed me to reflect on my own experiences growing up as an Indian American girl. In recent years, representation has become a more significant issue in politics and corporate hierarchy. On the day of the Indian holiday Diwali, Rishi Sunak became Britain's first Prime Minister of Indian descent. I might have been inspiring to see a man descended from the colonized subjects of the British Empire become their Prim Minister, if it weren't for the fact that Rishi Sunak will be a terrible leader. Suna...

By JT Thomas Hello all! As I've been saying for the past couple months, we at the Penn State College Democrats are trying to make this blog more fun. So, to that end, I've got something special for our first post in October: a review of the novel Red, White and Royal Blue, by author Casey McQuiston. This book is set in an alternate version of the year 2020, one where a certain baby-man dipped in Tang mix didn’t win the 2016 election, but is replaced by the fictional democrat Ellen Claremont. The story itself is about her son, Alex, and his rivalry/friendship/romantic relationship with Prince Henry across the pond. Yes, you read that right. Screw the enemies to lovers and friends to lovers tropes, this book is full on enemies to fake friends to real friends to friends with benefits to lovers. Filled with interesting geopolitical dynamics, Red, White and Royal Blue is sure to keep fans of US politics and the British crown entertained. It’s also an incredibly powerful love story...