Why Democrats and Republicans Working Together Is Good (Duh)
If you were to stumble on the American political scene right now to commercials and media from one side of the aisle about the other, you’d think you were in a twilight zone where somehow working with the otherside is a bad thing that hurts your election chances. Let’s just get this straight. Working together, which is the only way to get things done, is now becoming frowned upon in our country. If you weren’t convinced that polarization is the most important issue to solve before anything else can get done, you should be now. Polarization has gotten so bad that people dislike the other side so much that anyone working with them must automatically be working on the principles of the other side. How terrible!!! Allow me to break down the two main reasons this logic is stupid and will be our doom if we follow it.
If your dog won’t stop chewing on the furniture and you work with it to chew its toys are you suddenly on the level of your dog for still allowing the chewing?? Of course not! This is literally how simple and idiotic the arguments that happen on Capitol Hill are.
- This probably isn’t even true.
If your dog won’t stop chewing on the furniture and you work with it to chew its toys are you suddenly on the level of your dog for still allowing the chewing?? Of course not! This is literally how simple and idiotic the arguments that happen on Capitol Hill are. Let’s take gun rights for example:
Democrats don’t want to see people get killed. Republicans don’t want people’s rights infringed on. So suddenly, any Republican who supports any kind of gun legislation wants to take everyone’s guns and any Democrat who wants to compromise is a murder-permitting disgrace. This also works the other way though too. This means that Democrats now must signal that they are okay with taking guns and that Republicans must signal that they don’t support gun laws. Which, of course, further contributes to the polarization because now each side has a reason to fear that extreme because it’s real now. Not only that but, if anyone on our side is working with the other side, they must have switched viewpoints because there’s only two and they’re so different. Get the picture?
In fact, when people do end up working together for the people these days, this is what is happening. They aren’t falling to the other extreme, they’re actually finding common ground and working to get things done.
2. If it were, it would actually be a GOOD thing.
So what’s the solution? Well, how about not picking either of the extremes, realizing there’s always going to be nuanced perspectives and ideas, and having a discussion? No way! We can’t stand the other side long enough to even have a discussion without doing something petty out of spite.. How the leaders of our country got to be 80 year olds with the attitudes of toddlers is beyond me.
But really. This is the solution and it would be a GOOD thing. In fact, when people do end up working together for the people these days, this is what is happening. They aren’t falling to the other extreme, they’re actually finding common ground and working to get things done. If we don’t start doing more of this, continuing on this path will certainly end up in a complete split or a complete apathy of our population.
See, the problem is that both sides actually have something good to say but because we are so polarized we can’t see that and usually end up with only half of the solution and usually that half isn’t even the best it could be. Let’s go back to our gun example and analyze the two values.
On the left, the value is for people to not be harmed. On the right, it’s for people’s freedom’s to not be violated and for people to have the ability to fight for their freedom if it comes to that. If you ask any sane person, both of those things are good! So how exactly did the debate over guns become so polarized? Because people don’t listen when others don’t agree with them. When left to their own devices, each party usually comes up with pretty terrible solutions, further characuturizing themselves to the other side. What could a solution that considers both values look like? I had a conversation with my conservative brother recently and we came to a pretty good solution where guns are allowed but required to be locked up when the owner is not around or have personalized technology on them, either of which most gun owners do or are in favor of anyway. This prevents people from using the gun who aren’t the owners or who aren’t permitted by the owners. But that’s just one example of what came from a conversation between two people with differing viewpoints and values to bring to the table.
Our biggest priority as a nation right now should be to depolarize.
My biggest point here is that each side has a REAL value to bring to the table if you’re willing to listen and have a conversation. Imagine an entire country talking about the most polarizing issues in a civil way. Imagine what solutions we might come up with. Our biggest priority as a nation right now should be to depolarize. To consider the values not only of what is natural to you but also of what isn’t but still valid. The best solutions come from a consideration of what is truly important and allowing others to voice things you may have missed.
We are getting into truly dangerous territory to allow both sides to not only not communicate with each other but to create a uniform platform that everyone on that side must adhere to or not be supported. Each party in and of themselves should be incredibly diverse with opinions and options for voters. Voters often fall on different parts of the political spectrum when it comes to separate issues even, why should they be forced to pick a uniform candidate?
Simple changes we can make to our system to not encourage where we’ve ended up today. The most influential change is Approval Voting.
Part of this starts bottom-up. With conversations between you and the people you know and the nation changing its attitude towards those who disagree with them or even just differ from them. But the other part can be top-down. Simple changes we can make to our system to not encourage where we’ve ended up today. The most influential change is Approval Voting.
Approval Voting works by allowing people to vote for all of the candidates they’d be okay with winning, rather than just one. This eliminates the need to choose the lesser of two evils and instead voice support for your favorite as well as the candidate you support that you think might have the best chance at winning, if those happen to differ. This would allow people to vote across party lines, on different parts of the spectrum for each party, and encourage candidates to appeal to broader swaths of people without negatively campaigning towards other candidates for each voters’ one vote effectively lessening polarization.
Approval Voting has already passed in two places in the nation: Fargo, ND, and St. Louis, MO. Approval Voting is extremely simple to use, cost-effective to implement, and doesn’t require a large change in ballots like some other alternatives. It also happens to produce more favorable outcomes than even more complicated methods like Ranked Choice Voting while being simpler to calculate the winner(s).
There are so many more issues that really do matter, and which ‘team’ you vote for is one that doesn’t.
Some of the biggest problems that contribute to polarization stem from the need to appeal to the public to get elected to office. Because we are only allowed to voice one vote on each ballot this makes the competition for that vote fierce and we usually end up with one of these uniform candidates speaking on the uniform issues and the media telling us that these issues are what matter and to pick their team. When in reality, people are way more diverse and complicated than our candidates represent. There are so many more issues that really do matter, and which ‘team’ you vote for is one that doesn’t. Because in reality, they aren’t teams, or at least they shouldn’t be. We are one country and one people and they should represent what is in the best interests of all of us. Instead of having a system that encourages political battles and uniform candidates, let’s create one that encourages conversation on tough topics and complexity in opinion.
