Youth Politics

Let me be clear with my statement that the Democrats aren’t uniting. It has nothing to do with this election, although this election is actually bringing out the root causes of the problem. I don’t think its a big deal that polls are saying that the race is close, even though the Democrats should be winning by a long shot. This has nothing to do with it. Let’s look at the elections themselves. The Democrats are always annoyed when an independent candidate steals their votes, which is often the case. The other parties largely don’t affect the Republican party. Why is this so?

The Democrats have become this conglomerate of different values and beliefs, that I think they’ve taken on more than they can chew. They have become this machine that believes in so many issues, that some of these issues actually start to conflict. You have environmentalist groups, feminist groups, racial equality groups, and they mostly align with the Democratic party. And sometimes, their interests actually conflict with each other. Let’s take for examples the issues of abortion and the death penalty. There are those who are pro-choice, but at the same time there are those against the death penalty. In my mind this makes little sense. You are willing to disregard an arguably innocent life but save the lives of criminals. I know there are deeper arguments than this, but in essence that’s what it looks like in a nutshell. Another example: I’m sure those in favor of racial equality are stoked about Obama as a candidate, however the feminist groups are largely disappointed that Hillary did not win. A few weeks ago I was listening to a report claiming (although this could be false) that they’re actually beginning to align themselves with McCain, even those he has absolutely no plans for feminists. Why would they turn their backs on the party that actually would try to push their issues forward? Is it because they hate that Obama beat Clinton? Probably.

That is why independent candidates are so attractive to those who would otherwise vote Democrat. They get to vote for a candidate who supports most of what they want instead of a candidate who’s with them on one or two issues and then either disagrees with the other issues or is uninterested in pursuing those other issues. There are those for example who want to vote for a candidate who actually voted against the war. Obama did no such thing because he wasn’t able to (he wasn’t in the Senate at that time), but people even question if he would have if he had been there. Independents and those candidates from other parties have more streamlined agendas, similar to the one of the Republican party. There are very few divisions in that party. The only major one would seem to be the religion versus the socio-economic Republicans. And even then, a lot of the party actually agrees on both camps. Clearly McCain is not the ideal candidate for a lot of Republicans, but they have all rallied behind him, as I have seen few Republicans actually switch because of their choice of candidate. It’s a nicely united party, and it’s going to remain strong, even in a year where the Democrats could have easily stolen the presidential nomination.

You cannot try to appease everyone at once. It’s practically impossible. I’m sure theorists have devised a means of doing so, but a theory is a long way from a workable plan. I think the Democrats’ best course of action is to look at how the party is as a whole and try to redefine what it stands for. For example, unions are now much weaker than they were in years past, and union rights just do not seem to be an issue for the Democrats anymore. Does the party still believe then, in union power? The Democratic party needs to regain its focus and begin to truly unite, or it’s going to be a tough race against the Republicans every single election year from here on out. And of course we’ll see how the Democrats fare this election.