There is little room for argument- politics has become a game of money. Today’s campaigns focus less on complex policy arguments and more on winning meme wars designed to produce calculated financial results. Sound bites have replaced logic as the crux of a candidates righteousness, filling Americans with gross misunderstandings colored by a gray cloud of impenetrable reductionism. This reductionism has more than harmed intelligent debate, it has replaced it as the weapon of choice for those who wish to lead. It is never a good indicator of public awareness when those who wish to inspire and lead us also wish to distort our understanding of the polity.
However, this doesn’t change the fact that despite the reductionism, two distinct party platforms are challenging each other to determine the fate of this country. While their methods of communication are bilaterally weak, their ideas are no less different when put in the limelight. But if you ask a lot of young people, you are met with a different breed of reductionism than consignment to partisan fallacy- you’re told that the two parties are ideologically congruent, so voting really won’t make a difference. This almost upsets me more than if you were to tell me you were voting for Mitt Romney because the Democrats were trying to “steal your liberty”. To say such a thing indicates not just a complete misunderstanding, but an apocalyptic apathy to our political system.
It isn’t wrong to criticize parties on policy arenas that have largely become unified; the most common of these is military foreign policy, a topic wherein most Democrats and Republicans alike take an interventionist approach wherein the United States plays an increasingly dominant role in world politics. It’s true that one of the greatest threats to the republic currently standing is the military industrial complex- the gagging economic crutch of the baby boomer generation aptly recognized by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the twilight of his presidency. It’s true that because the production of weapons and war-time services are so vital to our GDP that members of both parties are afraid to suggest that a change might be in order. But this is not the only issue, and the means to make effective reforms in what stabilizes our economy begins with empowering other sectors, whether our government chooses to do it for us or not.
This brings me to my point; ultimate solvency for our most long term issues is brought only through comprehensive agendas that involve all areas of policy: education, healthcare, foreign policy, social policy, energy, and fiscal and monetary policy. Let’s look at this grocery list, and see how much our two parties actually align, and where their differences are so stark as to create very different Americas. I'm going to take them one at a time for the next few posts, starting here with education.
Education- The Differences
The Democratic Party has supported public education since the Progressive Era (1890's- 1920's), and continues to advocate for propping up the Department of Education. When they are able to pass a budget through both houses, it usually includes large earmarks for school funding, increased hiring of teachers, and funds to stimulate non-profit growth that has been shown to provide dramatic reductions in the achievement gap (Head Start, Mentorship programs, etc). The Dems also abhor religion in schools, asserting that such instruction is unconstitutional (the Supreme Court has generally supported this view with regard to schools). Instead, they support the teaching of evolution and theories based off of the scientific method rather than mythical doctrine; it is this distinction that has led to the Supreme Court’s support of teaching evolution in schools
The Republican Party believes the Department of Education, as well as its dramatic expansion under the Great Society measures of the Kennedy-Johnson era, has been a complete failure. They point to our low literacy rates, flawed institutions, fiscal waste, and their favorite, bad teachers. They think free market solutions such as school vouchers will allow a process of elimination that supports only the best-of-breed faculties, offered primarily from private or religious institutions. Every budget Paul Ryan proposes includes massive slashes to public education. They think religious instruction and prayer in public schools is a demonstration of our First Amendment rights, except when that prayer is Muslim. They believe creationism should be taught in schools, because it is, like the big bang, “another theory out there”. Yeah, except, you know, it isn’t.
The overlap: the only real agreement between the parties is that the status quo is failing. The Democrats are a little more optimistic about the role of public education, and think its failings are mostly attributed to financial neglect. Both support “education reform”, but this term has become so overused and meaningless that the past few generations of teachers discard it completely. Curriculum reform recommendations and attempts to alter pedagogy are met with the apathy of eyes that have seen this pendulum swing back and forth, left and right, every several years. With regard to education, we can see that the two parties have pretty different views.
Next week- Healthcare. Don't oversimplify. -The Polemic
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