Opinion | Policy Over Party

Editor’s Note: Any opinions expressed in City Voice articles are the authors and do not imply that the City Voice takes a stand one way or another.

After nearly 250 years as a country, America has developed a unique problem in the fact that we have a two-party system. If you look at other countries, they almost always are either governed by an authoritarian government, which is to say a dictatorship, or a multi-party system of democracy. What a two-party system does is force Americans into an unfortunate position between voting for a party that has the most policies that you like. In a survey sent out to City High/Middle School, a pool of 175 scholars answered questions about governance, policies, and America’s global position. It is noted that the students who took the survey didn’t in fact lean towards one side or the other – the data ended up making a bell curve, showing that most people weren’t strictly on either side of a given policy.

Legend: 1 – strongly disagree, 10 – strongly agree

Part of the reason electing a party instead of policies is bad is because of a very simple dilemma: “what if I care about a policy, but the party I affiliate with doesn’t have any say?” This can be solved if people vote for policy, as people get more say in matters. In the aforementioned school-wide survey, over 40% of participants identified with America’s Democratic party, yet what is interesting is that City High likes to teach on an international level (as an IB school) in tandem with values of economicology, which are incredibly present in this data. This was a surprise because I never gave the lessons more than two thoughts, but clearly others did.

All of this data is to show that policies — especially with this newer generation — are cared about more than parties. Looking at the makeup of this generation, political affiliations mean less than the actual result and goal of these policies. So for politics to survive for Gen Z and beyond, we need to start talking more about what policies we want than the people who might make them. This was represented within the Vice Presidential debate, where both sides outlined more of their policy plans and even agreed with each other at times. All signs point to a future of policy.

SAM CORRADO

Senior Editor — Social Media Manager at The City Voice

Hello, my name is Sam Corrado. I am a science and opinion writer for the City Voice. I run our social media and contribute ideas for others. Some of my interests include electronics and science. I am planning to go to college for chemistry and enjoy baking in my spare time.