Author: Erik Parker, Torch Staff
I don’t care about the upcoming presidential election. My apathy could stem from many places: my nationality (I’m not American), my political views (they’re more on par with Karl Marx’s than this country’s Founding Fathers’), or perhaps that not-so-rare pessimistic college student attitude (“What is this world coming to? What am I doing with my life? etc., etc.”) However, I can assure you that it does not arise out of political indifference because, generally, I find politics interesting and important. The real reason is that I don’t think having a new president is going to lead to significant changes anytime soon.
Before I upset those of you who understand and like American politics more than I do, I’ll say that it could soon become evident (perhaps it already is) that I am probably not as well-versed as you are in the American political system. It might even be easy for you to say that my criticism is completely unfounded. That’s fine. I’m still going to articulate my possibly uneducated opinions about this country’s political process in hopes of provoking thoughts about what it can achieve: world-altering policies, life-changing legislation or nothing at all.
Firstly, it has always been a bit unclear to me how much power the President actually has. If Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court are making decisions about the country’s most important issues, I don’t mind who’s sitting in the Oval Office. Of course the President is by no means powerless and can push for certain changes, but the way I see it, the system of checks and balances inherently makes it impossible for the political views of this one person to change the country.
Ultimately, I think that many of the important problems that the presidential candidates are debating will end in very similar -maybe even the same-ways. A slow, messy and eventual withdrawal from Iraq seems inevitable, individual states will probably continue to make their own laws on same-sex marriage, America will most likely continue to have sour relations with Iran and someone will always be upset about taxes. Also, despite having differing political views, Obama, Clinton and McCain have acted almost identically concerning immigration (all supported Bush’s reform policies and the construction of a fence between the US and Mexico).
I think that the election of any of these top three contenders will yield similar long-term results. Problems such as homelessness, drugs, sexism, racism, and crime will continue to exist, but I believe that any president with a conscience (along with Congress and the Senate, of course) will take action to better the parts of society that they can and solve problems within reach.
Thinking about the primaries and caucuses at hand, the election process bothers me. Largely, it seems to be about money. To stay in the race, Obama and Clinton have raised almost $150 million each. Money can’t do everything for them, but it can do a lot. I’m mostly upset because if even 10 percent of one candidate’s contributions was put towards better causes (AIDS, at-risk youth, hunger), thousands of people could be helped. If it’s this easy for a reputed political figure to raise money, this should be done for better reasons. Additionally, since so much of the election is dependent on being able to raise money and very few political figures have the resources and reputation to raise tens of millions of dollars, only a limited few have the potential to run or would stand a chance if they did so.
Further complicating this matter and limiting variety amongst the candidates is the extent of the political spectrum in American public politics. Thinking about the entire political spectrum (extreme left to extreme right and Libertarian to Authoritarian), American presidential candidates have probably only covered about 10 percent of the spectrum-and a fairly moderate range at that. The current political system does not allow for anything different (could a third party ever emerge and contend in the elections?) and therefore, any major changes in the political system are unlikely.
Perhaps no one wants anything more extreme, and that’s fair enough-the balance of the economy and society are delicate and could be too sensitive to big changes-or maybe everyone is actually happy enough with the state of our democracy . . . despite complaints across the board.
Even though the outcome of the upcoming election doesn’t matter to me, I’ll be glad once November has come and gone. Until then, let’s just brace ourselves for more exciting news of Obama’s suspected religious beliefs, McCain’s “cosmetic reminder” of melanoma and the latest snotty comments made by the Democratic candidates about each other.
Emma Parker is a junior French major. She can be reached at eparker@oxy.edu.
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