The past few elections have been divisive, high-stakes and extremely consequential. This election cycle proves to be no different, with the stakes feeling higher than ever for a midterm election. These elections appear to be deciding our country’s direction on a host of different issues, foremost being its moral direction. With so much at risk, it is time that we do away with the notion of “both parties being the same.”
The narrative of “both parties being the same” is a false equivalency with little to no merit to it. When it comes to the most substantive policy issues, the contrasts between Democrats and Republicans are night and day.
One party accepts the overwhelming consensus of scientists in their acceptance of climate change, while the other still hesitates to accept its cause as fact. A study reported on by the New York Times showed that, nationally, only around 31 percent of Republicans believed climate change was mostly caused by human activity.
While Republicans still muse over the veracity of these scientific truisms, the climate continues to be greatly affected by our out-of-control emissions. Recent reports have estimated that humans only have until 2030 to curb our contributions to climate change; otherwise, we will reach the climate point of no return. That’s a reality that our generation will be primarily in charge of adapting to, and it’s clear which party will pass policies now to help alleviate that burden.
Health insurance has become another hot-button issue where the difference between the two parties is clear. Nationally, Republicans dropped their initial idea of “repeal and replace” for a description I believe to be much more accurate: repeal and —. Legislation that would kick millions of Americans off their health care plans without a replacement was proposed numerous times in 2017, but all attempts ultimately failed.
North Carolina Republicans have shown similar intentions with their ploy to roll back the preexisting condition element of Obamacare, one of its most widely popular features, which ensures that health insurance companies can’t discriminate against sick people.
The North Carolina Republican Party, just like many other Republican parties throughout the United States, is not interested in creating bipartisan policy; they are interested in creating a partisan policy that allows them to hold on to power as long as possible. An area where we can see this latest power grab is in one of the offices on the ballot this year: the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Most North Carolinians who have voted in the past will be surprised to see that North Carolina Justices now have party affiliations attached to them this year. That is because Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court have not been in partisan races since 2002. In a last-ditch effort to consolidate power within the Republican Party, defeated Gov. Pat McCrory signed Senate Bill 4 into law, which put partisan labels on the ballot for appellate judicial elections. By adopting this legislation, McCrory and Republican lawmakers have effectively demonstrated their preference for partisan victories over an impartial judiciary.
Republicans in North Carolina have brazenly shown their disregard for democracy in their attempts at voter suppression. Not satisfied with the already grossly gerrymandered districts they produced, Republicans have taken it upon themselves to disenfranchise swathes of the North Carolina voting base too. Of course, Democrats are not perfect, but they at least have the decency to allow for legitimate elections to take place.
To voters that have bought into the myth of both parties being identical, I urge you to take in-depth looks at the policies the two parties are proposing. Democrats in their current iteration are by no means what we should settle for, but they have maintained a standard of human decency that the Republican party has lost. It is up to voters now to recognize the difference between the parties through their vote. If not, then the Republicans will continue to make it clear through the abhorrent policies they have forced on North Carolina.
