On November 14, I listened to former Democratic Presidential Candidate and New York Mayoral Candidate Andrew Yang as well as former Pennsylvanian Republican Represntative Charlie Dent. In their discussion, they talked about a variety of topics regarding political parties and voting patterns.
The first area that they went into detail about is the lack of political competition that currently exists in congressional districts. Rouhly 83% of congressional districts are either considered strongly red or strongly blue. This means that it is almost impossible for a Republican to win in a strong blue district or vice versa. The other problem that came with this specific issue was that once a candidate wins a seat in congress, the only real concern that the representative has is make sure that no one primaries them in future elections. Even though representatives up for re-election do have to win the general election, districts are so partisan the likely hood of a representative losing the general election is rare. As a way to resolve these problems, the concept of open primaries and third parties were brought up. The reason for open parties being a potential solution is because if consituients in a district do not like one of the candidates in their party and prefer a candidate in another party, voters do no have to feel limited to their options. This in turn will help create better representation and more competition. Openign the door to more thrid parties will also help to bring the same benefits as open primaries.
Another area of concern brought up by Andrew Yang and Representive Charlie Dent is the growing divide of the two main political parties and the movement towards extreme ends of the political spectrum. Despite this growing division, the vast majority of the American public is in the center which is making them feel very disconnected from either side. Due to the vast amount of people feeling misrperesented in the political system, Andrew Yang has formed the Freedom Party. This party, although it is still in the development, has a platform that is built for those who are in the center of the political spectrum.
In addition to the problem with the disivison in the country, Representative Charlie Dent brought up how there is a lack of diversity of thought in both parties and that there is the misconcpetion that in order to be a Democrat or a Republican, one needs to agree with the entire platform. Representative Dent backed this claim up when he acknowledge that he was one of only a few Reoublicans in Congress who identified as pro-choice. Since he left office, however, there are currently no Republican members of Congress who are pro-choice. This stance is not very accurate of where registered Republican voters stand since 30% identify as pro-choice. This example by Representative Dent is an indicator that the two parties are not fairly representing all view points of people and leaving out room for dissent within the party.
This seminar brought to light a variety of issues with the current two party system along with a varying amount potential solutions. Even though it seems it will be very difficult to implement these solutions into the current system, there is still a chance that change can be made.