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In a a time of increased partisanship (prejudice in favor of a particular cause; bias) in politics, the things that both parties agree on are even more important. With a two party system, if one party supports something and the other does not, it is very difficult to get something through congress. If both parties support something it is easier, this is a relativity simple idea. By finding the ground in the middle, congress, working with the president, can move more legislation from a bill to a law than they can if only one party supports an idea.

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An area that has overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle is raising the national age to purchase tobacco products to 21 instead of 18. GOP Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Todd Young of Indiana, and Democrat senators Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Dick Durbin of Illinois all had written bills that would raise the age to purchase tobacco products and the current law that has just been passed is a combination of all of them. President Trump, a republican president fully supported the bill. This bipartisanship was key in getting the law into effect quickly. According to Gallup, every single age category, gender, and race, support the bill with the lowest amount of support coming from males ages 18-29 at 66%.

According to The National Review, the sending bill that will fund the government for the fiscal year of 2020 contained the bill to raise the tobacco purchasing age to 21 and passed with a 71-23 vote.

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Proponents of the bill say that it will drastically reduce teen tobacco use and thus reduce the amount of people that use tobacco later in life. According to Tobacco Free Kids, 95% of life long smokers started smoking before the age of 21. They also say that raising the age to 21 will reduce the amount of high school students that are able to get tobacco by having an older friend buy tobacco products for them as it is likely that they have friends that are 18, but unlikely that they will have friends that are 21. The raising of the tobacco age also includes the purchases of e-cigarettes, what many say cause the panic behind the bill. As many contain nicotine, they are addictive and teens are more susceptible than most to succumbing to the addiction because of their still developing brain. They argue that because of the newness of e-cigarettes, we don’t know the long term health effects and that the sharp upward spike of teen use is troubling because of the success that there has been in reducing the number that smoke traditional cigarettes.

The other side of the argument says that this bill is doing nothing but virtue signaling. According to the LA Times, restricting something based on age has never really accomplished what the goal of the bill was supposed to accomplish. It sites the drinking age as a prime example. It says that even though fatalities caused by driving under the influence decreased for those between the ages of 18-20, it went up for those ages 21-25. The goal of the bill was to decrease fatalities that resulted from consuming alcohol, which it did not, it actually increased them. It also sites a law in the city of Monrovia that passed a daytime youth curfew that was well received amount the community for supposedly cutting crime and truancy. But long-term studies found that crime actually fell more during non-curfew hours. It sites several more studies that, they say, show that this law will fail just as the others have in the past.

The question is no longer if the law will get passed, since it did with its overwhelming bipartisan support, but rather, will it accomplish what it set out to do?

Image from Gallup

In the last blog, we were left wondering if there is any room left in the middle for compromise. Bipartisan support may and does emerge if it is about the right thing. So, today, instead talking about what is tearing the two parties apart, we’re going to discuss what brings them together. There are actually several things that pass through congress with overwhelming bipartisan support that you just don’t hear about because it is not as entertaining as conflict, so it draws less views than conflict. Agreement drums up less views and therefore less revenue for the for profit media machine. Something that the majority of Americans support, the majority of Senators and Representatives support, and the vast majority of democratic presidential candidates support is… pot.

Legalization of marijuana is a hot button issue, but the majority of Americans support it. According to Gallup, 66% or of thirds of the people in the United States support the legalization of Marijuana at the federal level. Now, not everyone supports it, but, opinions on this matter are much closer together than on may other polarizing issues such as abortion and gun control and socialized healthcare. It is also true that age plays a huge factor in the determination of in favor or against. People ages 18-29 have an 80% support rate versus a 49% support rate for those ages 65 and up.

On Nov. 19, the first sweeping Marijuana Reform Bill passed in the house judiciary committee. It passed by a margin of 24-10 with both Democrats and Republicans supporting the bill. This bill would expunge the records of nonviolent marijuana offenders and legalize it at the federal level. While this is a historic bill, the Senate is made up of a lot of people who are 65 or older, the least likely group to support legalization, and therefore the bill was stripped of pretty much everything except protections from federal interference on medical marijuana in states that passed bill allowing it which was in place since 2014.

On the presidential side of things, there is a little variation. Donald Trump, the current president and presumably the republican nominee for the 2020 election is a little tepid on his support. While he has done nothing to hamper the legalization in the states, he hasn’t done anything to help it either. Since it is still a federally recognized schedule 1 drug, veterans can’t get medical marijuana through the VA, even if they have a prescription. Early in 2017, one time Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, a well known opponent of marijuana legalization, disposed of the Cole Memo, an Obama era idea that instructed the federal government not to interfere with states that had legalized it.

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The candidates on the democratic side seem to be pretty uniform, Sanders has been a proponent of legalization since the 90’s, Warren’s website says she is in favor of decriminalization rather than legalization, Biden is perhaps the most opposed but still supports a vague conception of decriminalization. Yang has come out in support of legalization as well as Pete Buttigieg. Overall the trend for the Democrats tends to be in favor of legalization and Trump is more in favor of the status quo of leaving it up to the states.

All in all, the debate about the legalization of marijuana is slated towards the left, but garners plenty of bipartisan support. The data shows that the younger a person is, the more likely they will be to support legalization, so it is acceptable to infer that as younger people get in to politics and replace the current set, legalization on a federal level will occur.

The Ground in the Middle

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In World War One, there were two sides, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entity. Before they did battle, they dug trenches, often less than 200 yards apart. When one side decided they wanted to attack, all of the soldiers climbed out of their trenches and ran across the ground in the middle, or, as it was called, No-Mans Land. This is the ground the two alliances fought over. The same can be found in American politics today. This “Trench Warfare” between the two main parties, Republicans and Democrats, has resulted in constant fighting and polarization. Each side has their stances on any given issue and are unwilling to budge, come to compromise, and even resort to personal insults against the other side. In keeping with the idea of two alliances waging war against one another, we shall move on the perhaps the most polarizing aspect of current political news, the impeachment of the sitting President for Obstruction and Abuse of Powers.

The impeachment is one of the most polarizing political events to happen in recent history with the vote in the House of Representatives falling almost exactly along party lines. All Republicans voted against it along with just three democrats. As with most things there are two stories for each conflict. The Republicans said that nothing improper was done and the Democrats have brought articles of impeachment to bear so, obviously, the vast vast majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives think that he did in fact, do something wrong and illegal. Therein lies the question that I am interested in, not if something illegal was or was not done, but rather, Will It Change Anything

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With this clear and well defined split, many people, my self included, is there any room left for compromise? Those on the right say that this impeachment is setting a very dangerous precedent for future presidents. They are blaming that the president is being impeached and has committed no “High Crimes or Misdemeanors” as is outlined as the requirements for impeachment in the constitution. They say it cheapens the term “Impeachment” to nothing more than a public vote of no confidence as soon as the opposing party controls the House of Representatives. Many Republicans and Trump supporters feel that the Democrats are trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It has led to an “Us against Them” mentality. These Concerns are Just a Few of Many announced by Republicans as the impeachment has progressed.

 Image by Jeenah Moon

On the flip side of the coin are the Democrats. They espouse that their actions are completely constitutional, and are even a morally required act, that they did not want to impeach the president, but he had left them with no choice. Nancy Pelosi treated the day as a somber occasion, dressed in all black to deliver the news. Several prominent democratic law makers said that this was not a joyous occasion, but rather a day of sadness. Trump was likened to a dictator by Jerry Nadler, and Joe Kennedy said that the house had done its job.

The key piece of evidence that both parties are relying on is a Transcript  of the call to President Zelensky of Ukraine. The Republicans say that this transcript alone shows that there was no wrong doing and the Democrats see the transcript as damning. With both parties unable to agree if a law was broken in a phone call that there is a transcript of, can they agree on anything regarding the president? If they cannot, where does that leave us as a democracy with two warring factions at the helm of decisions that will impact every American, regardless of party affiliation.