Election 2020

What’s Important to Gow students About the 2020 Electon By: Kent S.

The 2020 election season has been intense. Several students at Gow wanted to know more about the candidate’s platforms, so I decided to do some reasearch. Here’s what I found.

Gun regulation

In the U.S., over the past few years there has been an increase of gun related issues, from classrooms to Walmart shopping centers, the talk about firearm are very important at this time. The Republican party, alongside President Trump fear that gun restrictions infringe on the Second Amendment rights of the American people. In response to the Parkland shooting of 2018, Trump proposed arming teachers with firearms in classrooms. But this idea was not popular in teachers’ unions according to Matt Peace of the LA Times. However in 2019, after the El Paso shooting, Trump showed some interest in expanding background checks for a person that may by a high risk of committing violence according to Peace.

Joseph Biden has been fighting for gun regulation for years: in 1993, he helped passed the law that introduced the existing backgroundcheck system. Biden has also had plans for universal background checks and bans on magazines that contained more than 10 bullets state wide according to Peace. Although these plans did not go through the first time, we may see these ideas return if Biden gets elected President.

Healthcare

According to Selena Simmons-Duffin of NPR, Trump’s administration has made some major changes to healthcare in the past four years. Changes include eliminating individual mandates, allowing states to add “work requirements” to Medicaid, ending cost-sharing reduction subsidies to insurers, expanding access to short-term “skinny” plans, and slashing funds to facilitate HealthCare.gov sign-ups. Another thing Trump has done for healthcare is supplying $225 million for testing in health clinics relating to Covid-19 and offered funding for 185 healthcare providers in 38 states according to Nick Tate from WedMD. Trump has done for has supplied $225 million for testing in health clinics relating to Covid-19 and offered funding for 185 healthcare providers in 38 states according to Nick Tate of WedMD.

Biden wants to protect the ACA, an act passed during his tenure in the Obama administration. Biden offers that no family would have to spend more than 8.5 percent of their income on health insurance according to Tate. The previous average families are currently paying for is 9.86% of their income according to WebMD. Biden has developed a five-pronged plan to address pandemic consisting of free testing to all, the guarantee of PPE for essential workers, supporting of science-backed vaccines, making sure the reopen will be safe after “sufficient” reductions in community transmission, and to safeguard at-risk Americans especially the old and high-risk population.

Libertarian Party candidate, Jo Jorgensen (above). Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins (below).

The mental health of the candidates

The two candidates are both over 70 years old and both have done things to make people suggest something may be happening with their mental state. Trump has been called out for making frequent mistakes as he speaks, and even called out for inventing statistics and facts in his speeches according to YahooNews. They also say that he's even mixed up his father place of birth saying it was Germany when in fact it was the Bronx.

On the other hand, while traveling to South Africa, Biden made a false statement claiming that he was “arrested on the streets of Soweto” when in fact he was just detained at an airport.

Other Candidates

Even though it is likely that we may see next president be someone from the Republican or Democratic party let's talk about two other party that are have candidates that are running. The Libertarian Party and the Green Party.

The Libertarian Party’s candidate is Jo Jorgensen. Jorgensen’s platform focuses on reducing healthcare costs, criminal justic reform, cutting taxes, reducing government borrowing, giving parents greater control over their children’s education according to Jorgensen’s official campaign website.

The Libertarian Party has some features that are both Democratic and Republicanism ideas, like modern liberalism and progressivism of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party's conservatism.

The Green Party's candidate is Howie Hawkins. Hawkins’ platform focuses on Medicare for all, COVID-19 relief, the Green New Deal, Community control of the police, sustainable agriculture and food systems, developing an economic bill of rights, ending endless wars, and legalizing marijuana according to Hawkins’ official campaign website.

The Green Party also has their own form of four pillars. Their pillars are “Peace and Non-violence, Ecological Wisdom, Grassroots Democracy, and Social Justice, and our Ten Key Values” according to Green Party’s official website.

Whoever it is, one of these candidates are going to be the 2020 president-elect. There has never been a perfect candidate, but in the end, it is up to the American people to decide.