Kaity Marquis

One of the biggest questions of the 2020 presidential race is who will be the running mate of the Democratic presidential nominee. As of January 2020, seven names have been mentioned as potential vice presidential candidates for the Democratic Party, none of whom attempted to win the presidential bid [1]. However, running mates are chosen after a nominee from each party is determined. This gives individuals seen as party leaders a chance to team up, even after going head to head for the nomination within their primary. Because of this, it is not completely out of the question that the ticket for the democrat party will feature two candidates who are currently vying for the oval office.

As of 2018, there are nearly seventy-five million refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons (I.D.P.s), returned refugees, returned I.D.P.s, and stateless persons. Anyone falling into one of these categories is classified by the United Nations as a “person of concern” [1]. To put this into perspective, the number of persons of concern worldwide could simultaneously fill every N.F.L. stadium thirty-four times over. In the last fifteen years, the number of refugees alone has more than doubled, reaching over twenty-five million refugees throughout the world. While each of these categories vary in technical differences, there is one commonality between all of them: they are human beings without a safe home. The refugee crisis cannot be limited to their regions of origin, as this issue spans across national borders.

The framers get credit for building a foundation of government that limits corruption through a refined system of checks and balances. Still, none of the branches are party-proof, and an increase of polarization causes even the judicial branch, meant to be “above politics,” to fall subject to the partisan battlefield in our country today.

Our nation’s greatest times are often associated with the nation’s leaders. George Washington miraculously led revolutionary rebels to victory and exhibited the characteristics of a true leader by stepping down after two terms. Monuments stand in remembrance of Abraham Lincoln’s wise decisions preserved the future of the United States. JFK served less than three years, yet people still glorify his invitation to push the country to new limits and associate that era with a better age for the nation. Individuals who outrightly oppose Lincoln or JFK’s political policies honor these men as some of the greatest to have ever lived. Why then, is a leader’s policy more valuable than their characteristics when we reflect on what has truly made America great? Often, when criticizing the polarized state of this country, we cite the advice George Washington gave in his farewell address to abstain from political parties. He warned, “[political parties] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people” [1]. Over two hundred years have passed, and the very structure by which constituents elect candidates is reliant on political parties.