by In our society today there is a battle between the views of political parties. Certain political parties view topics in one manner and the other majority party views the same political matter in another. In the United States today, this is most often seen through the two majority parties in the country, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Differences between the party can be most basically summed down to the Democratic Party being a party who wants more human rights and governmental regulations enforced and leans liberal, whereas the Republican party is seen as the party of less governmental regulations and leans conservative. But today, as COVID-19 is hitting the United States we see that science is becoming a political matter where Democrats are taking the side of science and the Republican party is taking the side of maintaining our free market economy and keeping our country open.
The most prominent example of not recognizing science is the Republican Party refusing to recognize the importance of mask wearing. In the Presidential Town Hall held on NBC news network hosted by Savannah Guthrie, President Donald Trump, the leader of the Republican Party, said that masks are not necessarily important to stop the spread of Coronavirus. Trump cited a study done at Stanford to back up his claim saying that not all scientists were in conclusion about the effectiveness of mask wearing. We are also seeing across the country that states that have Republican Governors are not mandating mask wearing and have opened up their states to a higher degree than those with Democratic Governors. Mask wearing has become a political issue in the United States instead of a health issue where we all recognize that wearing a mask saves lives.
The Democratic Party, contrarily, recognizes what science is recognizing as the best way to stop the spread of the Coronavirus and ensure the safety of the American people. The leader of the Democratic Party, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is currently running for President of the United States has consistently said that he will support what scientists and medical experts believe would be the best way to handle the virus. He has been met with backlash from the Republican Party on this issue as they believe that shutting down cities will lead to our economy crashing and the closing of small business across the country. Science is selectively chosen to be ignored due to the greater economic factors that may be at play.
Science should not be ignored even if it means helping the American economy. In other scenarios outside of COVID-19 science has been ignored to help American corporate interests. A prime example is climate change. The United States recently moved out of the Paris Agreement which was designed to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change. President Donald Trump who led the United States out of the accords said from the White House Rose Garden on June 1, 2017 that the agreement, if implemented, would cost the United States $3 trillion lost in GDP and 6.5 million jobs. But what we must also recognize is that our planet needs to also be protected and we cannot ignore climate change as it will lead to the deterioration of our plant.
Science should not be a politized matter. Rather we should always recognize the science that is present in decision making and look to see how these decisions will affect the economy, the people of the country and others. But we cannot simply ignore science like President Trump who does not believe in the studies that have proven mask wearing to be effect against protecting citizens and the Paris Accords on Climate Change to be counterproductive to American interests. Rather science and American political interests such as a strong economy, more jobs, and a healthy citizenry should be taken in tandem. All of these factors should go into policy implementation to create the best decisions for the American people and our country as a whole.
Sources:
- https://www.cnn.com/style/article/why-democrats-are-donkeys-republicans-are-elephants-artsy/index.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3wE7MO1uSw&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=TheWhiteHouse