What does “Politics” Mean to You?

From my experience, when people have discussed politics in front of me recently, the conversations consist mostly of what the two presidential candidates are going to do if they win. For the most part, with presidents of the modern era (and most eras of American history) it is the party and not the president that leads the country. In reality, it is what the party and the president are going to do–not what the president and the party are going to do.

A political party is a mechanism that makes governments run in democratic government systems. In short, the three main goals of a party are to: 1) Select/recruit the candidates that run for office; 2) help inform citizens of the party’s and candidate’s goals; and 3) influence government policy in order to develop favorable and beneficial policies for the party and its constituents. Although the office of the president is an extremely important office, the origin of its importance has become a symbolic one. The president’s decisions and actions are formulated long before he enters office and are dictated by the party’s agenda and goals. A candidate’s biggest asset to the party is his ability to draw voters for his party and help persuade those voters to see his party’s vision through potential policies and changes in the status quo of the country. This is so because the party is able to stand for something more definitive, hard and concrete when it comes to current issues. When the president stands too hard on an issue, he becomes an easy target for scrutiny as well as a public target for grievances and scapegoat for troubling economic times.

The definition of politics is a struggle for power, and this power is not something to be thought of as light or generic. The struggle for power is the power to lead a nation into an unknown future, to find solutions and policies that work, and to bring the country prosperity and peace. I just think that too many people get caught up in the generic notions they know and hear about candidates, as well as the flashes of information they receive from petty and ignorant attack ads that throw around distorted statistics on the T.V screen. They don’t realize the lack of information they have about what government is and what it is established for, beyond having laws and police to enforce it.

In the end, politics provides and allows opportunities for leaders we have elected to take their offices and do well for the general welfare of their constituents, no matter the size or depth of them.