By Erica Gustafson, Staff Writer
As the 2020 presidential election rapidly approaches, voters understand that not everyone will be happy with the results. That is why political parties push for their selected candidate as the race continues forward. It is important to vote and inject yourself into the election process, but the end will result in one candidate winning and another losing. You cannot fight that the system works the way it does.
Once a president starts his term in office typically opposing voters emphasize their disagreements and anger that their candidate lost. On occasion they protest and put personal efforts to make their disagreements known by all who may listen.
Just like others who appear in your life, not all people are going to agree on one specific candidate that they feel is best for taking the seat in the oval office. However, even with these disagreements, fighting the system and those in power may fail and set back progress that could be made by government elected officials.
According to research from the Heritage Foundation in December 2019, Democrats had spent at least $3 million of taxpayer money to pursue the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. This money includes covering the costs of lawyers involved in different aspects of the case and the staff time spent on preparing for multiple hearings. This total did not include the executive branch expenses, travel costs for witnesses and other supplies that were used.
The entire impeachment process proceeded for four months and ended with President Donald Trump being found not guilty for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Understandably, people will not agree with everything the president does but does that justify spending millions of taxpayer money on trials? No president in the history of the United States has completed a term free of mistakes and the government monitors the decisions and actions of the executive branch. This monitoring can help prevent the president from making huge mistakes that can have many negative consequences.
When it comes to other smaller disagreements between the president and U.S. citizens, there should be fewer arguments and more compromising and working together to create solutions. The four-month impeachment process sparked voters’ anger towards the president. People began protesting Trump’s actions and his character as a whole. He has made some mistakes while in office but fighting is not always the right solution.
If voters and government representatives spent even half that time working alongside President Trump to make positive changes, the government could have worked out issues that are still being debated. Communication could have increased within the separate government branches and officials could have taken Trump’s original ideas and worked to alter them to make a greater positive impact on the majority population.
Political solutions take a lot of time and energy to get where they need to be. It is not always best to push important issues on the “back burner” when dealing with disagreements between people.
gustafea18@bonaventure.edu
