Make more room in politics

Following last Monday’s mayoral debate at the School of Media and Communication, a university publication put out a timely opinion piece on political engagement.

The author claimed today’s voters are not honoring their power of democracy and ability to vote, therefore, they make a “mockery” of the system by jokingly pledging their support for celebrity candidates via social media. The author used artist and entrepreneur Kanye West’s presidential bid as the focus of her argument.

Who better to attack than the man who gets enough hate directed toward him on a daily basis to rival the President himself? A man, who in my opinion despite every effort he makes to make the world better, continuously gets disrespected by society.

The author decided not to attack any other musicians who have announced their “candidacy” such as Waka Flocka Flame or any comedians who’ve made a niche out of running for office in their routines like Vermin Supreme.

All defense for Kanye aside, stunt campaigns are nothing new and are far from the biggest problem in today’s political engagement issue.

At Monday’s debate less than half of the venue was full, despite it being the final debate of the election cycle and a near guarantee that one of the people on the stage will become the most powerful person in the city of Philadelphia in a matter of months. Several classes even offered extra credit for attendance to the event, but still the building failed to reach even half capacity.

There is a class at Temple taught by former mayor of Philadelphia, John F. Street, called Government and Community Advocacy. The course objective is to encourage students to become more involved in government, giving them a better perspective on the local political scene with anecdotes from the professor’s experience in city hall, a city council budget simulation and frequent guest speakers.

The most recent guest speaker in the class was former mayoral candidate Sam Katz. Katz believed the reason voters have been turned off from politics are the language and matter in the issues. “If these problems are not going to be discussed and analyzed in morsels that people can understand, they’re not going to care,” said Katz.

Katz noticed in recent debates on all levels of government candidates have failed to clearly communicate the importance of issues and their solutions to them to all voters.

“This is an election where almost nothing is being talked about,” said Katz about Monday’s debate.

The professor himself, Street, believes the biggest problem with political engagement is that not enough people from the younger generation are willing to stand up and try to run for office themselves. He has made a note of this every time a guest speaker has come to his class.

Voters will be more interested in candidates who can speak to them in a manner they will understand. The same logic applies to potential candidates from new generations. Young citizens are stifled by the today’s political world and therefore pass on involvement.

Despite Philadelphia’s huge millennial population of approximately 476,000, only one millennial holds office in the city today. And despite the city’s total population of 1.5 million, 455,000 registered voters are inactive.

Going back to the article, yes, there is an issue in today’s voter engagement and an argument can be made that stunt campaigns make the system look bad, but the system is bad.

There is a solution to the issue and it is not by tearing down celebrities and other unorthodox candidates, it is by welcoming in new perspectives and rethinking public policy as a whole.