Political Balance in a Democracy

We hear about the phenomenon of Donald Trump having such an unstoppable run to become a Republican candidate for president of the United States. Two of my good intelligent friends told me they will vote for him as they are staunch republicans. It is the kind of people who say anything is better than Hillary, or Obama was the worst thing that happened in the USA.   

One of these friends told me: "Sara, there is no justice there never was and there never will be justice." This may be true but it does not stop me from striving for justice, truth, knowledge. 

We are all proud to be part of the American democracy. How do we improve it?  I want to present some of my ideas of finding balance in our divided politics. 

People will tell you that capitalism is the reason for the economic success of this country. I can show you here where pure capitalism fails. By pure capitalism I mean judging every move by the immediate monetary returns. What is lacking in this policy is a long term vision of the economy and welfare of the citizens. Here are a few examples of where we can improve. 

Nutrition: We have large successful food companies that provide us with fully stacked supermarket shelves. There is no lack of food or malnutrition like in many other places in the world. The downside is that in order to maximize shelf life and so profits the packaged food is loaded with sugar, fat and salt. No one suspected that there is anything wrong with this. No one thought that we are losing balance here. There is over nutrition that our physiology is not equipped with defense mechanisms against it. So we have to deal with epidemic levels of high blood pressure, obesity, cancer. To find balance the food industries should have a minimum degree of social responsibility

Education: I am so lucky to have gotten my education for free back in 1960’s Israel!  Today in the US most people need to get college loans to complete their education and they are burdened with heavy debts when they start their career.  I am even hearing this idea that we do not have enough teachers and universities to give a college education to all.  This idea is completely out of balance.  We can put more people to work building more universities!  There is nothing as important and essential as passing knowledge to future generations.  Again: we need a long term policy!  In addition we now have the internet with an ever growing number of educational websites for every learning disability imaginable.  There is no reason whatsoever that anyone who wants to learn cannot learn!

Clean water and air:  For a balanced political policy clean air and water are essential.  The people who claim it is too expensive to switch from oil to solar energy have no long term vision.  There is abundance of water in the world.  We need all the bright brains to have the knowledge to develop better ways to deliver clean water to as many people as possible.

Health care: A viable democracy requires a healthy knowledgeable electorate.  I had many arguments with those who oppose affordable health care for all.  The last of their points was that we do not have enough doctors and hospitals to care for everyone.  Again there is no long term vision here.  Why did we get to this place?  Why can't we train more doctors?  Why can’t we put people to work building more hospitals? 

I believe in balance between conservative and liberal ideas, tradition and progress.  But if we have an uneducated poor electorate with no affordable health care, why are we surprised that Donald Trump is so ahead in the polls?  We now have citizens with limited education and questionable health overwhelmingly voting for Donald Trump. I wonder if they learned in school about the rise of Hitler.