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In the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election, the incumbent Joe Biden (D) is running against his predecessor Donald Trump (R). If this election seems familiar, that’s because it features the same two candidates from the 2020 election. By the way, Trump is 77 and Biden is 81, making them the oldest nominees in a presidential election for their respective parties.
It is astonishing that in four years, both parties could not come up with new nominees with fresh ideas whose health isn't a concern like Joe Biden’s. I understand why Biden had to step up to the plate in 2020; the country was heavily divided with the BLM Movement and the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Democratic Party needed a moderate figure with experience in politics to appeal to moderate conservatives who were not fond of Trump at the time. As far as I’m concerned, Biden was supposed to be the “lesser of two evils,” but I never thought he was anyone’s favorite. Many young voters, including myself, are confused as to why he is up on the podium again.
In this file photo from 2020, President Biden and then-President Donald Trump participate in the second and final presidential debate of that election.
Morry Gash/AP
Although I could not vote during the 2020 election, the consensus I reached was that Joe Biden would be the guy to solve the COVID-19 crisis before it got worse. I never thought of him as a long-term solution. Truth be told, due to his age, I was not even sure he would make it through the whole term. Now that I am of voting age, I am very disappointed to see that Joe Biden is on the ballot yet again because the Democrats could not muster up a stronger candidate. He does not appeal to me as a young voter. He has made many false promises, and I can speak for many young Americans of color when I say that the way he handled the situation in Gaza has deterred me from voting for him. Although I do not identify with the two-party system, I tend to be left-leaning, which normally would have put me in the direction of voting for Biden. However, I will have to ignore this inclination as it would breach my personal values at this point. This being said, I am also in no rush to vote for Trump, as I did not agree with many of his policies, and I feel that he would do an even worse job handling the situation in Gaza.
So where does this put me? As much as I do not want to vote for either candidate, I also realize that the last thing young voters like myself should be doing is abstaining from voting. After all, part of the reason why the concerns of my generation are not properly voiced in policy is simply because we, as a voting bloc, do not actually vote. It’s quite the paradox: young people do not feel properly represented, so they do not vote. Yet, because they do not vote, they do not get the luxury of being represented.
This paradox is not the fault of young people; it is a greater criticism of the two-party system that does not allow for a diversity of thought. It sticks the two parties with their respective opposing ideologies, so it is rare to find a candidate that supports both liberal and conservative issues at the same time. Nations where multiple political parties have gained power allow the citizens to have more choice in who they want to elect, rather than feeling like they are settling all the time. Though third-party candidates do exist in the U.S. and do garner votes, it is never even close to being a point of serious contention. A vote for a third-party candidate is seen as a waste in the eyes of the election, but as a method of exercising free speech and protest against the system, it will serve as a viable option for me.
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Article written by Harman Singh Kohli
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