Politics: Why We Should Want the Best in the Opposing Party to Win

While it is normally wrong to assume that both sides are just as bad as the other one when it comes to a subject, there is something that I feel needs to be addressed as I have heard quite a baffling thing from voters of both parties. 

When my sister was posting on facebook about which Democrat they wanted to win the nomination in 2020, one of my relatives wanted someone who he felt would lose the election if he were the nominee or do terribly as president in the off chance that he won. Why would you want the other party to fail? We should want a president or any elected official of the other party to do well. I mean, this is our country that they are elected to lead and we wouldn’t want bad things to happen to this country just to see our opponents fail.

When I was talking to an uncle recently about the Republican primary for Missouri senate and how I felt that there were terrible candidates in it, he was wanting the man who waved guns at people to win the nomination as he felt that this would ensure that a Democrat would win this seat in the future. Again, this is an absurd thing to think and a risky choice.

Many people wanted Trump to win the Republican nomination in 2016 as they felt that he would have no chance of winning the election against a Democrat. But a bunch of dumb scandals and the fact that Hillary Clinton underestimated Trump made the idea that a horrible person winning the primary would lose the election wrong. This alone is reason why I, a Democrat, would be as okay with a good Republican winning as I would with a bad Democrat losing. I would be fooling myself if I felt that there are only good Democrats and no good Republicans. I’d be happy with a Republican like Larry Hogan being president and I’d want there to be no political future for the likes of a Democrat like Michael Madigan.

So if you ever hear someone of either side sharing the idea that they want failure for the other side, remind them that the other side is good in some ways and in the event that your own party were to lose, you’d want someone good on the other side instead. Why set up things for a loss when you should want success for your country, state, or other states? I want good people to win regardless of the party they are in and you should too.