If anyone is most susceptible to bandwagoning, it's our generation. The millennials, the young adults, the college kids, the ones all trying to figure out how to "adult" at this point in our lives. So it's no surprise that many people our age just hop onto whatever political bandwagon sounds attractive to them, and don't often think of the consequences it could have later in life. Either that or they just don't vote because they think it's too overwhelming to keep up with all of the news.
Many people, even highly educated ones, don't always understand what the political parties stand for. Like, what's the difference between being a Fascist, Conservative, Republican, Libertarian, Democrat, Liberal, Socialist or Communist anyways? Hopefully, I'll be able to clarify that for you a little today.
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If you get too right-winged, you dip into fascism and that's how an oligarchy can form. Aka, large privatized corporations controlling the government. This how the wage gap between the top 1 percent and bottom 99 percent gets widened even more and the wealthy end up controlling the company and the country. Republican beliefs are a very watered-down version of this idea. They're fans of less government involvement, more privatized companies, and strong on constitutional rights.
If you go too far left, you're basically stepping into communism. Where the government owns all of the businesses and nothing is private and all of the people work for the government for the same wages, same benefits, etc. To some, this may sound like an attractive idea, but looking back this has only historically worked in very small countries. Democratic beliefs have similar ideals, just again not anywhere near as extreme. They favor more government involvement and more government impositions on what you are or are not allowed to do. Thus our free market economy is a stake and will eventually no longer be able to be called a free market. Oh, and historically like taxing more than the Republican party.
Socialism is essentially "soft communism." This is where the "share the wealth" views lies. The workers are the "owners" of the businesses and the government still, has it's hand in more than it should. Sure, closing the gap sounds like a great idea in theory. But when you realize that to close it, they are going to raise taxes and minimum wage, it's not a plausible idea. Those who have college educations and have worked hard and been blessed to get where they are financially (aka six figure and above salaries) will be taxed significantly more than those who don't have educations and are living just above the poverty line. The tax money from the former group will get re-distributed and essentially given to those at/below the poverty line so they have a higher income even if they don't have a job.
Libertarian-ism is based on the ideals of "Fiscally conservative, socially liberal." They stand for lower taxes that are more equal across the board and have fiscal ideas closer to those of Republicans and Conservatives. As far as social issues, the Libertarian party stands more for free will. If you want to be religious, be religious. If you want to be LGBT+, go ahead and marry whoever you want. If you want to own a gun, by all means, own one. Just don't go around shoving your personal views in people's faces if they don't ask. If you want more info on this party, head over to Gary Johnson's website. (If you don't know who Gary Johnson is, he's the third party candidate in this upcoming election. If you don't like what either Trump or Clinton stands for, I would strongly suggest reading up on him. He's currently got the biggest pull of any third party candidate like, ever.)
Anyways, I really hope this article helped you get a better understanding of what the parties stand for, and don't forget to exercise your right and your free will to vote in this election!
