From the Jan. 6 riots in 2021 to President Donald Trump being grazed by a bullet during a rally, it’s safe to say that the past few years, especially during the 2024 elections season, were the most divided our country has ever been. However, when exploring why citizens were so divided, the answer goes beyond just the general dislike we have for each other. The reason why we feel so strongly about a certain candidate is because of the stance they have on the issues that we feel are the most important — or rather just a single issue that we hold to the highest priority. According to NBC News, issues such as abortion, the economy and immigration were reason enough to determine a voter’s ballot. The determinant factor of just a single issue was what seemed to convince undecided voters to essentially blindly pick the candidate that seemed to solve those problems in the 2024 election.
This mindset that is widely present in the voting demographic in our country is called “single-issue voting” — when a citizen bases their vote on just one issue instead of looking at the wide scope of issues and policies that a candidate stands for. When we focus on just one issue when deciding who to vote into office, we often overlook the parts of a candidate’s campaign that could potentially harm our society. 
The only people in our society who truly benefit from single-issue voting are the politician themselves. Single-issue voting is often a weapon utilized by politicians in order to convince more undecided voters to vote for them. In the 2024 election, candidate Kamala Harris’s campaign put emphasis on three issues — abortion, foreign policy and the economy.
According to a poll from NBC News, 24% of Democrats said they would base their entire vote on abortion. In doing so, they remain unaware of the other aspects of Harris’ campaign, such as her statement that fracking would not be banned.
Regardless of whether fracking — an oil drilling process that can have serious environmental effects — should be banned or not, most Harris supporters continue to claim to prioritize climate change. It is so easy for us to pay attention to only certain aspects of a candidate’s politics because that is often the only narrative that is pushed forwards by our politicians. Unfortunately, politicians have been and will continue to take advantage of this campaigning technique — so it’s up to individuals to remain educated on this tactic, which unfortunately most people aren’t.
To rely on a politician to give us an accurate rundown on what we would be voting for is ignorance at its finest. We refuse to fully educate ourselves on a candidate’s platform because it is simply easier to look out for the issues and policies that impact us rather than to think about society holistically. The recent surge of voting just for ourselves rather than for our society as a whole can be reflected in the reasons why a majority of American citizens voted for President Trump in the 2024 elections.
When asked why they voted for Trump, undecided voters in swing states ultimately chose Trump because they prioritized issues such as the economy and immigration, like many others in the 2024 election show in a poll by Pew Research Center. However, the same poll found that just 18% of Trump voters deemed racial inequality as an important issue to address. When these undecided voters in the 2024 elections voted for Trump, they prioritized the issues that impacted them the most, like the economy. In doing so, they ignored racial inequalities that are present in our society because they deemed the issue not a priority. In looking out for only ourselves, we choose to stay ignorant and uneducated about the problems that impact our society as a whole.
However, voting for a candidate that was chosen because of their stance on just one issue risks giving an individual power that harms other parts of our society. Around 93% of Trump voters prioritized the economy when casting their ballot and around 83% prioritized immigration policies, issues that President Trump has continuously emphasized in his campaign. However, in doing so, they have also voted for the U.S to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Just a couple of hours after he was elected into office, President Trump signed an executive order that officially withdrew the U.S. as a participant in the WHO, citing that the organization handled the COVID-19 pandemic poorly and its overall inability to make reforms. However, this remains untrue as the WHO aided in progressing issues such as smallpox, polio and other medical issues that our world faces today. The WHO also works to improve malnutrition rates and vaccination rates around the world, especially in underfunded areas. The U.S. withdrawing will not have impact in our country but in countries all around the world that rely on wealthy countries, like the U.S. aiding the WHO. MAGA supporters aside, the rest of the people who voted for Trump voted because of single issues such as economy and immigration, remaining ignorant to the other policies he would implement.
In a broader sense, single-issue voting is a main contributor to the political gap that the U.S. faces today. If we just took the steps needed in order to maintain a broader view of politics and to avoid single-issue voting, many of the issues that we face today could have a chance of improving.
However, that begins with us, even MVHS students, taking action now. The most important step that we can take is ensuring that we remain educated about current events and political developments. Being educated about our surroundings goes beyond just reading the news. We need to take the extra step of understanding the nuances and history behind the issues that we face today. When we complete these two steps, we will be able to understand that policies impact certain groups of people in different ways. Furthermore, we will be able to recognize that single-issue voting is an unreliable method of casting a vote that could impact our world for the next four years.
