If you’ve watched an election happen in a developed country in the past 10 years, you have probably noticed one thing “Education and healthcare!” No matter where you are in the world, the debate always boils down, in some form or another to education and healthcare, but why?
Many people when watching a political debate see issues such as immigration, taxation and infrastructure as one of the most important issues in our society. Yet, when these issues are brought up in debate, politicians turn the debate towards either education or healthcare.
This is often because the people plagued with bad education, or bad healthcare are in the most desperate situations. This means that when someone stands up on national TV and talks about how it is their moral duty to improve it for them, those people will vote for that politician!
The most notable people to do this in recent years have been people such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jeremy Corbyn.
As a general rule of thumb, the left-leaning parties (social-democrats, Labour party etc.) tend to focus on education and healthcare, as they pride themselves on being “By the people, for the people!”
But why exactly is there so much focus on education and healthcare?
It makes good publicity. Picture this, you wake up and check the news and see the headline “Politician X rows with Billionaire X on X policy!” Chances are, you are going to want to see what the whole interview boils down to: normally education or healthcare!
Normally, Politician X is rowing with Billionaire X about how they are the reason why there is no money in the health care system, or why school children are going without books because of something the billionaire did.
Normally, even if you don’t hold views that resonate with one of the two parties, they are quite funny. The politician normally blames the billionaire and gets more and more irate throughout the whole ordeal, and the billionaire just responds with “No.” for all the accusations.
During the 2019 UK General Election, John McDonnell (Labour politician) faced John Caudwell (Phones 4U founder).
It creates a party-loyal base of supporters. Imagine this, you are a poor person, who lives in ramshackle accommodation, you have very little education, and your children will get even less. And to top it all off, your local hospital is under-staffed, under-funded and under-supplied.
But then, some man, maybe from the next slum up, says “We are going to get rid of this ramshackle housing, build new affordable homes for the people who live there. We are also going to invest huge amounts into that local area, a new swimming pool, supermarket, gym, school, shopping center!” and the list just keeps on going!
You are probably going to be quite thankful to that party. In the next election, you will make a conscious effort to vote for that party. You might even tell your children about the living conditions before, and how they have improved so much thanks to that party.
This all creates loyalty. And those families that they saved, and gave them better lives, will return the favor by always voting for that party, every single election! There are still people who got free healthcare from Clement Atlee in 1946, who still vote Labour to this day!
Sympathy. Let’s imagine that you are a fairly well off (but not too well off) individual. You are usually undecided as to which party to vote for, and either abstain from voting, or just tick a random box when you get to the polling station.
But, you turn on your TV, and see a politician showing you pictures of starving children, who have a disease that is easily curable, who’s houses are falling apart, and he says “This is a disgrace! I will fix this!”
You, being the sympathetic individual you are, turns around and says “Education and healthcare are vital to this nation! I will vote to save those children from their lack of suitable accommodation, education and healthcare!” And thus, you vote for that party.
It’s already a divisive issue. Whether you live in the UK, and it’s free or the US and you need to pay for it, healthcare is a divisive issue. Many believe that the government has a duty to pay for the health of its citizens, but may also believe that it is the responsibility of the everyday citizen to foot the bill.
The same is true for education, many believe that everything to do with it should be footed by the government, whether it is supplies, books, teachers or whatever! But many believe that it is the role of government to subsidize schools, but the school itself needs to come up with the deficit.
So, when education and healthcare is taken to the national level, it divides the voting public. Are they for total government-controlled education and healthcare or are they for partial government-controlled education and healthcare?
Education and healthcare are compelling arguments. Due to the fact that it is so divisive in our society, they make for compelling arguments and attacks at the other parties and their leadership.
If a Labour MP and a Conservative MP (or a Democrat Senator and a Republican Senator) are having a debate, healthcare or education is the perfect tool.
They can talk about the other party’s use of false advertising of either education or healthcare, and ask them to explain why they and their party did that.
Politicians can also use education or healthcare in order to gain the upper hand over their political rival. They can use statistics by the national statistics agency of that country or other reliable sources in order to do one thing: gain clout.
One politician could say “Last year, 500,000 children went to school hungry! How does your party aim to combat this?” or something similar to do with healthcare (numbers are just random).
The other politician is then forced to give an official statement that their party has not discussed, in only a matter of seconds, or be politically doomed!
This helps to create loyalty (which we mentioned earlier!)
Do you think we missed anything about why education and healthcare are the go-to political debates? Tell us in the comments!