Perspectives from Drew faculty and staff experts
November 2024 – With the charged 2024 Presidential Election fast approaching, Drew University faculty and staff have weighed in to provide perspectives and insights from their areas of expertise.
Jonathan Golden, Associate Teaching Professor in Religious Studies and Director, Center of Religion, Culture & Conflict
What is your perspective of this election?
As my colleagues have stated, our country is extremely polarized right now with a lot of people believing that their most dearly held values are at stake. Going even further, certain groups feel that their very well being in this country is on the line. That’s frightening.
The one specific point I’ll add is how alienating the electoral college feels, and sadly, that is by design. We’ve now had five elections where the candidate who more Americans voted for did not become president. And in this election perhaps more than ever, those of us who live in “solid blue” or “solid red” feel left out of the whole process. When we treat the election as if only seven states matter, that’s a problem.
What would you say to people on either side of the aisle who are concerned about the outcome?
Personally, I prefer to take a proactive approach. Sitting and watching the polls can help us feel informed and thus maybe more in control(?), but considering how inaccurate projections have been in the last few years, I have made a conscious decision to pay less attention to polls. And I think passively sitting and watches polls and pundits only makes us more anxious. I suppose this unexpected news about an Iowa poll may address the problem I mentioned above, that more states are in play and we should not feel so disenfranchised.
But for me, I like to take action. In a democracy, we only have one vote per person, but there is so much more we can all do. We in New Jersey live less than one hour from the battleground of all battleground states. So I have spent much of my last few weekends traveling to Pennsylvania to canvas for the candidate that I am supporting, knocking on doors, putting up lawn signs, writing and mailing postcards. My parents taught me this by taking me out on the campaign trail when I was just a little boy, and I am doing the same with my kids. This way, you feel even more invested in the outcome: If you win, you can truly celebrate your hard work; if you lose, you can say at least we really tried. I know this comes as late advice, but I recommend trying this. It is a sacred right that we have an our Democracy and exercising this right is the surest way to preserve it.