Dear Editor,
In late 2018 Michael Barber and Jeremy C. Pope Of Brigham Young University conducted a social experiment suggesting partisan identification lies with party rather than policy.
It is an intriguing study, which is easily found online.
Perhaps we could take advantage of these findings to help us find political common ground?
For example, take any issue that concerns the voters.
Generally speaking, each political party forms a platform on said issue and voters generally support the party they affiliate with.
The Barber-Pope study suggests that voters tend to blindly support their party, rather than the policy itself.
What if – instead, that same issue was somehow presented to political leaders and experts.
Except instead of your typical fighting across the floor, a solution was collaborated anonymously?
Some sort of forum could be created that would facilitate a back and forth of ideas?
Policy ideas could be presented, countered, researched, and presented again – by people from across the political spectrum.
Solutions could be hammered out without knowing which political persuasion the input was coming from.
Ideally it might produce collaborative (bi-tri?) partisan proposals or even solutions. This way voters could examine ideas and policy without attachment to any party.
Maybe, this way the voters could look at ideas, policies, and proposed solutions with an unbiased viewpoint.
Michelle Matich, Langley
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