An immigrant calls for the great American aspiration

By Shengya Li
Washington – At the time the 2018 midterm election, many voters had made their minds on voting on whom they believed that could represent their benefits. Abhishek Patel, a senior public-health major student, calls for the great American aspiration. “The biggest issue I think America is facing now is that no one wants to work with others.” Patel said, “Nobody is actually aspiring any higher American ideal.”

Patel is originally from Harare, Zimbabwe, and now a US green card holder. Even though he does not have the right to vote for whom he supports, he certainly pays close attention to it. His major concern to the country isn’t about any policies that the administration has now, but about the cooperation between different political parties. Patel believed that the major issue that the U.S. has now is the divisiveness within the population, that two parties are no longer the two sides of the same team, but become two different teams and act as rivals.

“I think one thing that affects every issue across the board is that the political parties are not cooperating,” said Patel. He says he thinks that the political parties are not working together to solve these problems that the country had.

The main issue that concerns him personally, is the health insurance issue. According to what Patel said, he was not qualified for DC Medicaid, so he can only get it from the Affordable Care Act. However, it is not working as he expected, because he still pays a relatively high premium, but the insurance doesn’t really cover anything that he needs.

He strongly disagrees with President Trump’s policies and his working ethics. Patel said, “I think Donald Trump lands on one extreme. He’s the prototypical person who doesn’t want to work with anyone else across the aisle.” Many of president Trump’s actions confirmed Patel’s assumption of “the opposite of cooperation”, such as attacking the press, attacking people in the judicial branch and legislative branch of the government. His dislikeness to Trump will be a big factor in how he picks which candidate he would vote for if he could.

“We should all aspire for the greater American ideal, by cooperating. That’s why we should all vote,” said Patel.

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