In the age of Fake News, it can be hard to understand what’s going on politically, and even harder to understand our political candidates. Between the clips we see of the debates, Twitter rants and the less helpful interviews, understanding what this year’s presidential candidates stand for can seem almost impossible. To help you dig through the mess of conflicting articles,  I’ve highlighted some of this year’s most pressing issues and each of the candidate’s stances, so you may more thoroughly understand who you are choosing to support.

Police Brutality

    Back in May of this year the unjust killing of George Floyd by the hands of law enforcement caused nationwide protests and demands for political change from many Americans. The Republican candidate, current president Donald Trump, response to the issue has been to support law enforcement and “maintain law and order,” as stated by Trump in a White House press conference. In response to this summer’s protest, Trump signed an executive order to allocate funds for force training and creating a national database of police misconduct records. Democratic candidate Joe Biden, if elected, plans to expand and use the justice department to investigate more acts of systematic police misconduct and hate crimes. Unlike other Democrats, he does not believe in defunding the police. Instead, Biden plans on investing $300 million in re-educating and retraining police. He also pledges to use $20 million on crime prevention policies.

Epidemic Response.

    The coronavirus has been one of the most pressing issues of 2020, with the American death toll rising every day. Biden plans on combating the pandemic with his 7-point Covid-19 plan. This plan consists of making nationwide free covid tests, having consistent nationwide regulations based on CDC guidelines and plans to make healthcare more widely available. According to one of Biden’s advisors Vivek Murthy, he believes that “You would see an approach that’s driven by science and by scientists,” Murthy said. While Trump has not yet released a full plan to combat Covid-19 if reelected, his biggest priority right now is to reopen the country. Trump plans to do this by distributing a widely available vaccine by the end of this year. Although the production of this vaccine has yet to be confirmed. 

Immigration

    Combating immigration has always been an important issue to Trump and his campaign, with his promised wall along the American-Mexican border being one of the most well known policies of his 2016 platform. While the plan to make his wall has yet to come to fruition, in his second term Trump plans to secure funding and finish the border wall. He also plans on continuing to tighten border security and a crackdown on sanctuary cities that have opposed federal immigration policy. Biden’s plan for immigration is to reverse many of Trump’s current policies that have been established during the past four years. For example, Biden plans on stopping the construction of the border wall, eliminating the process of separating immigrant families at the US border and reinstating DACA.