Whether we identify with being a Democrat, Republican, or Independent we all as people will support the nominee that we believe will implement the best possible changes and policies as they relate to us. Upon this thought, one thing has become very clear in the 2016 election: as a nation, we are beginning to lose respect for one another due to a single aspect of another's opinion.
In 1964, Lynden Johnson transcended the times and passed the Civil Right's act, granting all people the same basic rights regardless of their skin color or ethnicity. Since then, America has advanced astronomically in this field, with an African American president who is only 3 weeks away from ending his second term in office.
The question of what we believe individually often differs with what we believe as a group, which becomes controversial when one must justify one over the other. In this election, people have become engulfed with an enormous amount of pride over their party's nominee but within the same breath, also angry at the opposing candidates and their supporters. For someone who aligns with a particular candidate, attacking their party feels as though the person themselves is quite well being attacked too.
Our first amendment right is Freedom of Speech, granting all people the chance to say what they think and believe. This has been the main cause of uproar during the election because not all people are seeing eye to eye and in response are cutting contact with or criticizing each other.
Multiple media outlets have given people the chance to voice their political opinions over the election but it has also given ALL people the chance to prove that they are indeed right. Similar to debates over religion, politics can be sticky and quite often cause people on differing sides of a spectrum to loose their sense of similarity.
Regardless of who you vote for, or if you do, there is no reason to attack those who differ from you. As humans we all breathe the same air, look for the same things, and maintain the sense of feeling inadequate. The big difference is that we have our own minds, giving us the chance to think for ourselves. To this day, there is no law in America forbidding an individual of the right to see things in the way that they do. Therefore, nobody has the right to take away the legitimacy of another person's views.
As Americans, we seem to pride ourselves on being unique in that we give all people the equal chance to succeed and be happy. In this election, I hope we can rekindle this idea in our minds and unite on more than political terms, but as human beings living in the same nation as well world.
