I was scrolling through my Tumblr the other day when I came across a post that read something along the lines of: “Saying “Don’t fight hate with hate” is subtle gaslighting”. Google defines “gaslight” as “manipulating (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity”. I read this and all of a sudden I realized why people took us hippie tree hugging liberals as a joke. How on Earth does someone from my generation find the time and ability to twist a simple phrase like “don’t fight hate with hate” into something to be offended by?
After being totally baffled by this I scrolled through Facebook to find a video with some guy named Tim in it. He was, well, angry. He blamed his party, the democratic party, for letting Donald Trump win the presidency. One of the lines he spoke that really hit home with me was “being offended isn’t enough any more.” He talks on about how democrats need to engage in politics. We need to debate and try to convince people that we are right instead of sitting around and thinking ourselves superior to the other party. I found myself agreeing with him. What good is sitting around and throwing names at the other party? Yes, some republicans might be racists and some of them might be homophobic, but most of them just want to fix the country as much as we do! What are we democrats doing when we let our candidates turn into people like Hillary Clinton? It was awesome that a woman was running for president, it really was, but she wasn’t the only one (nor the first one)!
Most politicians that you talk to will tell you that if Bernie Sanders had been the democratic nominee there is a high probability we wouldn’t have Donald Trump as our President-Elect.I just want to say that my fellow democrats, the heart bleeding liberals I know, really need to quit sitting around and blaming things on other people. There are billions of people in the world who face prejudice everyday and we know about it. All I am asking is that instead of saying “I am offended. This is discrimination. Why is this happening?” talk to people and explain to them why you’re offended. Work to stop the discrimination and give people a reason to change things. Otherwise, nothing is ever going to and we will end up in the same place we have always been.
