Today my heart grieves for the millions of souls who feel hopeless in the light of this election. My heart grieves for a non-existent America that we strive for but cannot obtain, in which there is equality, tolerance, and an abundance of respect for the lives and beliefs of others. My heart grieves for the discouraged voters, losing their faith in the idea of democracy. But above all, I think I grieve most over our blindness as a nation.
I was trying to keep up with the election results and every single news source I found was foreign. Britain was responding. France was responding. Australia, Canada, Germany and Russia were all responding. I was keeping up with the polls via BBC's website, because I couldn’t' find a US based website right away that had a visual representation of the votes and live updates. At first I didn't think much of it, I watch BBC shows, I have access to BBC from my home, I sometimes forget that it isn't an American news source or entertainment network. But the fact that I was getting more information on our election from another country's website than I was from our own sources now bothers me.
The amount of attention our election gleans from around the world shocked me. I had always been told that America was a power player in global politics and that the rest of the world watches us closely, but never had it occurred to me that we as a nation do not extend the same courtesy to the world's politics. Our nation rarely looks outside of itself long enough to understand international politics. To us, Brexit was a twitter hashtag and something to chat about with your Poli-Sci major friend who always seems to be in the know. There is a presidential election in France right now that I doubt the average American is following or aware of. I tuned in to all of these broadcasts, media sources, social media networks and I was blown away by the passionate opinions held by those around the world on our election. I realize that there are domestic problems and matters of national finance and security that are prioritized, but it seems unacceptable to me that a country with so much impact on the world knows nothing about the world. Never before had I considered being educated on the politics of another country simply because it wasn’t my country. I didn't care what happened elsewhere as long as things back home seemed stable. As I grow older though and begin to formulate my own opinions on social and political issues, I see that this process of thinking is very problematic.
Regardless of the candidate you voted for, regardless of the outcome of the election, there were choices made by the people of America. Sides were taken, ballots were cast, and we must pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off to refocus for the future. American politics affect far more than just America, whether we want to believe it or not. If we are going to brag about being a "great" country and a world contender, it's time we start acting like it. America can never be great so long as its people are uneducated on the politics of the nation and in relation to the politics of the globe. It's high time we get our noses out of the air and start paying attention. Wake up America, blind belief is no longer acceptable. The issues that other countries face mirror ours- racism and sexism aren't American issues they're human issues. Economic development doesn't only affect our country. We are citizens of America, but we are also global citizens of this planet, and to live in ignorance of the rest of the world is to deny yourself the opportunity to truly understand politics.
