Over the course of our childhoods and early adolescence, we have all gained at least an idea about our political stance. Whether we were influenced (partly or entirely) by parents, teachers, or friends, we have fundamental beliefs that we feel are best for everyone or at least for ourselves. In my case, I had only ever gained a mechanical understanding of politics through my early government classes, and I only learned about the various political ideologies when I was a sophomore in high school. In these past two years centered around our most recent election, I was plunged into the world of politics, and I have discovered something that I feel many Americans do not see, which I will elaborate on through a personal experience.
At my school, there are certain students who, though they are (like me) not of voting age, are very politically minded and involved. Last year, I would sit and watch as they commented on the progress of the election, making jokes about what they deemed an entirely lackluster set of candidates. Every day, some new sensation arose that I did not know about, and suddenly I was being asked about my opinions, I felt pressured to make similar puns about emails, orange skin, or whatever. I had never known such a great social need to be up to date on the issues, because that is not what I felt at all.
I only heard specific policies discussed a handful of times, the rest of it all were snarky comments about insignificant details. Now, I will grant that this election deviated from the norm in many ways, and therefore I understand where such sensationalization of its events comes from. However, the main topic of discussion was not policy but politics. By definition, these two go hand in hand, but with today’s political climate especially (though there have been very clear traces in the past), there has been a great trend towards general notions of superiority and inferiority.
The two dominant parties themselves are generally associated with certain political views, but within the parties, people may agree and disagree with certain elements. However, the great present fervor to have one’s party or ideology dominate is what clearly drives us apart. Division can come from many factors, but it is this blind need to win a made-up competition for power for the sake of power that will ultimately bring us to the point of no return.
One of the students, from the very same group of academic elites I mentioned before, recently contacted me to assist him in a political campaign for a candidate I had never heard of with the goal to “flip the district”. Those three words made me realize that the political system we have in place, while it is beneficial in certain ways, is ultimately flawed not in and of itself (another topic for another time), but it is marred by this need to “flip” people’s perspectives to fit one that one views as "correct". As a country, we are not a citizenry that has one definition, face, or perspective, and as such, we should not be clawing down the importance of ideas and issues to simply put someone in power.
Under any leader of any ideology, party, gender, ethnicity, or sexuality we risk the possibility that nothing could change or even worsen if this is the pattern we continue to follow. So instead of flipping districts, let's flip the switch to policy, not pride.
