College is a wonderful time to explore our boundaries, morals, and what we stand for. One of the things that start to really solidify (at least for myself, anyway) are political beliefs. This often can be a long-term decision-making process that can dig deep into our roots and deepest values.

I consider myself conservative. I grew up in a family that believed strongly in conservative values. My mom has always been a small business owner and my dad was very self-made in his professional life. With that influence, I grew up with conservative values and was rather closed minded towards Liberal ideologies.

As I continued high school and participated the high school debate team, I began to develop more open-minded opinions on Liberal beliefs. This is where I truly began to understand where I landed on the political scale.

The 2016 election was a game-changer however. I don't and never have supported Trump and 90% of his actions before, throughout, and after the election.

Part of the problem is that many people associate the political party with the assumption that they identify 100% with the candidates or major party members. Take the election for example, based on this, all Liberals could assume that Republicans were all racist, homophobic people who wanted to ignore the lower class, and on the flip side Republicans could assume all Liberals were lying, loud-mouth socialists. I'm absolutely not saying either of these is remotely true, but that's just the horror of what can come when one assumes party affiliation with candidate support.

The polarizing political field began to shape into a glaring issue I saw in American politics. For one thing, the two-party system is inherently flawed. If you go back in history all the way to when Washington was our first president, he specifically said to stay away from political parties, especially a two-party system, for these exact reasons.

A two-party system will always polarize the American people. It's a "one or the other" political situation that isolates many of the moderates on both the conservative and liberal side. I wish there were better candidates for both sides to support, honestly, because the way it shaped out, we were choosing between our personal values and personal beliefs in government.

Going to college in a red state, especially after the liberal California community I was raised in, has really allowed me to pick and choose my ideologies.

For one, I really don't believe in large government. I believe that the United States does better in an independent, hands-off government style. I know this isn't a unanimous belief, but it was one major decision I had when deciding which political ideology I identify most with.

There are many issues I take the conservative stance on but there are several that I side with on a liberal stance, and I'm not opposed or close-minded to reading and deciding which stance I have regardless of political party.

I decided quickly that being a conservative is going to mean whatever I want it to mean, and that goes the same for any political party one has. Once again, a major problem in politics is the polarization, and it's going to take many people like myself to diffuse this issue and open the political arena to more moderate candidates.

The actions in Charlottesville last week have shown us that this polarization is now causing devastating consequences. We've now moved past having safe, peaceful protests and now, people are starting to lose their lives.

As we saw, one group of protesters led an extremist-right winger to take the life of one and injure much more. There's always going to be extremists, however, the further polarization this has caused shows us that now we are in desperate need for change.

I'm a young conservative, but that doesn't mean I supported Trump, it doesn't mean I'm not grieving what happened in Charlottesville, and it doesn't mean that I don't identify with liberal stances on certain issues.

Regardless of identification of party, we all have a responsibility after this last election to start looking for wholesome candidates who can open up the political arena to the possibility of more cooperation between both parties. I truly hope one day my children will not be choosing between two parties to side with politically, but until then, we must respect each other.

Political ideology is to be defined however we want it to, and it's not up to anyone else to decide who we believe we truly are. For the sake of the United States, we must open our minds more and stop the common habit of generalizing and "taboo-ing" certain parties and stances.

For the sake of the United States, we need change now.