We as human beings are just searching for the best way to live our lives, and to do that we seek out answers to the questions that society presents to us. God or no god? If so, which religion? If not, which set of ethics? We carefully define a picture of how we want our lives to be, and we use it to make decisions about our governments. In most countries, including the U.S., we pick a side, and it is a life choice. We find it very difficult to respect people who chose a side that is different from our own, perhaps because in most cases it is synonymous with our religious affiliations. When we treat politics like a religion with a side that is good and a side that is evil, emotions escalate and we find ourselves condemning those who are merely different from us.
We tend to think of people who oppose our ideologies as bad and immoral. Why do we feel the need to demonize those from opposing political parties? Because it is easier to validate our own opinions with that logic than with reason. Examples present themselves every day. Hate is spewed at Obama all of the time, and while sometimes it is for a political action — Obamacare, for instance — it is also frequently an attack on him personally. You have every right to voice your opinion about how it is the wrong policy. However, he is not intentionally trying to run the country into the ground, because he is not, in fact, evil or out for world destruction. There is also still so much dissent towards George W. Bush — for sending troops into Afghanistan or supporting big oil. It is fine to disagree with those two things, but not to claim that he wants to murder troops or kill the polar bears. You might be thinking that these things are extreme and that people really don't say these things, or even if they do, they don’t really think them. They do, but neither of those men wanted to do anything other than what was right.
To qualify this, not all politicians are fantastic people. Some are not. We have seen the scandal and the power-hunger, and we have all seen "House of Cards." I would posit not that everyone is a good person, but that both sides are equally bad. For every Republican with a scandal, there is a Democrat with another. But to say that someone is evil for being a Democrat or Republican is not right. We can break down the two extremes of U.S. parties, and neither one's platforms are malicious. Leftist policy is the government giving everyone what they need, but also letting them make their own social decisions. Whereas right-wings believe capitalism is the best method, respecting each person's hard work and writing the law to uphold a code of ethics. Both sides believe that their method is the best way to govern, that they are doing the right thing. How can you fault someone for that?
It is just common to do this as part of the society in which we live. The truth is, if you want to dislike someone, you are going to invent reasons to do so. Then we extend the same false criticisms to people in our lives. "All of these people are lazy, and all of those people are greedy." We extend these false characterizations to people in our lives, and alienate them because their thinking is "wrong" instead of respecting their intellectual decisions.
We should always continue to argue about what the right course of action is and seek it out. Different opinions and viewpoints are important. So we should stop viewing everyone outside of our small box as evil and start paying more attention to the ideas that they are presenting.
