For months now we've seen a divide in our country over the 2016 Presidential Election. This is my first election where I'm old enough to understand who is running and what is going on, much less care about it, and I want it to be over. I can remember last election that people were saying that if President Obama got re-elcected, the country was going to go down the tubes. If only they knew the candidates for the 2016 Presidential Election, they would probably take it back.
Our country is actually going down the tubes and not just because of the candidates for the election. I would love if I didn't have to choose between a lying criminal and a misogynistic jerk, but I would love it even more if our country wasn't so divided over this election.
Healthy political banter is expected during the election season, but full-out fighting with people and cutting them out of your life because he or she supports a certain candidate is not. In the age of social media, these arguments are much easier to get into, especially via Facebook. I've read threads and threads of arguments between friends or friends of friends on posts about a candidate. People have posted "If you're supporting ___ I'm deleting you from my friends list", which is one of the most childish things I have ever seen. I've seen comments about people who support Trump being racists and sexist, which is not true to all people, because I have friends who support Trump who are good, kindhearted people who are neither of those things.
What people seem to forget during this election season is that not everyone is going to have the same views as you do, and you need to accept that. All of your friends aren't going to be pro-guns or pro-choice or whatever your stance is. That's what makes our country a democracy. We as Americans are allowed to have different political beliefs and you shouldn't un-friend someone because of that. I have friends who are on both sides of the legalization of abortion, but am I going to stop being friends with the ones who disagree with me? No, of course not. Because our friendship isn't built strictly on political beliefs.
I once had someone ask me, after I had said I was a Republican, how I could be voting for Trump if I'm a girl. I almost didn't know what to say because nowhere in my conversation did I say that I was voting for Trump. All I said was that I was a Republican. I'm not voting for Trump because I'm a Republican, just as I'm not voting for Hillary just because I am a woman. I personally have not come out and said who I am supporting (mostly because I still don't know, kinda just want to write in Morgan Freeman), but I don't think I should have to. It's my right as an American voter to keep my political quandaries on the DL.
Just remember that once this election is over, either Hillary or Trump will be president and there isn't anything you can do about it, so stop making enemies out of your friends and feeding into the madness that is tearing our country apart.
