This election cycle has been one of the hardest in American history. The two candidates running for the Republican and Democratic parties had faults that for many people meant they felt uncomfortable voting for their own party. In the process, it caused people to divide from one another and focus on their political differences that kept them apart.
Regardless of your political affiliation, we need to stop this trend. As American citizens, we have to unite and stand together as one nation. We have to stand up and realize the issues in this country and work together to solve them. There are issues of socio-economic divide, racial injustices, prejudices against sexual orientation, and many more issues within the government itself. There have been movements to solve many of the lingering issues in the United States that have been continually supported by only one group of people or one political affiliation. Either people do not see some of the lingering issues in this country as issues or they're too scared to go out and stand up for what they believe in.
One of the biggest things dividing people is the two party system in the United States. People believe that movements only apply to their specific political party or they let their political affiliations get in the way of their lives. Such an example happened on Wednesday following a traffic altercation. A video on the internet surfaced in which several black men were seen beating up a white man while people in the background yelled "You voted Trump, you voted Trump!" This display of violence angers me, not necessarily as a liberal, but as a human being. Regardless of who someone votes for, they don't deserve to be beaten for it. I didn't vote for Trump and I don't support him, but that kind of behavior is unacceptable. What the people yelling didn't think about by yelling what they did is that whatever justice they were seeking was never going to be found that way. By using a person's political affiliation to somehow support violence, you only make the divide stronger.
Election day was a hard day for me, make no mistake about it. I am not a politically charged person at all, and I talked more about politics that day than I care to think about. I have felt for a while that politics is one of the most divisive aspects of our culture because it encourages people to vote one side or the other rather than choosing the best candidate. Moreover, politics causes rifts between even the best of friends or the closest of family because politics is strongly tied to so many social issues, and it's hard to see each other's perspective on the issues because we feel so tied to the "one side or the other mindset." As a country, I want us to be better. I want us as a country to understand that we have a long way to go on many things, and dividing ourselves up is going to weaken this fight. We must stand strong in the face of adversity. We must come together to work for the common good. Above all else, we must stand as one nation that promotes liberty and justice for all.
