For Easter, I went to Washington, D.C. with my family. The weekend was packed with activity, emotion, and TONS of walking. On Saturday, we had planned to go to Ford’s Theater, the Spy Museum, and the Holocaust Museum. Going into this day, I had no idea how much it would change my perspective.

Since I’ve been aware that politics was a thing, I’ve always leaned towards the left. In fact, there were some periods when I thought socialism didn’t sound like all that bad of an idea. Recently, I’ve become a lot more central, but still leaning fairly left. A bleeding-hearted liberal, if you will. At the start of that day, this was still how I felt. First thing in the morning, we went to Ford’s Theater, and I imagined what it must have been like to live in a country where victory in war was so quickly followed by the murder of a beloved leader. I imagined living in a nation that was so unbelievably rent in two that a man who strove only to keep the country together would somehow inspire so much anger that men would call for his death. It struck me that the division in our country has not led to civil war, but I was also struck with the very real danger that it very well could.

Next came the International Spy Museum, which was exciting and interesting and entirely too large to be entirely explored in the time I had. In the section on spy history, I learned that espionage was much older and much more prevalent than I had thought. It dawned on me that since the Cold War, there has hardly ever been a time when I am not under observation by the government. Facial recognition, the NSA, cyber-attacks, and the entire internet basically serve to monitor every single person in the country nearly all the time. I became slightly uneasy as I realized just how easy it would be for the government to completely take over. All the information they would need is right there online.

The most poignant moment for me, however, was the Holocaust Museum. As I made my way through the exhibit, reading wall after wall of heinous acts and political terror, I wondered how this could have happened. The answer was fear. Fear of the future among the German people allowed Hitler to rise to power. Later, Hitler would use fear to control citizens under his control and spread fear to excuse his deplorable actions against the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and hundreds of thousands more. And it was fear that caused the American people to bar Jewish refugees that had escaped from Germany. They could have escaped, could have found refuge, and they were refused. Some even sailed entirely across the ocean only to find out that they would no longer be admitted. I couldn’t help but feel angry. All those people who died, and we had the power to save some of them, but we didn’t, because of government regulations and the economy and fear.

It struck me that the exact same thing was happening today, just a little further east. The United States is barring entry to Syrians who have fled a tyrannical, murderous government. On the way out of the museum at closing time, I caught sight of a woman leaving behind me. She was wearing a red Trump “Make America Great Again” hat, and I was confounded. How could someone go into this memorial, look at all those who died because of fear, all those we could have saved but were refused, and still proudly support someone who has said that it is right that we should keep them away, that they are rapists and criminals and not desperate human beings in need of help?

One of our final stops that day was the Jefferson Memorial. On the way there my mind was in turmoil, alternating anger and fear, mistrust and discontent with the government. As soon as I set foot beneath the marble dome of the memorial, all this was replaced with a magnificent state of awe. Reading the quotes of this highly intelligent, principled man which covered the walls, dwarfed by Jefferson’s enormous likeness, I realized that I was looking to the government for the wrong things entirely. A governing body is not an agent of mercy, of justice, love, or compassion. It is merely a creation of man to enact order. There I was, in the presence of someone who poured his being into the government, so much so that he became President of the United States. Ironically, Jefferson was highly distrustful of the government. He believed, rightly so, that the power of a nation should lie in the people, not the system they construct. A nation’s goodness, its heart, and its principles, are apparent not within its government, but within its citizens.

As I watched the sun set over the Tidal Basin from the steps of the Memorial, I was filled with an overwhelming peace. No matter what turmoil our country experiences, our hearts will remain those which prize liberty above all else, liberty for all, no matter who they are or where they come from. The soul of America lies in their freedom to be whomever they want, without restriction by convention or social class or even their very government. Just as the Washington Monument is visible from just about anywhere in the city, so too is this love of freedom tangible in the heart of every American. We will not let our differences jeopardize it.