Ah, election season. Everyone's favorite time of year, when friends become enemies, and as one friend of mine put it, "Everyone and their mother all of a sudden has a political season." It's hard not to get caught up in the emotional component of elections, especially in the midst of this year's especially volatile and dramatic campaigns. Most of this volatility has come from a single candidate, namely Donald Trump. While I won't try to argue that Trump isn't sexist, racist, or just an all around awful human being, a mistake that I continue to see made within the Democratic Party is the association of Trump directly with the entire Republican Party.
It's true that Trump is the Republican nominee, which by default means he gained a large amount of support from Republican voters. However, many seem to forget that there remains within the GOP a large population which has been in a sense left behind due to other candidates' exit from the presidential campaign. Among my own circle, Republican friends who supported more moderate Republican candidates such as Marco Rubio or John Kasich now feel alienated from their own political party. Although these more moderate Republicans may not be as visible as Trump's sometimes violent and always prejudiced supporters, they do exist.
In addition to this alienation, these more moderate Republicans can often become even more isolated within their own social circles due to misconceptions held by many Democrats. Republicans can often feel judged by their Democratic friends, despite the fact that not all Republicans are homophobic, sexist, or racist.
In fact, when the Republican party was founded in the early 1850s, it was started by anti-slavery activists who would go on to create the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. These important amendments gave former slaves freedom under the law. The Republican Party was also the first political party to support women's suffrage, leading to increased gender equality within the United States. Although Trump may be the current Republican presidential candidate, it's important to remember that the first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln, now a revered historical figure by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Politicians often talk about the need for bipartisan efforts in order to accomplish important changes within the US. However, this bipartisan collaboration has to occur outside of the White House before it can ever truly take place within. As Abraham Lincoln once said, "A house divided cannot stand." Only when generalizations and differences have been put aside can America truly become "great again".
