Divided We Will Fall

Illustration By: Isriya McFillin 

It's been ingrained into every American citizen and even non-American citizens that this nation embodies the ideals of freedom and brotherhood, that every citizen is willing to lay down their lives for each other. 

It's not news that America has been divided. Looking at our own history will show that America has had it's fair share of division. However, this year's political divide might be the most divisive America has ever been. 

Take the gun control debate, and how split everyone is on the issue. At the time of writing, the only prominent sides in this debate are people who feel we should arm more people and people who feel we should have more restrictive laws and ban more guns. 

There's also both political parties constantly mudslinging each other, vilifying the other side with icons such as Hillary "Crooked" Clinton and Donald "Spanky" Trump. The Democrats and Republicans are meant to represent us, the people, and just like us have devolved into childish arguments. 

Time that could be spent improving the country and enacting policies to solve our current problems is instead used to stop the other side from pushing their agendas no matter what. This is enabled online. 

Social media is at its worst, and that might be the biggest understatement of the century. Whether on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Tumblr, once politics are brought up, it delves into a mash up of name-calling, meme-filled, he-said-she-said, and curse-filled quarrel. Online interactions have always been known to be uncivil, yet going online and seeing the various bile comments people spew at each other is disheartening.

This can even go into how we react to news like Parkland, where it initially seemed like the country was finally geared up to try to come together to stop school shootings. Every citizen, and even Trump, decided guns were the problem and were about to take steps to solve it until people started to hear "news" that these kids allegedly wanted to take away gun rights from everyone. Then it was back to the status quo of egotistic arguments that serve nothing.

Conflict, especially in America, is nothing new and we might never get to a point where every single person agrees with each other.

So how do we fix this? The first and most important thing is to realize that not everybody mirrors the stereotypes (not every Republican is Trump and not every Democrat is Clinton). There's a lot of people who are willing to compromise from both sides, but are silenced by the amount of news focusing on the more controversial players in this hilariously sad drama.

The second is to vote for politicians that aren't trying to achieve an agenda but to actually help and benefit the people. Don't just vote for the guy who's part of the party you identify with, but one whose made it clear his goal is to better your life. In short, be more proactive in politics, especially now in these trying times.

Lastly, compromise. Urge your politicians to work together, or at least extend some sort of olive branch. Our parties have become so hostile towards each other that any kind of positive interaction between them are treated negatively. If the system we have is going to keep going, we all need to come together and discuss these policies and whether they will support the American people.

There is still time for America to get its head on straight, but if we don't stop this national pissing contest, America may come to a point where we are never gonna be able to recover from.