Politically Correct

With everything going on lately in politics, we find ourselves in hot topic conversations more often than not. And in these conversations, it feels that currently as a nation we are the most divided we’ve ever been. Anything and everything surrounding politics is taken/delivered as a personal attack and it’s seemingly getting us nowhere. How did we get here? When did we lose the ability to have differences without taking personal offense?

I personally struggle a lot with this. When I get into disagreements or chats about politics, I have found (with the help of my loving husband) that I’m entering each argument to win. Which (apparently) doesn’t work. It leaves words falling on deaf ears and everyone just ends up pissed and going even further in their separate ways. And more often than not, when you’re in the thick of these arguments, name calling or demeaning tones start taking place along with the yelling. It becomes a battle of proving your moral character rather than the true problem at hand. So how do we make real change when we’re just attacking each other and getting lost from the issue at hand very quickly? What can we do to learn?

It’s funny because when I was younger - as late as college - my beliefs on politics were so wrapped into what I was raised on and just molding into my parents beliefs (without really thinking for myself), that I would fight until I was blue in the face about how I was so right. Then as soon as I went out into the “real” world, had my own unsheltered experiences, and was able to fully develop my own opinions - my opinions and ideas flipped completely. As cringey as it is for me to look back at some arguments I’ve had or things I’ve backed and thought - I feel like it’s a full growth moment for me. So I should be able to understand those that have differing opinions or hold the beliefs I once had too, right? Wrong. It’s something I need to practice at, but now I just see that side as wrong and as if my eyes were “opened” and I want to “open” others eyes too. Which leads me to ask - is our gut reaction as humans to fully believe that we’re right and the other side is wrong? Instead of learning how to properly argue, maybe we just need a lesson in humility and listening.

I think it’s something to be said that true facts have become very convoluted due to social media, news outlets, and word of mouth. Especially when it’s things we hear that align directly with what we believe. We easily consume these things as facts and spit those back out to each other when debating the other side. But the problem is, the other side is doing the same exact thing. In fact, an entire algorithm programmed into our everyday lives has made it that we’re surrounded by this echo chamber for our beliefs. So these possibly-not-exactly-true “facts”, gain traction and noise and become true facts to us without any further research/cited work. And no, I’m not trying to preach “fake news” or “lies” at alllll. Please believe me when I say that haha! I’m just trying to (for once) look at all sides and see why these “facts” just aren’t aligning. I feel as though there used to be few things to be disputed when it came to research, stats, science. But now, you have folks on both sides in those fields spewing their opinions, but it’s reading as fact simply because we deem them as experts when in this field. And don’t even get me started on interpretation of certain research/documents. Man oh man! This is quite the web we are weaving, huh? Don’t get me wrong - there are definite and hard wrongs out there. However, you’d hope that the majority of people are fighting for the well-being of the community and the nation, right? So why can’t we seem to just discuss what truly would be right? Does the power lie too heavily in money and pockets of greedy lobbyists that we just…can’t get anything done anymore? Or is there a side that truly is missing moral values? Fighting under the sense of “every individual for themselves”?

I also can’t tell if politics has always been this heavy and the feeling of heaviness comes with age and actual understanding of politics or if it’s just that we truly are living in unprecedented times. I understand when people say they need breaks or they just turn off the news or cut out of a conversation because it’s too much. Mental health first, always. But what kind of privilege does that represent of us as a nation or an individual that we have the ability to just “tune” out. Ukraine for instance, can’t just tune out of what is happening. They are quite literally living it. People of color can’t tune out of police brutality or systematic disadvantages, they are living it. Parents that lose their children just by going to school, are living it. Women, are living it. So clearly these are conversations that need to be had and they need to start at the dinner table. No matter how uncomfortable it is. Building an understanding and a respect on both sides I believe may be the first step to solutions. Yes, we may disagree on what the perfect solution is, but can we at least agree that what is happening right now isn’t working? Let’s list why it isn’t working for each of us. Take each problem apart, see where we can make movement and change and what it really is that’s making you want to keep the assault rifle in your closet while you hide behind your claim to believing in the second amendment. See? Even I struggle keeping my emotions out of it when I’m the one having the epiphany on our problems…smh.

All of these questions to simply bring light to the problems that I believe we all have with politics. By no means am I claiming that I’ve found the solution because as you can see, I too have been the problem in these arguments. Education seems to be the number one key factor at play here. Education and the humility to be wrong. There are life experiences that we simply cannot know from others and others won’t know of ours that completely shape the way we think or live the life we do. Therefore, I task each of us with listening to these experiences. Hear them for what they are and why they would shape someone’s beliefs. Then try researching the topic at hand as if it were a science experiment. And then lastly, ask the questions to why are we so divided on such big and seemingly easy to solve problems. Maybe we got too complacent thinking “oh that will never happen” when in actuality, the minority extremist thinkers took their wants into action and here we are about to enter The Handmaid’s Tale. Maybe grassroots change is where we start. We shouldn’t take what we have built already to be something we ever have to stop fighting for. Because sadly, there are those (although I like to believe a very small amount) that hold weight in their votes that seem as though they just want to see the fall of our democracy/nation. So go out and have those hard conversations with an open mind and truly listening to understand rather than listening to respond.