Now that the election has passed and either your guy won or
he didn’t, there isn’t much left to do but celebrate or complain.
At least that’s what Facebook seems to think. Since I live in
Texas, but am from PA. I got a ton of different responses on Facebook after
President Obama won re-election on Tuesday night. Ranging from “YES WE CAN… Moving Forward” to “America
has been murdered and I’m going to stock up on ammo before this guy takes it
away from me.”
Two sort of polarizing opinions and everybody is entitled to
have one.
During this election year, which has been trying to say the
least, for I feel like all of us! A lot of people on both sides have asked the
question “How did America get so divided?”
I am SURE that some of you aren’t going to like this
response but I promise you, as I at least try to do, it will not be as biased. Like you, I am entitled to my
opinion and also like you I am entitled to think you are wrong, maybe wrong is
too harsh of a judgment. I don’t 100% think you are wrong. I think you are misguided.
And you may think the same of me.
But that’s neither here nor there.
Lets get back to the topic. How did America get so divided?
My first election as an adult was 2000, Oh yes, the good ole
2000 Election. Bush v. Gore, it was a doozy. It ended in spectacular fashion
that really truly was revolutionary. It had and still has people crying foul and that’s ok. People are entitled to think what they want.
If you are still crying foul after 12 years, you should
probably let it go though. History has. Even if it was foul. Bush served 2 terms AND
Obama has served one since then. It’s time to move on from that bull crap.
But even during that time, I don’t remember this much
animosity. Even during 8 years of President Bush, and his woeful unpopularity I
don’t remember such animosity from the left to the right. Of course there was
some. I can honestly say I wasn’t a huge fan of him as a President. He seems
like a nice guy, I certainly don’t have disdain for him certainly not for a job
that to be honest. I don’t think I could ever do. But I think even 8 years of President Bush
would not answer that question.
This has been going on for a very, very long time.
You can tell me it started in the 20’s or 30’s. In 1936, businesses
hated Roosevelt but yet he was re-elected in a fashion that hasn’t been seen
since. You can even make an argument
that America has always been divided. We did have a pretty bloody Civil War
less then 100 years after we became a country. But I’m going to make it easy
for you.
Vietnam, Vietnam happened.
It ripped America out of its very core and turned us into
something much more like what we see today. Vietnam divided this country in a
way that it hadn’t seen since the Civil War.
It took 18 year old kids who had no interest in serving their country
and threw them into an incredibly unpopular war that had no end in site. It
turned families from the 1950’s and 60’s into parents who lost their only child
to a war he didn’t want to go to, or did want to go to. It returned soldiers
home to a place that didn’t support them, that didn’t care about them.
It essentially took the 1950’s and 60’s middle class
American Family and turned it into a joke. The family dynamic changed. It progressed, for whatever reason you want to believe it did. There is no denying that it did in fact happen.
The hippie movement, which started
in the 40’s and 50’s with Beatniks, and became a culture that is still
incredibly active now, as are Beatniks, or Hipsters are you would call them
now, basically anyone that is trying to fight the man.
They essentially changed the dynamic of the nuclear family. They made it ok for divorce, ok for women's equality, ok for abortion. They also made it ok, to question authority. So maybe you hate hippies for ripping the nuclear family apart, but before hippies, protestors were met with a lot more violence then they are today, regardless of what our constitution says. If you have the time, go ahead and look at how Blacks were treated in the early 60's when they protested civil rights.
So regardless of who you are Hippies and Beatniks changed America. Maybe good, maybe bad, mostly both. They also did something crazy, most of them grew out of the faze. They got married, had kids, and probably raised you. They run major corporations. Mostly technology. One crazy hippie started this company about fruit. Perhaps as you read this on your iPhone app you heard of it, it's called Apple.
In the mean time, they never left the 60's and 70's behind. The forward thinking of the 70's has stayed with us. Mostly liberals admittedly. But it's still everywhere we go. It's in TV, film, the office, your house, your car, literally(yes I mean it) everywhere. It's embedded into America.
President’s like Nixon betrayed our trust. Carter, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W, and Obama. They have all lied to us. Broken promises here, broken promises there. None have left office at the end of their term truly believing that they made everyone happy. If Bushes term would have ended in October 2001, he still would have had people who were unhappy with him with his historically high approval rating.
But that's the point. No one is ever happy.
America started as a way to protect the people from
religious persecution in Europe. As politics began, people have been divided.
That’s not going to change. You can’t please everyone. That’s politics rule #1.
However, politics is no longer about the people. Not you,
you, you or you. Not even the very rich or the very poor. Both sides will
suffer regardless who is in office. Businesses fail and houses are foreclosed
on during all times of the election season.
We tend to forget that. A bad idea can make a business fail or a person
fail. Sometimes it’s really that simple.
One thing can change your life. If a dominent good for the business republican is in office, businesses will fail the same as if a super crazy hippie liberal is in office, poor people will still be poor. Same goes for opposites as well. The poor are still poor under republicans and democrats, and businesses grown and fail under democrats or republicans, there is no magic science. It's reality.
Politics is about money. It’s about how much can I get from
big tobacco or Green Energy, or technology or government contractors, to make a
little extra on the side. To get flown around in a private jet to Raleigh to
meet with Philip Morris so they can tell me why voting against a cigarette tax
can be in my be$t intere$t$.
This recent election
proved that more then ever. Even as they talked about the economy neither side
told me what they were going to do to help me. They didn’t really tell me how I
could find a job. They just told me what the other guy was telling me and how
he was wrong. They insulted my intelligence as a human being. Both sides did
this.
Facebook has made it worse. It has given people, a way to
tell everyone who they believe is better or worse. Expose themselves, violating
the basic rules we were all taught as young adults. You don’t talk about
politics or religion because you are going to piss someone off, or insult them
or most likely BOTH. I don’t care whom you voted for. I don’t even care why. No
one else does either.
But this election has shown me something more. It’s shown me
a side of people, some of them friends I’ve had for a while. It’s told me that people are selfish. They
don’t give a shit about you or me. How could they? They are too busy
complaining about Obama or Romney, insulting those who support him.
“Why would you vote for Obama, he’s a socialist Nazi, fascist,
Muslim, extremist Christian”
“Why would you vote for Romney? He’s a robotic, Mormon,
spoiled rich guy who cares more about businesses than the people. He will raise
your taxes and cut the 1% so all his buddies can go on holiday”
The media and Facebook have destroyed America. They have
divided us. They have given us so much ammo to throw at each other that we have
no choice but to listen. Sometimes I wish I was undecided and didn’t or couldn’t
have an opinion. Life would be so much
easier then to listen to people I care about calling each other names because
of who they support.
The question is why do we do it? Really. We do it to each other;
we can’t blame MSNBC, or Fox News, or CNN or Rush Limbaugh. We can only blame
each other. If CNN tells me that Romney is going to defund Planned Parenthood,
thus eliminating good and bad things it stands for, why am I going to scream at
the Romney supporter I know on Facebook and throw that in his face? Only so he
can throw in my face that Obama wants to introduce a plan for ban assault
weapons.
At the end of the day, there are a number of things that can
happen because of this. A. I may have lost a friend. B. My mind hasn’t changed.
C. His mind hasn’t changed. D. All of the above.
We are all Americans fighting amongst each other, blaming
the other for our problems. I know, someone is going to tell me, that it’s
because of something Obama has done. You’re wrong. This is deeper then Obama,
this is deeper than Romney, this is deeper then our history.
This is it. We need to get along. We need to stand united.
Again I don’t care if you voted for Romney, Obama, or Jill Stein. Stick to your
guns, be active. It’s your civil responsibility. But we all get the short end
of the stick sometimes. Unless, you only live 4 years, you are going to live
through many Presidents. I’m 30 and I have lived through 5. Through that time,
not every thing that has been passed has affected me or has made an impact in
my life. Even negative things don’t always impact me personally. Maybe they
impact you Maybe, Obama care will cause your premiums to go up and because of
that something might go wrong in your life. Maybe it will change your industry.
Maybe the war in Iraq caused a loss of a loved one. Maybe this and maybe that.
But how is telling me my opinion is wrong going to change that? How is hate
towards the other side going to change that?
Insults don’t make change. CHANGE makes change. Letters to
Congressman and Woman makes change. Aggressive grassroots movement towards
something you feel strongly about makes changes. It might not make waves, and
maybe there is nothing you can do, but maybe there is. Sitting here and complaining
I can promise you won’t do anything. Nobody likes a braggart or a sore loser. I
have seen plenty of both. You wouldn’t walk into your co-workers office after
they got fired with a smile on your face and tell them you just got a raise
would you? The same way you wouldn’t want that co-worker complaining about how
they were unjustly fired because they hadn’t made their sales goals in over a
year. Perhaps that’s not the best example but you get the point.
In a Republic, there are winners and losers. The great thing
about our system is A. it’s cyclical. Things change. B. Nobody is permanent.
In America, however we are still here, living our lives,
some of us are happy, some of us are sad. But I consider myself an American
regardless of who I voted for and I consider you the same. Our ancestors or parents
worked their butts off to get us here. Because they knew that America is the
greatest country on earth full of a diverse populous of people, designed that
way. To open itself up for you and me
and close it self for no one.
That’s all I got. We need to get back to being Americans
instead of Republicans and Democrats.



