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Alex Richard, Hannah Scarpace, Nick Lauscomb, Ethan Hicks
Because today’s media has little to no overlap between liberal and conservative media, it oftens means that people are only discussing politics with people who have the same ideas as them. Political-polarization-media-habits states that “Yet as our major report on political polarization found, those at both the left and right ends of the spectrum, who together comprise about 20% of the public overall, have a greater impact on the political process than do those with more mixed ideological views.” This means that 40 percent of america’s population (20 percent from both conservative and liberal side) contribute more to the political world than those who are not biased. This means that most people who contribute to politics,whether conservative or liberal leaning, are at least educated enough to have a conversation about it. But why don’t we? It can be intimidating to get into a professional argument with someone who has far different opinions of you. However, the learning experience possible from getting into an educated debate is extremely beneficial.
This chart FT_16.10.31_presApproval.png at pewresearch.org shows the increasingly negative views on presidents of the opposing party. Both republicans and democrats have shown an increase in disapproval of opposite party presidents over the last 6 decades. For example pewresearch.org states that an average of just 14% of Republicans have approved of Barack Obama over the course of his presidency, compared with an average of 81% of Democrats. This study is a great example of how polarized our country is becoming, and instead of standing up for your president and working together as a nation to become the best we can be, the opposing party tends to pout and complain for the entire term in office. People would rather go out of their way to find things they can hate about their president based off of their opposing views; when they could try to make the best of that president’s term in office.
Why is it important to respect other peoples political beliefs and biases?
Political freedom is one of the greatest parts of living in the democratic republic society in America. This government structure allows everyone to believe what they want and vote for who they want based on those beliefs. This freedom of beliefs tends to naturally create bad blood between you and whoever disagrees with you. This is the problem with polarization of political parties in recent history in America. This world that the founding fathers created with visions of success and freedom as the driving points; has taken a severe turn. The world we live in now, where hate speech and violent protest drive us further and further apart, is not something our founding fathers had planned. That is in fact, the reality. With every violent protest, with every word of hate speech, with every tweet from our President Donald Trump, our society reacts causing more damage than the event before it. All of this because we simply do not agree with the person sitting across from us? If we have any hope in reviving this country into the political and economic powerhouse it was created to be, then we have to focus on the problems within. According to the-importance-of-respecting-political-differences, “However, respecting the political opinions of others goes beyond an individual’s rights, it has to do with personal integrity and just being a good person. Judging someone based on which candidate they support is okay, as everyone has the right to formulate opinions based on what they know. However, allowing your judgement to shape your actions and the way you act towards someone is wrong and goes against the most important rule governing society – the golden rule.” Disagreeing with someone is okay, it is your right. When people go past the point of just disagreeing to acting out upon with violent intent, that is where the root of the problem is. We no longer know how to respectfully disagree with someone. We all have this false idea that someone who disagrees with us makes them our enemy, and that’s not true. If we can limit the hate between people who differ from us and just focus on being professional and respectful, this country would be in far better shape. Unfortunately we are moving in the wrong direction.