3 Reasons To Not Let This Election Divide Us

This election has pitted Americans against each other more than any other election I've witnessed in my life, or even read about. There have been far more political posts on social media this year than ever before, because Americans are so upset about the opposing candidate. It really sickens me to see people ending friendships, starting fights, and even turning to violence at rallies, all because of these two divisive candidates.

I want to encourage everyone to not let the election hysteria to divide us as a nation. Don’t allow the media to stir up such a frenzy among us.

Try to remember these 3 things:

1) Sure it matters who gets elected, but not that much. We have the separation of powers in our system of government for a reason: to prevent abuse of power by any of the 3 branches. You can argue that the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barrack Obama have resulted in more power being taken by the executive branch, but I believe there is a bright side here: we have more voices than ever, in journalism and in Congress, speaking out about these abuses of power. Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Thomas Massie regularly defend the Constitution in the House and Senate, talking about how we need to go to war only after a Congressional vote. We have countless people on the internet bringing this to light as well. As a nation we can, and will, continue to speak out and hold our executive branch accountable.

2) Your Trump/Clinton supporting friend is not a bad person. For the most part, we all have the same goals as a people. We want our economy to succeed, we want to be a free country, we want to defend ourselves, and we want to be prosperous, both individually, and as a country. It is rare that someone actually wishes ill will on other Americans, so our differences really come down to disagreements on how we best implementation solutions to arrive at the agreed upon goal.

The next time you find yourself arguing over a pair of political candidates, or about a political issue, please try to do the following:

1. Take a step back, and realize that we’re in this together
2. Do your research, and try to have a civilized, informed discussion on strategy to arrive at the goal
3. Don’t get angry or caught up in emotions when someone disagrees with you. Rather, present your evidence debate back and forth, and come to an understanding together of why you both believe the things you do.

3) If your candidate doesn’t win, it’s not the end of the world. Plenty of elections have gone by where the media has preached that there would be fire and brimstone if a candidate got elected. And then they did get elected. And we’re still here, not doing too poorly as a nation. Sure things could be better, but casting your one vote for President isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme of things. If you really care about a certain issue or cause, put your heart and soul into doing whatever you can to help, other than just voting. If you do this, you can, and will, make a difference.