• Fri. Apr 19th, 2024

In Life and Liberty: Political divide

Mike Pence allegedly used a private server for his emails while governor of Indiana and he got hacked. I don’t know why most politicians can’t seem to stop themselves from getting hacked, but it’s another email scandal.

Republicans freaked out over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server and they painted her as untrustworthy. Which is true, I wouldn’t trust her with my life, but it’s ironic and a little sad how one of her greatest critics did the exact same thing that she did.

This is what happens when politicians try and accuse other people of doing something. Every politician has violated some unspoken ethics rule at some point down the line. Name me one politician that you trust unfailingly.

Republicans accuse Democrats of doing awful and horrible things that are bad for the American public and then Democrats come back and do the exact same thing.

Then the media gets into the mix and reveal the Clinton email scandal and then the Pence email scandal and the whole cycle gets started back up again. Basically, it’s a giant pile of squabbling turkeys.

Never mind that people are still waiting on a health care plan to be revealed, there’s still some questions about the budget and there’s this whole weird thing going on with this guy who was arrested for making bomb threats against Jews who was trying to frame his ex and he may possibly be Islamic and he might have voted for Bernie and he is also a disgraced journalist?

Instead of clearing up any of those giant messes, let’s focus on the big story and the one that really counts. Emails.

We all get to sit back and watch the cycle of “this person did that,” “well this person did that.” It’ll just keep going again and again and again. Because if politicians can’t accuse each other, what are they going to do? Care for their constituents? That’s a ridiculous idea.

Their job is to look at what the opposite party is doing, release a statement on why they don’t agree with the opposing party and then complain about it for days. Then the opposite party can’t just sit there and let these people say things about them so they release a statement in response to the statement, go on television and complain about it for days. And then… well we get the point.

Let’s be honest, this is a cycle that many of us watch play out on Facebook and Twitter and we thrill in it a little bit. Every single person likes to watch other people’s drama to some degree.

And yes, people will complain (like me) about how no one is getting anything done and this is just ridiculous, but we still watch it don’t we? We thrive in this crazy culture of politics.

It isn’t just the media’s fault or the politician’s fault. We all share a piece of the blame for the incredible divisiveness in America right now.

How many of us accuse other people on social media for being terrible people because they happen to think differently than you do? How many of us refuse to be around other people who think differently than we do?

It may not be as obvious for some people, but in some way or another, even unconsciously, we condemn those who don’t agree with us.

This week, I encourage everyone to start a conversation with someone who might think differently than you do. Just talk to them and see where it goes.

You don’t have to like their viewpoint or even agree with it, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could at least hold a conversation without getting offended and without name calling?

Laina Yost
Managing Editor