A week ago, I spectated the anti-Donald Trump rally that was hosted by the Radical Student Association (RSA), and what I witnessed was disturbing. I heard the foolish spewing from both sides: the RSA’s representative speaker declaring, “I hate America,” and the Trump supporter in a U.S. hat shouting, “Leave our country.” However, what I saw was even more horrifying. I saw the convulsions of my fellow students’ faces, spit flying from their mouths as they attempted to scream all they could, and the little twitches in each of them when you could tell they’ve had enough – it was the tangible manifestation of how we have all felt during this grueling election year. It was fear, anger and confusion.
And “we” is not a liberal we, nor a conservative we. It is an “us,” it is American – and I’m going to stress this point as much as I can.
According to a Pew Research, “More than half of Democrats (55%) say the Republican Party makes them ‘afraid,’ while 49% of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party,” and furthering that, 70 percent of Democrats believe Republicans are close-minded individuals, and 52 percent of Republicans believe Democrats are close-minded. Sounds a bit like two children — who cannot yet understand compromise — fighting over a toy they should share. And if you don’t believe this identity-politicking nonsense exists and is rampant, then listen to this exchange by the two representatives of each side today:
“F--- you!”
“No, f--- you!”
“F--- you!”
That is verbatim. Yeah. It’s sad. This culmination of angry, hateful and painful rhetoric is the result of a gratuitous and fruitless attempt at discourse. And these same attempts have been the discourse of our 2016 election year. Political campaigns might not have been so direct in their diction, but in one way or another, both sides were essentially telling their opponents to f--- off.
And I know we are all angry, scared or confused. We’re angry at the results of the election or angry at those who won’t accept the election. We’re scared of the other side imposing their beliefs on you and confused as to what we should all be doing now. Yet, as we sit here and wallow in our jarring amalgamation of emotions, have any of you been asking yourselves the questions that matter? Why did this happen? What am I angry with? How did we come to be so divisive?
It should be obvious by now to anyone who wasn’t there on Turlington Plaza last Monday that the discussion or “rally” — which was not a rally in any way, as it wasn’t a mass meeting of people, and they provided no arguments, only attacks — didn’t reach a profundity that would address these questions. However, if you have been asking yourself these questions or questioning this election process in general, then you’ve done much better than these ignorant shouters have. Rather than providing and perpetuating an already angry, hateful and divisive dialogue more power and voice by reacting to stimulus from the other side, we need to arrive at a conscientious consensus as to what is going on and what we can do to fix it.
If you’re tired of identity-politicking and hearing your friends assert each Trump voter — not supporter — is a racist or calling each Democrat a “libtard,” if you’re tired of feeling a lack of representation politically (Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians, too) or if you’re simply tired of seeing a divide so blatant and powerful in this beautiful country of ours, then ask yourselves and your friends these questions.
The rhetoric of pitting sides against each other that we have now only nullifies the very little discourse we do have; asking questions nuances our discourse and helps us arrive at solutions we may be angrily blinded to. If you can’t find the answers to some of these questions, hopefully, I can. I plan to write a column each day until the end of this week, nuancing our discourse: asking what Trump’s presidency posits, the problem with identity-politicking, how we arrived at where we are now and the problems with our voting system and representation. I hope to see you all tomorrow.
James Hardison is an English sophomore. His columns will appear every day this week.
