Turning away from the presidential fray

This is going to hurt.

I have decided to disengage from presidential politics for the remainder of the 2016 cycle. Monday night, I cried myself to sleep picturing my 10-year-old self coloring in the 2000 presidential election map with red and blue crayons. Politics has been one of my favorite hobbies ever since I can remember, but lately it has done nothing but suck the joy out of my life.

I grew up in a relatively conservative family in the suburban Midwest. As I grew older, I started to engage in political debates with my dad, and these debates intensified when I went off to college and subsequently moved to ultra-liberal San Francisco. My mom always tried to shut us down because she thought we were fighting, but the truth is we genuinely enjoyed debating each other. Despite the raised voices, our debates showed how often an avid Bernie Sanders supporter and hardcore Republican can come to an agreement. Throughout all of this, my dad always warned me about the dangers of hiding in an intellectual bubble where everyone thinks the same way. I never fully understood what he was talking about until the 2016 election came around.

As I write this, I’m staring down another three months of an election dominated by the two most unpopular major party nominees in modern history. The candidates have turned themselves into cults of personality with groups of supporters who largely exist within echo chambers of like-minded individuals. The debate has devolved into a constant barrage of negativity, fear mongering, and demonization of the other side. The most heated vitriol is reserved not for the other side, but for people on your “team” who you perceive as not adequately falling in line. Criticism of the candidate from your “team” is strictly off limits and seen as an endorsement of the other team. Fear and shame are the modus operandi. This is not something I want to take part in anymore.

I know people who voted for every major candidate this election. Despite what the media may say, they are loving, caring, fundamentally good people. But every time you hurl personal insults, you tear the country farther apart. It’s easy to pin your problems on groups of people who look different from you and who you’ve never met. It’s easy to sit in cocktail lounges in San Francisco and Washington and make fun of the “stupid” people in Middle America who don’t think like you. It’s much harder to see the humanity in the other side and turn the other cheek when they hurt you.

From now on, I am abstaining from all debate over the presidential candidates and will focus my efforts on congress, state, and local elections. I will challenge myself to listen to people whose opinions are unsettling because I want to understand the struggles of my fellow countrymen. I will continue to foster a movement that will turn our broken system into something that works for everyone. I want a country in which everyone feels valued, a society in which everyone fights FOR each other and not against each other. I’m in it for the long haul, and I won’t be satisfied until the cosmopolitan tech worker fully appreciates the pains of the working class. I won’t be satisfied until the retired coal miner in West Virginia shouts “Black Lives Matter” and means every word.

Peace.