Politics Isn’t Football
Political “discussions” have slowly resembled the hooting and hollering at football games
By Ariana Smartt
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
IN MY STATE OF ALABAMA, COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS A RELIGION. Everyone has a team that they will root for and defend no matter what. It’s an obsession and talk between fans of different teams can get nasty, but at the end of the day, it’s just a game.
But during and after this election I hear my peers discuss politics like it’s our SEC football. It’s obvious that they really haven’t done any deep thinking about any of the issues; all they know is what “team” they’re on and what side of an issue they are supposed to take accordingly. This approach toward political issues seems like a common theme in political discourse today. Over and over again I watch conservatives wince at the word “liberal”, like how an Auburn fan reacts when they hear the phrase, “Roll Tide!” We’re now seeing Democrats refuse to blame any part of Hillary’s campaign for her election loss, like Alabama fans refusing to believe that our head coach is responsible when we lose a game. I’ve even caught myself sneering at someone who said they were a Republican, exactly like an Ole Miss fan hearing someone is a Mississippi State fan. But there is no reason to act like this because there could not be a bigger difference between politics and football.
Our two-party system might make it seem like there is only two “sides” to be on, like two teams in a game, but when you look at each individual issue there could be hundreds of different stances to take on every one. “Democrat” and “Republican” are just labels; labels so loose that we often see intense debate over an issue within a party, sometimes more than we see between the two parties. Being a Republican hardly means you agree with every person who calls themselves a Republican, and we see that as even the Republican lawmakers in our country argue over what it means to be a Republican and what Republicans believe. The truth is if you have to pick a team, you’d be on a different team for every single issue and even that implies that your view directly conflicts with every other view on an issue, which is unusual. Just because you’re a Democrat or a Republican doesn’t mean you have to have the same opinion on an issue as every other person in your party.
Besides the two parties, the resemblance between politics and sports is nonexistent. In fact, it can be argued that politics is the opposite of sports. In sports, when one team wins, the other is defeated. In the contest of ideas that is our democracy, when one side wins (succeeds in making the United States a more perfect union), we all win. Everyone is benefited when the economy is good, when jobs are created, when more people feel safe and happy in the U.S.; it doesn’t matter which side of the aisle caused it. In politics everyone is on one “team” and that team’s goal is improving the United States and helping every citizen in this country.
When we view our two parties as two football teams against each other, we stop listening to what the other has to say; we stop questioning our opinions, we stop trying to see others’ perspectives, we completely close ourselves off to new ideas; we get so caught up in the “us vs. them” mentality that we become less like our founders, like level-headed thinkers debating different solutions to issues, and more like drunken men in a sports bar yelling about whose team is best. It is impossible for someone to see another point of view when they are blindly loyal to whatever view they first had. Our democracy can’t function like this. We have become so stubborn and unwilling to rethink our stances, like loyal fans unwilling to abandon a team, and this only results in a lack of any compromise and progress. We must all work together to preserve the standards of decency and debate and fight our urges to see others as being on the opposing team. Can you imagine if half of America hated the other half of America like Auburn fans hate Alabama fans? Can you imagine these fans ever deciding upon anything, much less the fate of our country? It’s a sad time we live in when political discourse today more resembles the Iron Bowl than civil discussion.
