It’s no secret that the partisan divide is wider than ever at this moment in history. Even moderates tend to be lumped together with conservatives, erasing any gray area in politics and leaving voters with black-or-white issues, when in reality, seldom anything is truly that simple. I know about this gray area between extremes more than anything because I have lived it–I grew up in a household with one conservative, traditionalist parent, and one liberal, progressive parent. While I don’t fall in the middle of the spectrum because of this experience or identify as a moderate, this article isn’t necessarily about my personal political views (in fact, let’s not even go there). And I would also be naive to think that because of my experience I know the whole of the human experience and have all of the knowledge required to make sweeping assumptions about bipartisan politics. What I can testify to, however, is the unique vantage point I’ve been able to have and how it’s shaped my perspective on bipartisanism and what has driven the immensely thick wedge between ends of the political spectrum. Maybe you’ve had the same observations yourself, or maybe your experience has been drastically different–and that’s okay. This is what I’ve personally learned from living in a politically-divided household.
1. Pain informs politics.
This might seem like a bold statement, and well, it kind of is. But there’s no denying that the things that have hurt us the most tend to be the things that we care about most, in politics, but also just in our everyday life. Our personal experiences shape who we are as people, but also what we tend to dwell on most because we know the inner-workings of certain situations and experiences, and thus are more attuned to the issues inherent in these situations and experiences. For example, if you’ve ever been homeless, you’re likely never to take a roof over your head for granted, and may even become passionate about helping the homeless yourself. Or if you’ve ever suffered from a mental illness, you may be especially sensitive and empathetic to those with mental health issues and may even advocate for reforms to make mental illness treatment better in some respect. It all comes down to what hits home for us, what resonates with our personal experiences, and what we have an emotional connection to. If a certain political ideology or individual politician doesn’t take into account or shed enough light on a certain facet of our experience, we would obviously be less inclined to support it/them. The more we understand this, the more we can understand people’s pain points, our own biases informed by our own pains, and that truly all people are hurting in different ways, albeit certain pains are more systemic and chronic than others.
2. Black-and-white thinking seems like the easy way out–but it’s not.
Black-and-white thinking is easy because if you simply identify yourself with one group or political ideology and adhere to its most extreme version, you never have to think deeply and critically about highly nuanced political issues. However, this is a dangerous trap to fall into because it prevents you from truly making political decisions that resonate with you and immerses you in herd-like mentality in which a group thinks the exact same way as each other with little to no room for dialogue or discussion about alternative views. Now that is not to say that it’s bad to be completely shifted in one direction in regard to a certain issue or area of policy. After all, that’s the point of political awareness–once you open yourself up to well-rounded political education and give yourself agency over your own political decisions, you have the freedom to align yourself with whatever political ideologies and belief systems and to whatever degree resonates the most authentically with you. Because at the end of the day, do we really want what’s easier, or what’s most authentic, genuine, healthy, and beneficial for ourselves and others? Extremism can become unhealthy when it’s the default way of being, and in the current political climate, it seems that’s the only option we are aware of.
3. Social justice does not have to be a partisan issue.
But often it’s treated as such. It doesn’t matter what political party or ideological framework you most resonate with–you are able to support human rights, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, or any of the myriad other social justice movements that demand attention from people of all sides of the political spectrum. At the end of the day, we are all human beings with unique experiences and wants and needs, which, going back to my first point, are often informed by our own pain. It’s okay to admit to ourselves that we do not understand another person’s experience and still support them. It’s okay to not have walked in someone’s shoes and still stand by them in solidarity. It’s okay to be afraid of that which we do not understand because this fear is primal and deeply ingrained as long as this fear does not manifest in harmful, destructive, and life-threatening ways. But it’s not okay to demonize that which we do not know or understand simply because we do not know or understand it, or to deny others any of our time, attention, or consideration simply because their experience does not line up with ours. We owe that much to each other, that we at least consider experiences other than ours regardless of whether this consideration, education, and information results in decisive action or whether it leaves us unmoved. Empathy is not inherently partisan or political whatsoever–so let’s stop acting like it is.
4. Politicians are bad representations of parties as a whole.
It’s very natural for us to take the most extreme version of whatever we are presented with and let that version color our entire lens on a certain group or ideology. And while it’s not wrong or inaccurate for us to acknowledge those politicians whose policies deeply conflict with our own moral values and virtues and decline to offer them support, it’s a bit of a stretch to make the most extreme version inform our opinion on the entire group they identify themselves with. As someone who leans more on one side of the political spectrum than the other but who has seen the rationales behind both sides of the spectrum throughout my “political awakening” journey as a child, adolescent, and young adult, I know that there are politicians on the other end of the spectrum who have endorsed legislation I support, care about issues that I care about, and have overall very similar political ideologies to my own. Just because there may be a few areas of policy we don’t agree with, this does not mean we are not able to support certain policies and politicians and leave the rest. In fact, we would be hard-pressed to find a politician whose entire platform we wholeheartedly agree or disagree with if we were to dissect every bit of their political agenda, and even when we do find such a politician, there still may be others that we align with much more in some areas but disagree with more in other areas. This is part of the uncomfortable, murky, gray area of politics that requires work and research but also has the potential to more deeply inform or confirm our own political leanings rather than latching onto exaggerated stereotypes of extremist politicians whose views are not truly representative of the whole of their respective party.
If there is anything I want you to take from this ranty, hopefully-not-standing-on-a-soapbox-sounding reflection it’s this: you have the agency to make your own political decisions. No one is backing you into a corner or forcing you to take sides. If you want to take a side, do so out of your own informed opinion based on research and well-rounded education. And, if you don’t know where you fall on the political spectrum, that’s okay too! Let’s normalize the process of “political awakening” and discovering where we stand on political issues. Even once you find a political stance that you resonate with, it may change–and that’s okay too! Politics is a process and we are constantly changing and evolving, as is the world and the political landscape, so the pressure to stay statically in the same political position for the rest of our lives is an odd expectation to have for oneself. Whatever your political ideology, personal experiences, passions, interests, and background, I hope you can find ways to empower yourself to make informed political decisions in a time in which so many people (including myself) have succumbed to camp-y bipartisan politics just because it’s trendy. You’re the ultimate source of your own education, involvement, and advocacy, so delve into the issues deeper with our Compare Politicians tool and let the political awakening begin!
