Everyone on social media this election is unbearable
This is the most hateful election in America to date
#NeverHillary
#NeverTrump
#HillaryForPrison
I’ve seen all of these hashtags being violently thrown around social media, accompanied by slander videos of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and videos of supporters of both candidates acting like idiots. The extreme aggression from both sides all over social media is evident. People post videos driving off the road to run into Donald Trump signs. Others expose Trump supporters screaming at minorities during rallies. All in all, this is clearly the most hateful election to date.
To make it worse, the media is eating it up. Right-leaning news sites, such as Fox News, try to destroy Clinton’s reputation while leftist sites, like MSNBC, do the same to Trump. This creates an incredible polarization, especially on social media, between people voting for Clinton and Trump. Many people, noticing the divide, have decided not to vote at all, deeming our political system forever destroyed.
However, most people voting for these candidates are not extremists. They’re just Republicans and Democrats, voting for their respective nominee. Yes, many conservatives are embarrassed of Trump and many liberals are embarrassed of Hillary, but they still will vote for their party’s candidate. The question both sides ask constantly is “why?”
Sadly, no one actually tries to solve that question. Instead, we devolve into petty insults about the candidate we don’t like. We make memes and laugh at debates, thinking “how could somebody vote for this clown?”
What we need instead is dialogue. If we can move away from the media’s political rhetoric and partisanship completely, we can actually talk about our moral and fiscal values on a person to person level. Perhaps you support gay marriage but also want to decrease income taxes, or you’re against abortion but think Obamacare has done a great job expanding healthcare.
In short, one’s values may not fall exactly in line with their political party, but they may see their ideals align with one candidate more than the other (usually the candidate of the political party they belong to), so they will vote for that candidate. If we are able to sit down and discuss why people support a certain candidate instead of bashing them, we may actually get a better, more thoughtful and understanding perspective on this election and partisanship as whole.
But from social media, it appears that won’t be possible. In the words of Donald Trump: “sad!”