This Election Proves The Need For America To Unify, Or Else
A government for the people, by the people. The phrase “the people” suggests a unified body. A symbolic suggestion that society has a general and typical set of needs and wants in relation to the average American. This election and its tribalism proves people are not unified beyond the clear exercise of our basic rights to vote and freedom to disagree. The dissolution of peace stems from that lack of unity but also is indicative of our inability to stand in unison on the foundation of our country’s principles beyond that of our increasing attraction to protest and revolution.
Some are hurt by their own perspective of a vote against their sets of ideals, while others are angered by the disagreement on the fundamental freedom they deem appropriate as an American citizen. For so long we have championed diversity and celebrated individualism, yet we sit here today with proof of tribalism and duopolies that seem to provide a much more accurate depiction of “the people”.
Your America is not my America. Blue America is not Red America. But that freedom of experience is what has defined American society. When that freedom is tested and challenged by those beyond our borders, Americans answer the call to defend our ideals. When a foreign enemy presents itself to the socially defined idea of America, we rise and protect our standards. However, when that enemy is a fellow American practicing their freedom of ideas, beliefs, and experience, we dissolve into civil unrest and declarations of obedience to partisanships and alliances.
We hunger to be free to develop and embody our ideals and beliefs but when our individual beliefs are not aligned with another individual or the collective, we currently do not discuss, nor debate; we dissolve into division.
To gain representation of our individual and personal experiences in our republic, we look towards the political arena. But when the political arena becomes personal, it detracts from the opportunity to be impartial and unifying. The “personal” is specific and impossible to argue, debate, or represent when there are over 400 million “personal” experiences. A government for “the people”, and by “the people”, needs to unite, not divide.
In its current state, our United States is only a title, not a truth.
If we continue to embolden division, silo our views to confirm bias and agenda, and declare that disagreement is betrayal of faith and principle, we will only continue to dissolve and revolt, not against any government, but each other. To overcome our lack of unity and disdain for the fellow American, we must identify the fuel that stokes the flames of division and tribalism. This cannot be “you versus me” any longer or this American experiment of freedom and democracy will fail.
It is true and imperative that our government, systems, and institutions fundamentally change but not by remodeling the walls and rooms of the republic but by the people we trust to occupy the space. Disagreements and discourse are expected, but division is death to democracy. To get back to practicing our ideals within our unifying declarations, constitutions, and bills, we need to take a step back in our self-identification within partisanships and figure out how to simply be the United States of America.
