Here’s my problem with politics: I simultaneously find them interesting and annoying. I love hearing different sides of a story- different opinions and perspectives- it’s what runs the world. Because if everyone thought the same then how interesting would the world be? It makes us realize that not everyone lives in the same conditions and everyone has a different mind-set. You can’t help but wonder what influenced these people to feel this way. And yet when certain topics come up with people who are not like-minded it makes me want to bang my head against a wall repeatedly.

Why? Politics have become more than just opinions. People don’t like to listen to others. While this obviously isn’t something new in humanity, it feels like recently people just can’t hear anything that is in opposition to their beliefs. For example, if you support Trump, you’re automatically a racist, sexist, homophobic jerk and if you support Hillary then you are a socialist that wants to steal hard earned money and give it to people who don’t deserve it. These are obviously very radical statements that only apply to certain people in the different parties and certainly do not represent everyone who happens to agree with one person more than the other.

But why has America begun to think in this way? This country’s first president warned us about political parties and yet here we are, making rather harsh assumptions about people who don’t agree with us. It’s a horrible way to think- -how can we compromise if we can’t express our opinions without being completely shut down our opposition? We can’t. Without compromise, no one is going to be happy and we can’t progress as a society. And while we’ve come a long way, I’m pretty sure America can become much better than it already is.