This election season, political division and polarization have upended the American traditions of getting past our differences at the ballot box, not the battlefield. After grappling with multiple assassination attempts, fiery rhetoric from high-ranking politicians, and a low number of undecided voters, citizens and politicians alike must come together to realize that the answer is often somewhere in the middle.
According to an August 2024 survey by Franklin & Marshall College, only three percent of voters are undecided. This is no surprise. Since the 2016 election, major politicians from both parties have been emphasizing vitriol towards the opposing side in their campaigns. According to the New York Times, Donald Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton didn’t have “a presidential look”, while Clinton called half of Trump’s supporters “a basket of deplorables.” Just four years earlier, during the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney used their platforms to criticize each others’ budget and healthcare plans, rather than their character or voter base. This had been the norm for the entirety of the United States’ history for a reason: political division causes instability and strife.
As representatives of our voices who are supposed to serve the people, our politicians should use their positions to improve the lives of their constituents. Recently, they’ve been more focused on advancing their own agendas, primarily by defeating the other side. According to The Guardian, a bipartisan bill introduced by Democratic members of Congress to increase border security was blocked by negative votes from 44 out of 49 Republican senators because Trump wanted an issue to run on in November.
Gregorio (Greg) Casar represents Texas’ 35th Congressional District, one of two that cover the Austin area. According to Justice Democrats, he is a progressive member of the House of Representatives. He also supports the Democratic Socialists of America and defunding the police. Upon Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, he wrote in an official statement, “I won’t call for healing. I’m calling for resistance.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She recently suggested that Hurricane Helene, which badly hit her own state, was created by Democrats who “control the weather”, according to NBC. She has advocated for a “national divorce” between red and blue states, where people originally from blue states would have to pay higher taxes and be forbidden from voting in red states.
This rhetoric means that voters who would otherwise consider both candidates are being pushed to one side and are made to see the other as fundamentally wrong and immoral. During this presidential election, political division in the United States has reached a new high. Republicans and Democrats see members of the other party as irreconcilably wrong people who don’t care about doing the best they can for our country and the world. They refuse to take the other side’s perspective on issues, and they adopt the exact same set of values as their party.
The most visible effects of this division were seen when Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump at a rally on July 14. According to The Independent, Crooks was a registered Republican but he had donated to a Democratic political action committee in 2020. Although likely mentally unwell, he did once support different parties, and might not have been pushed to political violence without the divisive messages coming from official campaigns.
During trying times, we must come together to choose leaders who we believe will put the sake of the people before the sake of themselves. This includes focusing on helping others before trying to get themselves elected. As politicians seek personal greatness, they should look back to George Washington’s pivotal decision to step down after 8 years as president–a decision with no consideration of himself, only the people.
