Keep Politics in its Place
America just went through a horrific campaign season where the country was split wide open. Dialogue and compromise have been relegated to quaint memories. Politics today are as mean-spirited as it gets. The reasons really don’t matter. Quality of life is really what matters. I, for one, want to live in a country where I can enjoy ‘quality of life.’
Nicholas Giordano, a professor at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island recently made some interesting points regarding this subject. Professor Giordano points to the internet going mainstream in the late ‘90s as a mechanism that was supposed to bring us closer together. In some ways it has and in some it hasn’t. He went on to say social media went mainstream in the early 2000s with the same result. “We have lost our ability to communicate one-to-one and that is a problem,” according to Prof. Giordano, “Instead of a community, we have a bunch of individuals, living by themselves, shouting at one another.”
Some take politics to the extreme. Politics is not a religion, and in my view should not be approached as such. In this country we vote and then live with the results until the next election. It is our civic duty to support those in leadership for the common good. If we disagree with those leaders, we have the right to replace them. That doesn’t mean employing the “politics of personal destruction” to do so. The internet and social media have given anonymous people the platform to use vile and personal attack language to destroy fellow citizens. Is this even America anymore? We should be able to make our points and stake out our positions without resorting to below the belt attacks. We used to be able to – before the electronic age took over. Ask yourself: has the quality of life improved over the past 20 years of the www and social media? Or are we walking around angry at everything and everyone?
My suggestion, if you worship, is to save worship for your religion of choice, not at the altar of politics. Let’s decide as a country to be more civil to one another and compromise whenever possible. We are all stakeholders in the greatest country in the history of the world – time to start acting like it.