I have a recurring daymare, usually as I am walking up the hill to class. I look around me and suddenly I'm seeing in black and white like those old photos from World War II. The houses that surround me are rubble. Torn apart by what I can only assume are bombs. I can imagine people, my friends, hiding in whatever shelter they can find. It's hard for me to picture, but I know they must have guns in hand. I wonder what would be the identifying markers that indicate the sides, or would it be all against all in mass hysteria?
This is the scene in my head that I call my 'Civil War Daymare', and it's a scene that I hope never comes to pass but one I don't think is completely out of the realm of the possible.
As a political science major I am confronted almost daily by the partisan politics that run rampant through our country. I listen to the news. I see the articles. I'm very aware of the climate in which we live. My worry is that we won't be able to bridge the gap and then one day people will snap. Talking will no longer be good enough and only violence will do.
I fear that day probably more than anything else. Because in that day there will be no one to blame but ourselves. We will no longer be able to accurately claim that someone else is the culprit.
To be honest we need to stop the blame game now. Republicans are not solely at fault for this, Democrats are solely not at fault for that. We are at fault for it. We cannot blame others and think that we are innocent. It doesn't work like that. We are as much at fault for the division between us as Russia is.
Yes, Russia may have hacked our election, they may have leaked documents and spread fake news. But who read the fake news? Who didn't fact check? Who believed everything they were told? We did. Us. The American people. If we knew how to responsibly read the news, if we knew how to have a respectfully civil conversation without it escalating into a full blown fight, if we knew how to fact check, then Russia would have had no influence.
The time for blaming is over.
The time for petty fights is past.
The culture where we never take responsibility for our own conduct is hurting us more than we can yet see.
The division between political parties is only a symptom of a larger disease. It's a disease of lack of communication and a proclivity to blame others. And it is a cancer that will continue to spread and infect and kill healthy organs if we don't do anything about it now.
We don't know how to talk to each other anymore and we don't know how to take responsibility for our actions. If we as millennials can learn these two lessons now we can start changing the world.
My civil war daymare envisions a world in which friend fights friend and America is dying. My hope is that this is only a daymare and never a reality.
And that is the future I work towards.
