So not ready for life outside the bubble - The personal, political experience of an ex-Washingtonian
The election gave me great pause to reflect on the American political experience. Witnessing the campaigns from Texas was somewhat eye-opening, considering I attended college in Washington, D.C., at a university often ranked the most politically active in the nation. It was a hotbed of political thought, discourse and activism. I constantly see and hear my professors on news programs.
We did not live in the real world. Partisanship was rampant, but because we didn’t have constituencies to answer to, it did not impede cooperation, discussion nor understanding. There are lessons to be taken from our high idealism and passionate love of politics. Even the most heated arguments were underlined by respect. There was no reason to feel sorry for the other person, because they were working just as hard as you to pursue and advance their political ideals. Politics was about using your brain.
Because of that, I tend to forget that most college students (and many others) are too busy to think much about politics other than what their parents put before them, or what seems easiest to deal with. My peers and I lived and breathed the system. Every political discussion was full of historical, scientific and anecdotal information. Sound bites and overly emotional beliefs were not welcome and you would quickly be ushered out of a conversation if you couldn’t justify your opinion and otherwise convincingly hold your own. The challenge was not to be right, but to make sense.
I often felt like the least-informed person in the room, and it was delicious. I had so much to learn. I lived in a total bubble. But after being coddled in a city where everything seems possible, and being tested and challenged by the might of the “east coast intellectual elite,” the real world is a bit of a slap in the face.
In college, and especially in college in Washington, D.C., you can treat, view and study politics as a science and as an art. The daily slog politics of the average person is distant (a disconnect that often proves to be a problem). In Washington, politics is often intellectual and about possibilities. My Republican friends and my Democrat friends would pit their intellects against one another as if in sport, and then drink together in a kind of triumph of idealistic disagreement.
I found this somewhere, and thought it would be worthwhile to share. Even though the election is over, it doesn’t mean that our disagreements are past us as well. We should still strive toward some semblance of civility.
1. Don’t be mean, hateful, shaming or belittling.
2. Don’t rely on stereotypes and cheap putdowns.
3. Don’t tolerate or join in when others are engaging in hurtful behaviors.
4. Turn off the wingnuts when they come on TV or the radio.
5. Practice faith beliefs instead of fashioning them into weapons.
6. Don’t rely on wingnut rhetoric when you can’t come up with a good argument.
7. Remember that even though family and friends might support candidates we don’t, we still love those people.
