This political season has been fascinating, more so because I have been spending mine out of the country. This year more than any in my voting lifetime (admittedly short voting lifetime), the country is facing a fundamental decision as to what sort of country we want to be, and how the future of America should look.
Living abroad for much of this year, it has been fascinating to see how the landscape has been shaped. While my Facebook newsfeed tells a story of a dominant Bernie Sanders sweeping across the nation, the polls still see Hillary as a frontrunner. We have 13 Republican candidates running, and yet we only seem to be able to talk about two at a time, and one of them has to be Donald Trump. Trump is causing a cataclysmic backlash from most of the country, or so it seems, leaving many to scratch their heads at how this loud-mouthed bigot ever got his name on a ballot in the first place.
Sitting in my apartment in Jerusalem, I found myself asking the question: how did we get here? How did we, as a country, become so divided, so polarized? How did we turn our elections process into a grudge match, in many cases begging politicians to offend and create news, rather than actually forcing them to tell us how they will make the country better?
As I returned home for a two week winter break, I discovered something discomforting: I don’t know the answer to these questions, but those in America don’t either. From only 13 days in the country, I could feel a profound sense of bewilderment across the nation, nobody quite sure how we got ourselves into the situation in which we find ourselves, and even less sure of what we can do to get ourselves out.
The greatest obstacle to a well-functioning political system is confusion. When we, as American voters, don’t know which direction to turn, we often will find ourselves following the voices that play off of our fears and doubts, rather than the ones who can lead us in the truest direction. Fear is, after all, what has gotten us into this situation in the first place. We are afraid for the safety, security, and success of the future of this country, and we want to make sure that our elected official is going to be able to do what it takes to fix it.
As the primaries inch closer, it’s time to turn our backs on the fear and turn off the voices that try to inspire us with false senses of security. We have to stop talking about how, if the election doesn’t go our way, we are moving to Canada. We have to stop looking for reasons to hate one another, and to start looking for places where we can actually govern, and look for the candidates who will be able to do just that. We have to stop allowing politicians to run on platforms that are not only bigoted and wrong, but also unconstitutional and, in some cases, illegal.
We keep sitting around waiting for the Donald Trump situation to go away, but it looks like the sad reality is that we are going to have to take him seriously. If we, not only as Democrats and Republicans, but as Americans want a government that will speak for our values and continue to prove to be worthy of the greatness of our country, then we need to work hard to encourage educated voting and allow easy access to information about what the future of our nation might look like.
Even from abroad, I feel a profound sense of love for my home. At a certain point, Americans need to stand up collectively and take ownership of the elections process, and to demand candidates who will not fear monger or spread hate, but will give true and valuable ways in which they hope to bring about peace and success for all Americans.
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