Picture by Joshua Sukoff
Originally published in The Campus on September 2018
Like any other college student, an abundance of responsibilities involving school life, family life, extracurricular involvement, or work is more than enough to cause worry. As a result, occasionally dipping your eyes and ears into the arena of politics is like asking for an extra headache. Unfortunately, with how pervasive politics has become recently, avoiding the topic feels impossible. To cushion ourselves from the anger and resentment that can be felt from observing Washington D.C, we huddle within our own ideological group, using our like-minded friends and the arguments created by our news media of choice to create cover against whatever new attack the political opposition is unleashing. Within our political bubbles, we feel understood, vindicated, and safe. However, it is this very feeling of security that widens the gulf between both liberals and conservatives in this country, creating the current state of politics now: a perpetual firestorm that grows larger by the day, each protesting voice doing nothing but fanning the flames.
The American people’s views on certain topics have always been divided based on political ideology, but in recent years that political divide has grown even wider. When the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan political fact tank that conducts research on American politics and its influence on public opinion, surveyed 5000 individuals of various political ideologies in 2017, they found that the political divide has grown sharply during President Trump’s first year in office, especially when concerned with particular political issues such as immigration, race, and the safety social net. According to the study, when people were asked to either agree or disagree with the notion that the government should help the needy, the difference in stance between liberals and conservatives went up from 29% to 47% over a period of approximately five to six years, reaching its peak last year. What’s even more striking is the fact that the type of environment that people live in is also a huge indicator of whether or not people are more likely to stand by the line of a specific party. The same Pew study stated that “[65% of] Republicans say they would rather live in a community where houses are larger and farther apart…[61%] of Democrats prefer smaller houses within walking distance of schools and shopping.” Clare Foran from The Atlantic argues that the likelihood of like-minded people living in the same type of environment greatly affects the type of political biases that people are exposed to regularly, when she states, “It’s common for Democrats and Republicans to have social circles filled with people who share their own political beliefs… That inevitably diminishes the likelihood that people will have their partisan viewpoints challenged in any kind of meaningful way in their day-to-day lives.”
The wide difference in terms of the type of media different people consume also plays a role in the different realities people of both parties have formulated for themselves. According to a Pew Research study conducted in 2014, people classified as “consistently liberal” are more likely to get their new sources from a wide array of news sources like CNN (15%), MSNBC (12%), NPR (13%), and the New York Times (10%) and “trust more than distrust 28 of 36 news sources surveyed.” Meanwhile, consistently conservative” people seem to rely on Fox News, which was the major news source for 47% of that group alone. Consistent conservatives were also more likely to distrust more than 24 of the 36 major new sources surveyed. Since those who identify strongly with one major political group are more likely to completely avoid the news source that their “opponents” use, it becomes difficult to even comprehend why one would even bother being a part of the alternative party, resulting in increased furor from both sides. This notion has increased under Trump’s tenure dramatically. Democrats continue to completely misunderstand that Trump’ support is linked towards his ability to appease the evangelical Christian and anti-abortion crowd who will begrudgingly tolerate constant presidential firestorms as long as they can get a conservative Supreme Court justice and other political gains, and Republicans misunderstand that certain aspects of Trump’s presidency are deeply troubling and not just the latest fad that democrats are blowing out of proportion again. However, if one was to clutch to their trusted news source of choice, it would be impossible to see that.
As students that attend a college that is in the center of the liberal bastion that is New York City, it seems impossible to find people that have different views from your own. However, look close enough, and you are bound to find someone who may have a differing viewpoint about a specific topic. This differing idea may be political in nature, but it may even pertain to a different topic entirely. Getting to have conversations with other students (if you guys are willing to communicate respectfully) is one way to learn more about the alternative viewpoint, and this can be accomplished during in class discussions in certain classes or friendly discussions outside of class if you are feeling proactive. If you learn about a specific political event, take the effort to find articles or videos that try to explain both sides of the argument accurately so that your opinion can be informed. Another way to learn about different viewpoints regarding certain topics is to reach out to professors in school that have expertise in the topic; having discussions with them and asking for sources that agree or disagree with their opinion can give you enough background knowledge and be the catalyst that leads to interesting intellectual discussions. Sometimes, guest speakers that discuss these topics come to our college in order to argue their viewpoint about a certain political topic. School clubs also have large events that are discussion based. If the subject of these talks interest you, attend the event, listen to ideas discussed, and respectfully play devil’s advocate by either asking questions during the event (when allowed to!) or speaking with the speaker/club leader after the main event has finished.
Whether you are liberal or conservative, it can be advantageous to understand the point of view of the other side. If it means trying to find more news sources that are unbiased/contain commentary from both viewpoints or trying to have a conversation with the guy in your class that says he’s part of a political party different from yours, doing so will bring greater enlightenment to your understanding of the current situation in Washington and will allow your stances on certain issues to be more informed. While you are extremely unlikely to change the minds of those with opposing viewpoints by understanding their arguments, being more informed of the arguments shouted from the other side of the aisle does increase the chance of establishing a baseline of fact. If politics is to become less vitriolic and more productive for the country as a whole, sealing the political divide and establishing a baseline of fact will be necessary. As college students who will pursue careers that may result in leadership positions or positions of great influence, we must aim to create a world where facts are constant and are not tainted by political leanings in order to debate properly and move the country forward.
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