Screaming At The Political Divide

I recently announced I would be leaving Facebook. One of the major factors for me doing so is, there is no room for open civil adult conversations on Facebook. 

You cannot talk about being openly gay on Facebook, without someone, in return, subjecting you to homophobia. You cannot openly talk about being an atheist on Facebook, without someone harassing you for your lack of faith or religious beliefs. You cannot openly talk about liberal or Democratic political ideology, without someone making incendiary comments in an attempt to goad you into a verbal altercation.

I know, because ever since I've joined Facebook, I've personally experienced all of these things.

Maybe it's due to my own circle of family and friends, most of whom are the exact opposite. They're mostly heterosexual, Republican, Christians.

The real difference between most of us is on a personal level. I believe it's fine if someone wants to attend church, or not. I've said it out loud in person, on several occasions. I've said it's fine if someone wants to identify as a Conservative or a Republican. I've even written about this. I wish I could say the same thing about the majority of those who I am connected to.

I don't necessarily celebrate differences, but I do acknowledge them. When I feel my differences cannot even be acknowledged, I feel invisible, I feel like I'm alone. Nobody wants to be alone.

This is where the divide clearly shows. The political divide so many people have been talking about ever since the first year after the inauguration of President Trump.

The divide is getting bigger and bigger, every day, and at this point, I believe there's nothing able to stop it. Nothing will change until all Americans can fully remove ourselves from President Trump and the storm of current events surrounding his Presidency.

Should he be impeached? Is he really an effective President or politician? Is he moving America in the right direction?

For me, these are simple questions. My answers can be backed up with an incredible amount of evidence, not fully based on The Democratic Party's talking points. 

I was involved in a conversation about gun control on Facebook. I had someone use a questionable phrase, used ad-nauseam by, "The Right". "What is an assault rifle?"

Here's the thing. Don't demand one side of the entire general population to stop pressing an increasing issue, if you didn't want to make any compromise in the first place. Either, you understand there is an issue and you wanted to sit at the table, to talk about what the middle ground is, or, you don't. This is Politics 101. Where is the compromise? 

Facebook is at the forefront of America's political insanity. Between the Russian Bot scandal and Cambridge Analytica, Facebook has found itself going into territory far beyond what any one person could have conceived where social media would wind up.

It's all driven the idea of how the American political system works and what democracy looks like, to the edge of a very perilous cliff and one side of the general population, along with the politicians they will constantly and consistently defend, blindly, don't seem to care. Almost, as if, this is the kind of revolution they believe they wanted.

“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud - Vox

Our differences are no longer divided into, gay, straight, white, black, Democrat, Republican, so on and so forth. The difference is, there are two groups of people, one group sees a problem, understands the problem, and wants to figure out a way to solve the problem. The second group doesn't even see the problem. Their guy won, he's doing a great job, and there's nothing you can say or do to convince them otherwise.

This group doesn't want to talk about it either. They don't connect with their family or friends when talking about sex, money, religion, or politics anymore. These topics have been boiled down to the core beliefs emanating from "The Right", turned into internet memes, liked, and shared throughout the social media sphere, without researching, questioning, or fact-checking first.

The most recent example I encountered, was a post I would describe as text on a background created in Microsoft Paint. An effortless internet meme, which, was drenched in Islamophobia. It was on my personal Facebook news feed, as soon as I logged in. A few months later, 50 Muslims were shot and killed in Christchurch, New Zealand. The shooter stated President Trump was a hero of his.

New Zealand mosque shooter is a white nationalist who hates immigrants, documents and video reveal - The Chicago Tribune

Not 24-hours before the shooting, President Trump said it would be bad if his supporters got tough against his opponents.

Trump: You wouldn’t like my supporters in the military if they got angry - The Washington Post

Trump suggests that it could get 'very bad' if military, police, biker supporters play 'tough' - The Hill

The connections are clear, but only to one of the groups previously mentioned.