Kailey Krantz | Staff Writer
It’s getting more and more dangerous to be involved in politics. The division between parties is keeping us from discussing important issues and uniting as a country.
Political violence is unfortunately nothing new, but it’s still scary to think about – look at the attempted assassination on Trump. I was terrified once I processed what was going on while watching live footage of it happening.
This is the perfect example of how intense political violence can be physically, mentally and emotionally draining to many citizens.
I understand that an election is going to make everyone tense. There are legitimate reasons to worry about the country’s fate with voters not being satisfied with the candidates and policies that could change our lives, but it should never be this extreme.
Some reasons why people think political violence occurs are aggression mixed with intense party identity. Because people are so passionate about their political parties, it could lead to people doing whatever it takes to show off their pride with deadly force.
What’s worse is politicians who are more aggressive and antagonistic with their campaigns get rewarded with votes because their delivery gets mistaken for intense passion – we see that in Trump rallies, where he spends his time attacking opponents and dramatizing his rhetoric to incite uproar against the opposition.
It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, we shouldn’t be advocating for anyone to die while campaigning because we don’t agree with their policies.
We’re allowed to voice our opinions and have different political beliefs without having to kill each other for it.
It makes me worried that we wouldn’t be able to approach this topic like mature adults, but nothing will be fixed if we ignore it.
If we are tense about an election now, I’m worried this intensity is going to get worse in the coming years. What message is this going to spread to us as voters when sensationalism and extremism in politics is the new norm?
Extreme political influence is turning us into paranoid maniacs causing us to use violence as a means to show off our political pride.
As a student who’s been growing more conscious of our political climate, it’s terrifying to understand that we’re becoming more accustomed to incidents like this.
Even after the attempted assassination happened, my X feed was flooded with memes and jokes about the gunman missing his target – using comedy to cope with what could’ve been a tragedy is desensitizing us to political violence in real-time.
Not only that, there are plenty of people who have good political ideas but choose not to run because they’re scared of having their friends and families being attacked – handling politics isn’t easy, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of losing your loved ones.
We’re seeing that both political parties are blaming each other for inciting political violence – it feels like it’s never going to end.
Uniting as a country is the only way we can stop political violence. If not, the country is going to get more violent every election until there is no chance of fixing it.
Our country started in bloodshed, but we don’t need to continue that trend to discuss politics. We shouldn’t be relying on the force of firearms to decide what is best for the country going forward.
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The opinions presented on this page do not represent the views of the PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.
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