Is it as simple as friend or foe?

It is obvious that social media has become the dominant sounding board for gauging the overall political climate in our nation.  Most likely it will be elevated to even greater heights with the recent election of Donald Trump as our next president.

It’s too early to tell whether this is a good or bad thing.  However, the simplistic categorizations and stereotypical classifications which occur within its confines by its participants are of great concern.

You can dislike or like President Obama; you can dislike or like Donald Trump; you can dislike or like Hillary Clinton; you can abhor the Iran nuclear agreement; you can sympathize with Israel or Palestine; etc. You have the right to do all these things and express them on social media.  However, when the expression of one’s opinion on a single issue automatically leads to some preconceived stereotypical political classification of you, it is not only an irrational act, but totally disrespectful to you as an individual.

As it now stands, if you make even a single comment about a political issue on social media, you are labeled as totally embracing the entire spectrum of the stereotypical ideologies of liberalism, conservatism, or even socialism as defined by each entity.  You are also categorized as “with us or against us.”  This has escalated to the point of lost friendships, family members’ disassociations and even disharmony among spouses.

 

As a result of the 2016 presidential campaigning, “drawing political lines in the sand” has become the new way we interact with people on social media.  We immediately judge and politically classify our social media contacts.

Unfortunately, this rush-to-judgment behavior is now permeating the way we interact with people in our daily face to face encounters.  Glib remarks like “Well, what did you expect, he’s a conservative tea partier,” or “You know he’s a damn liberal,” fill our conversations.  It’s deplorable and out of control because in reality the entire political ideological gamut of the individual is unknown.

Tragically, this is what is tearing this country apart.

A comment from one of my wife’s social media contacts during President Obama’s’ farewell address exemplifies the division that now permeates our country.  His comment was, “I can’t believe I’m listening to this crap.”  The individual was so dismissive of this “liberal” president that he most likely didn’t internalize the most perceptive part of the speech when President Barack Obama warned, “America, we weaken those ties when we allow our political dialogue to become so corrosive that people of good character aren’t even willing to enter public service; so coarse with rancor that Americans with whom we disagree are not just misguided, but malevolent.  We weaken those ties when we define some of us as more American than others; when we write off the whole system as inevitably corrupt, and blame the leaders we elect without examining our own role in electing them.”

The disservice we now do to each other based upon perceived stereotypical political ideologies must stop or we will not be able to” Make America Great Again” no matter who is our commander-in-chief.