Over the past four years, a lot of things have come to an ugly head in America. We’ve watched white supremacists march proudly, we’ve watched voters be turned away illegally at polls, we’ve watched fires start and spread and hurricanes ravage whole cities. It seems like every day there is a new horrible thing happening in the U.S. Whether or not you agree, one thing is clear: our country has been divided.
Many people looked towards the 2020 election as a way to move on from all the problems that have arisen during Trump’s presidency. While nearly half of America viewed president Trump as a great enough leader to vote for him again, many voters believed that electing Biden would immediately make America better than it has been. Sadly, this isn’t the case. If Biden is elected president, the issues are still there, deeply ingrained into our society. While Trump may have stoked the flames, social issues like racism, classism and homophobia have always laid in wait in the woodwork.
Simply electing a new president and calling it a day will not solve all of the problems we are facing. If we want to make things better, we have to single out those problems, focus on them and lobby for real change. We have to participate not only in federal elections, but in local ones as well. We have to put our energy into campaigns that will spend that energy supporting us and fighting for those issues.
Not only do we have to put energy into electing local officials who will truly represent the wants and needs of the people they serve, but we need to hold our federal elects accountable. Many people dislike criticizing a politician they themselves voted for in fear that it might lead to a loss for them in future elections. But the only way we can progress as a nation is to see our faults for what they are and hold our officials accountable, even if they’re a member of our own party.
Finally, we have to hold ourselves accountable. We have work to do, and while real change happens within the sanctions of legality, we can advocate for that change. We can encourage our friends and family to vote and educate them on issues they may not be aware of. Those conversations can be hard, but they’re necessary. In an age where honest information and nationwide statistics are available at our fingertips, we have no excuse to be leaving the people we care about in the dark on issues that are important to us.
Electing a new president is a step in the right direction, but if we ever want America to be truly great, we need to keep working. We need to push for the issues that are important to us, we need to hold both ourselves and our elected representatives accountable, and most importantly, we need to behave empathetically. Just because an issue isn’t affecting you directly does not mean it is not dire. It is when issues are left unnoticed or ignored that they are allowed to grow into huge problems. We need to keep pushing for a bright future past the 2020 presidential election.
