United We Stand, Divided We Fall – Are We in the Fall? [Opinion]

United we stand, divided we fall and the only one we can blame is ourselves.

Welcome one and all to 2019, where everyone actively seeks something to argue about. It's a bit exhausting. Before you break out your pitchforks, hear me out. I am about to walk a very fine line, expressing my personal views of the current social climate in the United States and how it has impacted not only us as individuals, but as a nation. I am not siding with either side of the aisle.

All of the world's biggest empires, at some point in their history, experience a fall from grace. Is the United States coming closer to that time?

This is not an anti-patriotic post. I constantly feel blessed to have been born and live in the United States. Are we perfect? No, of course not. It would be arrogant to believe that any nation is perfect. However, would I want to live in most of the world? No. With that being said, I believe we need a wake-up call before we get to the point of no return.

We as a nation like to play the blame game and it has turned into a three-ring circus. Bring on the clowns.

As someone who spends a majority of their time mindlessly scrolling through social media, yes I am a stereotypical millennial, I have become saddened by the current state of affairs. We feed off of being bitter and pointing fingers. If things do not go the way we would like them to, whether that be in our personal lives or on a political stage, we blame the person next to us.

If you scroll through the comments of any political issue, you see both sides of the aisle blaming the other. Take situation A for instance. On the same article, you will see the keyboard warriors saying something along the lines of, "That's because of the left blah blah blah blah." The next comment will read, "Well if the right would just blah blah blah."

We have assigned ourselves on opposite corners of the boxing ring, fighting it out to see who can be viewed as the most right. Gone are the days of substance, we now live in a time where we inject our image with Botox hiding the fact that our character holds no merit. It does not matter what you do in life, it just matters what the public thinks you did.

The United States has become the child in a messy divorce, with either parent trying to prove why they deserve to have it all.

Will the division caused by a two-party system destroy what we have long fought to have?

I am not a fortune teller and at the same time, I am very skeptical by even my own words. Just because someone speaks louder than you, does not mean you agree with them. However, at the same time, the ones who speak the loudest and point the finger get more done.

Gone are the days of intellectual debates. Name-calling, dismissive tones, and blame are the only appropriate ways to communicate.

During the last presidential election, I had many friends post on Facebook that they could not be friends with someone who would vote for [insert candidate here.] We have reduced ourselves to our political party. Who we vote for tells the whole story and we should be viciously judged thusly. We have created a check-list for those we will associate with and at the top of the list is which political party they associate themselves with.

We place too much importance to our political party. How can we be a nation that praises diversity if we look at one another as being a republican or democrat?

We are the child who broke their favorite toy after throwing a temper tantrum about the said toy.

Many people would agree that the current social and political climate in the U.S. has become volatile. How on earth can we fix it? Stop thinking you are always right because you're not. Stop boiling a person down to who they vote for on election day. Stop blaming the opposing political party for everything/anything that goes wrong. Bringing in the divorce metaphor again, it takes two people to stay married and it takes two to divorce. Stop looking for one scapegoat for all of our problems.

It is much easier to see a problem and point the finger in anger, rather than sitting down with those you disagree with and have a rational conversation. We would rather stew in anger and say, "I told you so." The high horse we have placed ourselves on is getting taller and taller. It is only a matter of time before it tips over and we come tumbling down.

In 1780 John Adams wrote:

There is nothing I dread so much, as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil, under our Constitution.

Here we are almost 240 years later proving him right.