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I’ll make this as succinct as possible.
I’m very proud of myself that I didn’t write one political post on social media during this Presidential race. My parents taught me well: try to avoid discussing religion and politics at all costs if you want to keep your friendships.
Logic asks: why would we want to put off half the people we’re connected to on these platforms? We all have differing views–and we all don’t share the same ones, which became abundantly apparent. That’s what makes the world go around. A wise person recently told me, “We are all entitled to our opinions, but that doesn’t make them right.” How smart she is.
I study the political issues and educate myself. I spend hours reading articles, listening to credible news sources, and identifying the issues that speak most to me, my family, and the future of our great nation. When it comes down to decision day, I can only be responsible for my own vote. I can’t fill out the ballot for you, nor would I ever want to. Let freedom ring.
The incessant posts on Facebook led me to deactivate my account several times this year. I was completely off of it for three months this summer. Quite simply, I couldn’t take the deluge of posts and nastiness I was reading. Some folks may have been better off blogging about it so that other like-minded folks could follow them. My guess was that there was a lot of hiding and unfollowing going on over the past year, friend to friend.
In the end, the bottom line is this: do you really CARE what I think politically?
I didn’t think so.
And therein lies my discomfort that permeated social media. The plethora of political opinions, day after day and week after week.
My choice was to keep my friends (even though we may differ greatly on fiscal and social issues) and my own political views to myself.
We are Americans and we have the right to voice and post our thoughts, I realize that. I just think we may have taken it a little–or way too–far on Facebook, so much so, that I learned more than I needed to know about people’s opinions through this election cycle.
Someone please bring back funny pet photos and baby images. Someone please post a photo of friends from both sides of the aisle sharing a drink together to our news feeds. That would be a positive and wonderful representation of the ideals of America.