This is not about the politics

'Tis the season … the political season, that is. It comes in waves — every four years at least — and it brings a tension that seemingly knows no limits.

I’ll admit, politics has always made me uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong, I have opinions. Some might even say I have strong opinions, but it takes a whole lot to get me to share them because people who are heavily into politics can get vicious in their passion.

I also consider myself to be a realist. I pride myself on looking at both sides and not getting lost in the “he said, she said” of it all.

In what has been a tumultuous political season already, I have seen my fair share of divisive content from all sides. If you started reading this in hopes of discovering my political leanings, you have come to the wrong place.

More important than who I will vote for or who I will support and why, I think the best way to use a platform is to remind people of a couple of universal truths:

• The candidates do not care about you or me: they don’t know your name, your children’s names, what your favorite color is or the reasons you get up in the morning and they never will because your vote is one in a sea of millions they need to garner.

• You can disagree with someone in a respectful manner: bringing up points you agree or disagree with is not inherently bad. When you use those points to vilify other people, over a candidate who, again, doesn’t even know your name, you are showing those around you (i.e. family members, children, friends and neighbors) that they are less important than the figurehead on the television.

• Cheap digs and memes are just that: cheap and divisive.

• Not everything you read on the internet is true: check your facts with non-partisan sources. Avoid the 24-hour news cycles and actually go out and do the research. Words are easily twisted by those with less-than-pure intentions.

In a world where our candidates seem dead set on dividing us, we, the people, must be the ones to build the bridges. Bridges built on discourse, not division. Bridges built on humble truth, without memes and cheap digs on either side. Bridges built not on the bitterness of the one who yells the loudest, but the respectful disagreements where all sides are seen as human.

We all have opinions and I believe everyone’s opinion deserves to be heard. Our voices are louder together, when we don’t have to yell over each other.

I hope, during this political season, that you remember to respect the people who are with you in the highest highs and the lowest lows of life, none of which will be found on the presidential ballot.

Kontnier is the publisher of the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. She can be reached at [email protected].