When I was thirteen years old, I began my political journey. I decided it was time for me to identify with the views of a particular party. This came as a result of my participation in a pre-AP US history class, where the teacher had us take a political ideology quiz. After taking the quiz, it was revealed that I was, in fact, a Democrat, with no surprise to anyone. My parents came from an extremely conservative background but ultimately realized that the views they held when they were younger were no longer applicable to their present-day needs and opinions. My mom went to the University of Minnesota to get her master’s degree in Public Policy from the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs and  embarked on a path to holding the views of the political left. 

This began an era of me blindly following the platform of the Democratic party, investing myself in others who shared my opinions. However, my experience at Gustavus as a Political Science major led me to change my mind. I was exposed to a wide variety of viewpoints and formed relationships first without initially considering the political opinions of others. When I figured out how someone identified themselves on the political spectrum, I was often surprised. Many people I met held strong left ideas: radical liberals who passionately fought for many different issues. Others, however, were a mixture of conservative views: people who strongly believed that the government needs to do a better job at leaving us alone. 

As a person who now identifies as somewhere in the middle, I was frequently taken aback. How could these people that I had developed such close relationships with identify in a completely different way than me when it came to politics? Did that make us fundamentally different people? Did I have to change the way I formed my relationships with them because I knew there was a large part of our lives in which we disagreed? As these questions entered my head, I began to realize how close-minded I’d become. 

Setting aside my own political journey, I’d like to bring your attention to the problem at hand:  political labels. In case you were somehow unaware, there’s a severe political divide in this nation. This divide is so strong that political views have, in some cases, become not just a single aspect of our identities, but a definition of who we are. I don’t know how or when this happened, but it is a consistent problem   for harmonious living in our communities. In some cases, we use political labels to quickly identify who is our friend and who is our enemy, without knowing much else about the individual in question. 

When we hear someone call themselves Democrat or Republican, many of us automatically make assumptions about that person and their values. This can mislead us to like or dislike people because of their political identity. If we dislike one Democrat, we might push that dislike on all Democrats, and vice versa. This is not to say that those assumptions are always inaccurate or that they are inherently bad, but they inhibit the pursuit of human connection on a deeper level. 

Political labels can be useful, as they allow people to identify with a category that helps them to better understand their own views. They also connect people to others that have similar perspectives to them, making people feel a little bit less alone. Political labels help people describe their viewpoint in an efficient fashion, not having to go through all the intricacies of most of the issues. But what happens when someone doesn’t agree with every aspect of their party’s platform. For example, can you be a Democrat and be pro-life? Can you be a Republican and want healthcare for all? These are questions that muddy the waters of the two-party system and that highlight a significant problem with political labels: a specific category cannot capture the full identity of a person and their beliefs in one word. 

It is not my goal to single out people who identify with a political label, but rather to challenge all of us to think beyond the titles that we give each other. To look for the fundamental qualities that make up a person rather than a word that leads us to make assumptions about others and their beliefs. I challenge all of us, including myself, to do a better job at making an effort to listen and understand those who disagree with us. 

And when we discover a source of tension, to not shun the other person as an outsider, to not argue and force our opinions upon them, but to recognize that we are all human beings whose beliefs come from somewhere. This is not to say we should begin accepting viewpoints that directly or indirectly discriminate against people groups or fundamentally harm others; those are viewpoints that cannot be tolerated by any of us.

You do not have to agree with me, and you are even welcome to vehemently disagree with me. However, I would ask that just because we may disagree, you do not label me as “other” or as a bad person. As students of the liberal arts, we need to make an effort to put ourselves in the shoes of others, not to label people as outsiders because they are different than us. We need to work for greater inclusion of all, and to bring mutual understanding to the political stage that faces us as we enter life beyond Gustavus.