Why Republicans Aren't So Scary After All

Every human being on earth has at least one thing that they are very passionate about. Some people get weirdly passionate about dogs. Other people get weirdly passionate about The Office. And then there are the people who get weirdly passionate about politics. I would fall into the last two categories. But, since The Office lost Steve Carell, politics is honestly the more interesting topic to discuss.

Last year, after attending a meeting with and talking to the Board of Education, and joining Wheaton Warrenville South’s speech team, I decided I like this whole “sharing-my-views-to-big-groups-of-people” thing.  Once I figured out that politicians do that for a living, I started becoming interested in politics in general. Luckily, this year conveniently happens to be an election year, so it’s pretty much all politics, all the time.  

I used to hate politics, to be perfectly honest, because I’m fairly liberal and Wheaton is a fairly Republican town, and five years ago when I was in middle school, talking about politics meant you either  loved Obama completely or hated his guts. End of story. So that maybe contributed to my hate of politics and my fear of Republicans (yep, fear of Republicans… sorry). Now, talking to my friends or anyone my age about politics is actually interesting and fun in a nerdy way, because people know why they believe what they do, and can back that up with real information. It was through doing these discussions that I found out that I had more in common with conservatives than I thought.

Oh, and I’m not afraid of Republicans anymore. Part of my dislike of politics and fear of the GOP stemmed from the fact that I knew nothing about the other party; and it seemed to me like the one rule they followed was the “Hate Obama” rule. Now that I actually follow politics, and enjoy discussing politics, I’ve found that this is hardly the case. Actually, I even agree with a few conservative policies. I discovered a lot of this through discussion and then through… Facebook. Facebook comes into play because I actually “liked” Mitt Romney’s page to start getting newsfeed updates from the GOP.

I’m not strange at all.

It has been pretty fascinating seeing the updates from Obama’s official Facebook page being followed with updates from Romney’s. It’s cool comparing the two different styles and views. Even when I don’t agree, I can see that thoughtful people are working out their views on both sides of the issue. (Well, not always so thoughtful: there are still people who think Obama is a secret Muslim who was born in another country, but what are you gonna do.)  So take that, adults who think Facebook is bad for you! Yes, it might not be super educational, but that’s only if you haven’t liked both political party’s pages.

Bottom line is: politics are really interesting, and important, and the way a person votes can change history, and history changes the world; therefore, voters who really care about politics change the world. I can’t wait.