Opinion: Extremism is destroying America

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Extremism is destroying American politics.

In the 2020 presidential election debate, former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden were throwing insults at each other like “shut up”, “clown”, and “racist”. This, to me, is no debate; it is simply a shouting match that doesn’t give any voter valuable information.

“Debates” like Trump and Biden’s and the inability to conversate are an example of the extremism and irrationalism in America. These men  have spent their whole lives in politics and only viewed one side of the spectrum, which makes them think they are always right and can’t have a progressive argument.

In my experience, we have had many different debates and discussions in every class and not one time have I ever thought it was out of hand. There was never anyone screaming over each other and being rude. But sadly, those are never the kind of people you see being elected for President and other government positions.

It feels like you have to have extreme feelings for one side of the political compass with no waver but that’s not how majority of America is. Something that contributes to that very heavily are the small minority groups who are so committed to their political parties and the candidate that they show that commitment through violence.

Radical groups like Antifa, The League of the South, and The Oath Keepers vow to keep order against unconstitutional acts. But, from the outside all these groups are causing is more chaos then what is necessary. It also gives that political party that they associate with a bad look which causes more turmoil and false-assumptions between Americans.

We need to learn from states like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan who have had domestic wars rage through their countries due to the lack of understanding and inability to reason with each other within their government which made them almost completely destroy themselves. If we don’t study and understand what happened in these countries, we are bound to have the same fate. In the words of George Santayana, ​“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”