This presidential election has caused more controversy and has gotten more media attention than any other in the past. This is both a great thing and something awful. It is great because it has sparked so much interest in so many people and this has lead to publicly voiced opinions. With these opinions comes backlash. The amount of hate, negativity, and hostility is unbelievable. A person cannot share their political opinion anymore without getting critiqued and harassed about it. This is wrong. Everyone has an opinion and everyone needs to learn to respect other people’s opinions.

It is impossible to go onto social media without someone posting a very long status about who they are voting for, why they are voting for them, and why everyone who isn’t voting for said candidate is wrong. While explaining why everyone who isn’t voting for said candidate is wrong, negative and derogatory comments are made. It has gotten to the point where other people have called certain candidate’s supporters racists and mentally ill. There are two main points as to why these comments are completely inaccurate. The first is that these people are making assumptions about millions of people they don’t even know. The second is that there is no respect being shown when there should be.

If you do not know a person, or millions of people, then you shouldn’t make assumptions about them. You shouldn’t put them into categories that they more than likely don’t belong in. You don’t know their lives or what they’ve gone through. And if you don’t know these pieces of information then how can you make judgments on them? It goes back to the golden rule that we all learned in elementary school, treat others the way you want to be treated. Would you be completely fine with someone calling you mentally ill even though you’re not? My guess is that you wouldn’t be ok with that. And since you’re not ok with someone calling you that, then you really shouldn’t be calling a large group of complete strangers that either. Derogatory name calling needs to stop because it’s completely unnecessary and is just flat out rude and disrespectful. This brings me to my next point.

The lack of respect for other people’s opinions is unfathomable. Just because another person has a different viewpoint and opinion than you, does not mean that you have to be disrespectful towards them. They have their opinion, you have yours, and we all need to respect that. Respect has become such a rare practice and that’s scary. Respect is a practice that should be extremely common. Today’s society has made it so that when someone does respect someone else we are all shocked. It should be the other way around. We should be so used to respect that when disrespect shows up, that is when we get shocked.

To all of the people out there who have called people mentally ill, racists, or any other negative term just because someone’s opinion didn’t agree with yours, it’s time to stop. I am almost 100% positive that there are other things you could do than to call people names. There is no need to bash other people because of their opinions. We need to learn to hear them out, respect their opinion even if it is different from ours, and walk away. You have your opinion and I have mine. I will completely respect yours. Will you respect mine?