After the results of the 2016 presidential election, I was disillusioned with the political system. I, like many others, assumed that people with different political views than me were wrong, that I was right, and that there was nothing that could change that.
I was wrong.
The two months between when Trump was elected and when he actually became president were like a weird parallel universe, filled with people denying what was happening, denying the reasons why it happened and being convinced that the results of the election could change.
Until the day that I stood on the national mall and watched Donald Trump replace Barack Obama as president of the United States, none of this election process had felt as though it was really happening. But, as Trump took the oath of office and singular raindrops began falling out of the sky, I knew it was real.
I am registered as an independent voter in my home-state of New Hampshire. I voted relatively evenly down the ballot and I voted for President of the United States last. I did not feel good about either of the options and at times contemplated not sending in my absentee ballot, but I was convinced to do so and am glad that I did because at one point the race for president was only 15 votes apart in New Hampshire.
I did not realize how badly I did not want Donald Trump to be president until I found out that he was. I immediately changed my political perspectives, sacrificing any bit of being “down the middle” for a fully left-leaning political ideology in the last few months of 2016 and the first few months of 2017.
I lived in a world where I thought that everyone in the democratic leadership was doing everything right and everyone from the republican majority was wrong, that the election was a fluke, that there was no way Trump would make it to 100 days, that I was right and they were wrong and on and on and on.
My internship this spring taught me a lot about bipartisanship; I realized there that every single one of us who confines ourselves to an individual political ideology without even hearing a piece from the other side is wrong. It is why people think that nothing gets done and it is something that needs to stop.
This past semester has been transformative in that it taught me to hear both sides. I am so grateful to have learned this lesson early in my life and it something I will carry with me as I move forward in politics.
