To: readers across the Aisle
Subject: Change is coming
Date: June 22, 2020
To: readers across the Aisle
Subject: Voting in America- not so black and white
Date: May 27, 2020
Let's talk about polarization.
Polarization occurs when political attitudes, like being conservative or liberal, diverge into extremes.
People develop these extreme ideas through misinformation, either through social media or the news they consume. The mainstream news has gotten to the point where you get left leaning perspectives from one source and right leaning perspectives from another source.
Often, these sources are reporting two completely different sides on the same story, contributing to a growing sense of division and political unrest.
Polarization is bad because it prevents us from working together to find solutions to America's problems, like racism and COVID-19. When we are so invested in attacking the other side, we hurt citizens who need the government the most.
These people often don't care whether a Republican or Democrat is in office, they care about finding solutions to education, healthcare, crime, and other problems that are hurting their communities. A divided government can't do that, and instead uses these causes for political gain.
You may think polarization is new. Perhaps the country is particularly divided during election years or due to a historic pandemic. But the government has completely shut down several times in recent years simply because both sides couldn't come to an agreement on things like the budget.
Polarization sucks.
Politicians like a polarized country because it keeps citizens extremely loyal to their party. Both sides have used polarization to convince you that the other side hates America or will destroy it completely. This extreme ideology is tearing our country apart.
The media on both sides like it because they've convinced you that other sources will tell you the wrong thing. This keeps you watching or reading their news network above other sources.
We don't like it because we know that information is being used to purposefully divide us. While we know that information has the power to divide and destroy, we also believe it can unite and heal.
It do be like that.
So what can you do?
Don't get all of your news from one source. You can always use tools like AllSides to research the bias of different news sources. A good gut check when you're reading or watching the news is checking if you disagree with anything.
If you can't find any major points that you disagree with in the news you're consuming, you're probably only getting one side of the story.
We know you don't have time to read 20 different articles to get the full story on controversial news. That's why we do it for you. You'll never agree with everything that's in our newsletter, but you will leave with a better understanding of the other side.
We hope it's one small step in coming together to solve America's problems.