Political Idolatry

We live in a world built on difference. Everyone has a different opinion or point of view on something right? Though there is nothing wrong with having an opinion or ideology you should never get so invested in these differences that you become socially or morally corrupted. That’s exactly what’s taking place in this day in age, especially here in America. This mindset has become such a stronghold that it has led to what many have referred to as political idolatry.

Politics have been around for almost as long as existence itself. There have always been political ideologies and the groups or parties that support them. The structural orders we live in as a people were founded on. People have always been divided on politics, that much is a given and unfortunately the world will always be that way. At the same time I can assess that in the past these differences have led to a lot of drama, but nothing I can say was realistically out of control, but in this day in age I honestly don’t feel this is the case.

I fervently believe that we now live in a generation where there is an unhealthy and misplaced worship of political ideology. Now I’m not someone who actually cares for politics and I can honestly say I only have a surface level understanding of what it all means, but I do understand the impact of what the worship of it all has done to society. When assessing the whole worship of politics it’s important to understand what exactly led to this place of misplaced worship.

If someone were to ask why the worship of politics is stronger today than ever before, from a non-political perspective I would say it was both changes and a lack of changes that led us here. I noticed something that happened back in 2009 after Barack Obama was elected president. The stakes of politics were raised in a way that the left wing was fervently determined to make changes that they felt was most necessary. At the same time it seemed like the right wingers were more determined than ever to rebel against and undo those changes. It was a new political climate that was more aggressive than what I remembered growing up, yet this is not where the worst played out.

Fast forward to 2017 and Donald Trump is elected president and now a big shift has happened because the right has now gained the influence it felt it was missing for the eight years that Obama was in office. Now there’s a big tit for tat. Though the right has the president, the influence of the left’s values is growing in a way that unnerves the right, while the attitude of the right unnerves the left. Fast forward four years later to when Joe Biden has been elected president and riotous warfare has coalesced, literally.

What has all these series of events created in the mind? Well let’s break it down. After striving for so much change on one side’s part and the other side’s stride to see the nation go back to what many would say is it’s traditional values, somewhere down the line everyone got desperate. The left felt like great changes were made, but not enough. The right felt like great changes were made, but not enough. All in all both sides felt like they had come a long way, but at the same time they felt like they were being oppressed, then everything went beyond the political stage.

Everyone had gotten so invested in their political ideologies that by the time the 2020 election came around, politics had been personalized to the point of causing strife between acquaintances outside the political realm and even fracturing relationships. People were having the biggest disputes both on social media and in person, some of these disputes had even turned physical. The worse part about it is no one was seeing how far they were starting to fall.

The craziest part about all this is everyone involved was so overly attached to their political beliefs because they felt that if they got what they wanted then they’d be happy, but in reality this quest made these people the most miserable individuals on the planet. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being politically invested. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with investing in politics, but if you’re so invested in politics that you’ve become a malicious person who can’t even have a simple disagreement with someone without things turning into an all out brawl, then your mind is in the wrong place.

Don’t worship politics. I know you think your beliefs are valid and maybe they are, but at the end of the day politics aren’t going to make your life better, only the person in the mirror can do that. Learn to come to an agreement or even a agreement to disagree, but never have a slavish devotion that turns you against your fellow neighbor. Hold your beliefs loosely.