So much has already been said across this campus and on our News Feeds, but once again we are only hearing from those who share our exact same opinions. No one has realized how divided our country is because we live in these echo chambers that only reverberate our own views. It’s the same reason why we all believed the polls and didn’t come out in numbers to fight. We saw a giant decrease in voter turnout from 2012 (7 million less Democrats voted and 2 million less Republicans voted.) We pride ourselves on living in the perfect democracy, but when we find ourselves in the arena, only a fraction of eligible voters take part in the democracy we so fervently fight for around the world. I say all this without trying to contribute to our mostly liberal, ivy league, and educated echo chamber, but what angers me the most is that so many of my friends have accepted it, “eh, it’s not that bad” or “we’ll be fine” or “it makes sense.” Yes, maybe it makes sense, and maybe we will be fine, but we must think of the millions of others who are thought of as exactly that, others. It feels to me like those who have accepted it as “not that bad” don’t stand rocklike in their principles, as they should, and I am reminded of Hamilton, “if you stand for nothing, then what’ll you fall for?” At this moment, it feels as if we have let hate win. We let the bully take the prize and the outcome makes it feel like our fight doesn’t matter, that it’s impossible to enact real change without taking two steps back. The hope lies in that map that has been circulating around Facebook, that shows voters aged 18-25 turning the map almost completely blue. Yet, we can’t just sit back and hope, Obama also preached for Change, that WE make. We can’t succumb to slacktivism either (the idea that all we need to do is post on Facebook or share an important article), we must actually do, we must fight for what is right and just, and listen to Hillary when she says that “fighting for what’s right is always worth it.”

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