Keeping an open mind

After my first few days working with the Democratic Party, I was given quite a few responsibilities. Some of these responsibilities included attending house district meetings, coordinating events, and meeting individually with precinct committee members and precinct captains. I was assigned to a house district and was in charge of organizing events as well as collaborating with various people in the district. In some of these events, I had the opportunity of canvassing, which is going door to door and speaking to people about the elections. While some of these canvassing events can be quite interesting, some of them can be quite terrifying as well. The interesting part is that I noticed many voters in this district were not properly informed on the issues. Many people hold a firm stance on a certain issue without exploring all the facts of the issue they support and the issue they oppose. I find it difficult to have a complete partisan mentality on numerous issues because most issues are nonlinear. It is important for voters to know exactly what they oppose and to know the pros and cons of what they support. I may not agree with a candidate on an issue but after studying their point of view, I can at least understand why they chose to hold that particular stance. This enables citizens to make more informed decisions when voting and can also decrease many contentious conversations. Now, the more terrifying part of canvassing is speaking to voters who have immensely strong stances on an issue without fully understanding the other side’s point of view on the issue. Many people develop strong negative feelings towards people or candidates with different viewpoints. These people are quick to get angry, yell, or may even refuse to hear anything other than what they already know. As I became better informed on the issues, I realized that there are plausible ideas on both sides and it is not sensible to talk down on others for what they believe. Much of a person’s belief may be heavily contributed from their demographics or from some other serious event in their life. Some of the voters I held conversations with learned that their previous stances on a particular issue did not completely reflect their beliefs. For example, I spoke to a handful of people who chose to dislike and reprehend a candidate for the sole fact that the candidate proposes to raise taxes. Obviously this issue is not so simple because raising taxes almost always sounds bad, but for a person to not know the reasoning behind this proposal could do him or her more harm than good. Especially, if this citizen’s main concern is improving the education system.