(Photo by Leo Visions via Unsplash)
Over dinner last week, a friend said she could not stand hearing President Donald Trump’s name anymore. He tries to be a king. Another friend across the table shrugged, “Well, at least the stock market was doing fine. Maybe people should pay attention to that as well. My 401(k) is great.”
The room went quiet. The tension was heavy. Even as a listener, I felt awkward for them. I realized they were not really talking to each other; they were talking at each other.
As a child, I imagined America as a truly democratic place where I could speak, disagree, and still listen. I even used to quote half seriously, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” from an American movie I watched, when I argued with my little friends. That line felt like a promise. I thought that was what America looked like. Later, I realized that the promise was harder to keep. I remember when I saw Charlie Kirk being killed while debating, I felt lost, totally lost. What about freedom of speech?
Having lived in the United States for a few years, I have either struggled to understand democracy in practice or struggled to keep up with it. People laugh at Trump jokes, and in many public spaces, it feels like a small ritual; you must say something about him, in public or personal conversation. I understand it, and I do not. Should I laugh too, and say, “Yes, that is awful,” or stay silent with something I do not truly understand?
Sometimes I sit there, smiling faintly, unsure if the laughter is about politics or about belonging. For me, sometimes it feels like people are performing their positions more than truly exchanging ideas. I do not mean this as a criticism: it is something I try to make sense of.
I admire how people care, yet I also wonder how we can care in a way that allows space for listening. I wonder what it would be like for someone here, at the university, to support Trump. Could they ever say it openly without being branded as ignorant or called a “redneck”? Even in spaces that celebrate diversity, certain differences seem untouchable.
The beauty of diversity is about the courage to let different opinions live side by side. In one of my classes, a professor once said, half-jokingly, “I will never quote from Fox News.” The room laughed, but I remember feeling uneasy. Not because I agreed with Fox, but because the statement carried an assumption that some sources are not just unreliable, but unthinkable. Even in academic spaces that celebrate critical thinking, it sometimes feels that certain perspectives are dismissed before they are examined. Do not get me wrong, I am not defending Trump. I am just confused. If democracy is truly about representation, why do some voices make us so intolerant? Why are we focused only on taking sides instead of trying to understand each other? The tension feels so strong that, even as an outsider, I can hardly breathe.
I cannot shake the feeling that if everyone is busy fighting for what they believe in, no one is left to listen. “I am a Democrat.” “I am conservative.” Those words are not just opinions. They are identities. But once politics becomes identity, disagreement starts to feel personal. “I disagree with you” becomes “You threaten who I am.” That is when I start to wonder if something in democracy has cracked.
When every argument becomes a matter of identity, something essential has been lost. When people stop seeing their opponents as people and start seeing them as enemies, “diversity” loses its meaning. Identity should not replace democracy, which is a form of government built to manage differences, not erase them, so that conflict might be resolved by conversation.
Every story became a test: “Are you for him or against him?” Complex issues, the economy, immigration, and health care, shrink into tokens of loyalty. Public debate no longer revolves around ideas. Instead, it becomes a ceremony of righteousness.
I am moved when I see classmates and professors working tirelessly to support vulnerable groups and find solutions. Their commitment makes democracy feel less like an idea and more like a daily practice. But once the discussion turns to ideology, I am uneasy…I know that action needs theory and direction. I get it. But sometimes I feel the weight of those ideas pressing down, turning something living into something rigid.
I said I do not watch the news anymore, because headlines grew louder, angrier, and more dramatic. Every story became a test: “Are you for him or against him?” Complex issues, the economy, immigration, and health care, shrink into tokens of loyalty. Public debate no longer revolves around ideas. Instead, it becomes a ceremony of righteousness.
I am surrounded by classmates and professors who hold common good values, who believe deeply in justice, equality, and compassion. I love them, not in an abstract, political way, but in the way you love people whose hearts you trust. Their fight for minority rights, their efforts to support people experiencing homelessness, and their commitment to building systems of care remind me that goodness can be active, not passive. Watching them, I often feel that what I see around me is the America I once imagined. That is why, when I see my colleagues in action, but then witness so many Americans becoming mere ideologues, I grow confused. How can a nation so rich in empathy also be so divided in spirit?
I love the people around me, their kindness, their sense of justice. But I am tired and sometimes lost. I live between admiration and doubt, like standing at the edge of two worlds.
