It's My Party, and I'll Cry If I Want To

Tom Cotton, or as Gideon calls him, Com Totton.

I've been writing a column for my newspaper in an attempt to keep my creativity at the same level as my anxiety. I'm going to do the old copy-and-paste trick, but first I should give a little background for readers who might not live in Arkansas or the United States.

The United States is bleeding red after the midterm elections this week, with Republicans finally taking control of the Senate again. Tom Cotton, a corporation-controlled drone, was voted by Arkansans to replace incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Pryor. As a person who believes in basic civil rights and fiscal security, I am very upset about this. This is the article I wrote about it:

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to

Trying to choose which protein bar to purchase last week, I encountered a staple of grocery stores: the angry, crying child. The child had splayed his body across the middle of the cereal aisle and was obviously displeased with his mother, who seemed far too comfortable with this type of behavior. As I walked past mother and child, I heard the boy cry out for a specific kind of cereal.

"That is ridiculous," I thought to myself, cherishing my childless home. After all, I continued thinking, the only time I have to console a hysterical, whiny individual is when the cat begs for extra treats. When my social media accounts blew up with both angry rants and obnoxious raves about the results of the midterm elections just a few hours later, I realized that I had been wrong. Furthermore, I was not only wrong about the alleged mature attitudes of those I surround myself with; I, too, had failed to react to the elections with maturity.

I went to sleep angry Tuesday night and I woke up angry Wednesday morning. When driving my boyfriend to work early that day, I grunted in reaction to all his statements. This is customary speech before my first cup of coffee, but I was especially incensed this morning. As my boyfriend left the car, he told me that he loved me. I responded, "I love you too, and I hate Tom Cotton."

At work, I checked my Facebook feed in-between editing a couple feature articles I wrote the day before. Some of my friends were even angrier than I was; one of them suggested moving out of Arkansas and a couple others insisted on calling Republicans "out-of-touch" and "uninformed," among more obscene insults. Alternatively, a few of my Republican friends gloated about how "the right party finally won."

I immediately found myself agreeing with the angry Democrats, even spewing a little extra vitriol toward my Republican acquaintances. And then, all at once, I realized that I might as well have collapsed on the floor of the grocery store next to that child the night before, drowning out his cries for sugary breakfast goods with derogatory comments about Tom Cotton.

I am still incredibly unhappy about Cotton's election and can't really see Arkansas moving in a positive direction after this, but I also know that this attitude is what partisan politics aim to create. Politicians like Cotton primarily rely on the acerbic dissent between Democrats and Republicans to get elected and to distract citizens from the laws being passed in Congress.

If Arkansans continue to buy into partisan politics in this manner - from either side - we will inevitably fail to compromise, resulting in little progress for the state's working class. We are allowing politicians to systematically alienate us from one another in the same way they alienate themselves from us once time comes to pass laws affecting our financial security and civil rights.

Instead of allowing the results of the election to disappoint me, I'm determined to focus on the good in the situation. Due to the election, the minimum wage will increase incrementally to $8.50 in 2017. This is great news; it will help so many Arkansans who struggle to meet the cost of living, and even if it won't make a huge difference in quality of living, it will make a difference nonetheless.

Just as Arkansans came together to raise the minimum wage, we have to come together on all issues as citizens and not as members of a political party. I'll be the first to admit that this is not easy. I still curse Cotton under my breath even though I know it isn't healthy behavior, but at least I'm aware of it. I'm aware that my opinions might not be the same opinions of other Arkansans, and I am willing to discuss these differences in the hope of finding some middle ground we can all stand on.

We have to learn to do this. We simply can't allow political parties to separate us anymore, because it brings us together in the worst way. Right now, all Arkansans are lying on the floor of the grocery store crying out for Cinnamon Toast Crunch, arms and legs flailing about like a fish freshly plucked from the sea.

Stand up. Stop crying. Accept what you can't change and work toward what you can, and do it together.