America: Conflictual or Consensual? 

By: Kelsey Guinipero

 

 America is often referred to as "The Great American Melting Pot", mainly for reasons like people from different ethnicities and backgrounds, embracing diversity. However, in today's times, diversity is among the nation known as Red States and Blue States.

Those from the Blue States can be classified as those who are wealthy, have a higher education, and are arrogant. These people can be found siting at a booth in Starbucks with a pumpkin spice latte or at home grilling food the just bought at Whole Foods. They're thought of as very basic and more upper class. Then you have those from Red America who are Christian and rugged. They are into motor sports and being outside farming like a pro. You can find them in a Walmart purchasing a gun 50% off or conversing with coworkers about how their entire life changed when their children were born, on the verge of tears. Clearly those who say America is conflictual are not wrong in any way. These two types of very different people can rarely agree on a subject that suits them both, and political leaders know it.
After watching the 8 videos in the playlist, it was easy to pick out a solid theme, except for three videos which proved that theme wrong. The theme I noticed was that Obama Trump and Hillary talked about how America is united, but didn't address the differences. For example, Trump kept saying how he'd  further continue to keep America united. Now I am not disagreeing with the fact that we are united, we still are underneath all of this diversity, which in a way makes us united. Our differences make us, America, who we are because there is no other nation like us.
However, in the Crossfire videos, you could clearly see those major differences. Both Red and Blue State representatives (Illinois and Texas) are passionate on different things, making them argue. When watching the videos you will notice them interrupting each other or talking over each other, proving how it is hard to communicate and get productive ideas through.

Thank you all for reading my blog post. To end this discuss I have thought of a few questions and if you would like to answer or have other questions please comment them (:

1.  Do you agree that America is conflictual?
2. How do you think we could fix this issue?
3. Do you believe Jindel or Perry is correct in the crossfire debate?