Today is Election Day. By tonight, we will know who will be the next President of the United States. 

There will be shouts of victory and cries of anger all over the nation. We will be more divided than we have been in years, and we risk losing ourselves to this election. 

No matter if Clinton wins or Trump wins, there will be many, many angry Americans. We have often asked ourselves how we ended up here. How did it come down to these two candidates? How did we let this happen? 

Yet, we continue to pick those sides we do not really agree with. We continue to put ourselves at war with each other. We continue to call each other names and spew hatred.  

We continue in blindness towards a scary, uncertain future. 

According to a New York Post article by Linda Chavez, “Hillary Clinton plays to her constituencies among minority voters and women, stirring fears that the Republican Party would turn back the clock to the Jim Crow era and deny equal pay for women. Donald Trump stokes resentment among whites that Mexicans and others are stealing their jobs and infesting their neighborhoods with crime.” 

Then, the rest of us follow their lead in denouncing the other party with vitriole. I am not innocent in this. I have my own side in this election and I wholeheartedly believe that my side is the lesser of evils. 

I have called the opposing side names and expressed hatred towards it– never understanding how any decent human being could stand to vote for that presidential nominee. 

However, as the weeks have inched closer and people have gotten more rowdy, outspoken, and unsettled, I have found myself pulling back. I have been pulling back from the political propaganda and from the craziness of this election to attempt to see it from a different perspective. 

I think we are losing ourselves in it. We are losing ourselves in the fight of what we believe will better our country. 

If we continue to be so divided and so full of hatred towards each other, what will we actually achieve? 

According to a Monmouth University study 7 percent of people have lost or ended a friendship this year over the presidential race. In addition, a recent NBC News poll states that 40 percent of Americans have experienced tension in a variety of relationships based on their choice for president. This harsh divisiveness only prevents cooperation in our day-to-day lives. 

If all we continue to do is slander one another and turn our backs on anyone’s opinion that is different than ours, what are we really achieving as a nation?

Tonight we WILL have a new president, and as powerful as he or she may be, we are still the people of this country. We still have our freedom and our voices. We have the power to make a difference.

So I ask you all– Democrats, Republicans, and Third-Party voters, to step back and think about what you really want for our country. Forget about the president for a second. Think about what you want our nation to be. 

What do you want to instill in future generations? What do we need to work on? What are we doing right? 

I want you to step out of your political parties and really think about what you want– not what you think we should do.

Now, remember that you have the power to make a change. Remember that you can work towards what you want this country to be. You do not have to be a politician in Washington to start making a difference. It is fairly easy to join a grassroots political movement. 

According to Renew America, “The grassroots is the very essence of politics. It is dumping tea in a harbor, or standing up and testifying at a local city council meeting, or taking a political candidate aside after a rally and giving him or her some advice, or handing out leaflets at a mall.”

So get involved in an advocacy group on campus. Take the time to learn how to get involved in your state. 

These little changes can impact more than you think – and maybe you are paving the way for someone else to take those changes farther up the ladder. 

Do not put all your hope and trust into our president– put it in yourselves. 

Do not continue to slander one another over this election. 

Do not continue to place your political party ahead of your values. 

We are the people of the United States. No matter who our president is, we are capable of enacting the change we wish to see in our country.