Bridging the Two Americas

We write this as individuals from starkly distinct backgrounds. One of us is a practicing Muslim, the other a faithful Jew. On surveys, one of us checks off Asian, the other bubbles in white. One of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican. We frequently disagree on policy and ideology. We often prescribe different courses for our country's path to perfection.

You would expect the results of this tumultuous election year to deepen our divides. We did too. But reality compels otherwise. The audacity of our hope for this nation is too great; our belief that morning in America must be near is too profound for us to be blinded by our differences. We are both students at Florida State University, and our shared aspirations are too important for us to overlook the real story of election night — the tale of two Americas — and our mutual role in now redefining it.

Partisan polarization has been escalating for the last decade. The most conservative Democrat in Congress is now more liberal than the most liberal Republican. Ideological overlap between the two parties has declined from 26 percent to 6 percent. The world of the Democrat is almost completely divorced from that of the Republican.

Common ground has been receding, not just among politicians, but also between us citizens. Our Facebook and Twitter feeds are good examples. Social media has empowered us to construct our own echo chambers. We unfriend or unfollow those we disagree with. We interact with material that satisfies our own biases and filter out any contradictions.

The same inclination exists on college campuses. We watch our peers surrounding themselves with people who share their identities and perspectives. These homogenous circles soon become bubbles that are impervious to contradicting notions. We rob ourselves of the chance to appreciate other world views.

Today we are witnessing the dangerous consequences of insular social experiences. Almost all pollsters predicted Donald Trump's demise. His victory comes as a cataclysmic shock to those who had placed their trust in the numbers. To many, it represents a repudiation of what they knew America to be — a multicultural nation that prizes diversity, a sophisticated culture that embraces the gifts of globalism, a moral compass that preserves a precarious international order.

Yet to Trump's supporters, his triumph was the expected defeat of intellectual elites and the out-of-touch establishment who have long ignored their plight. It was a return to the America they want — a culture that calls it like it is, a nation that focuses on its own people first.

One side's sheer astonishment and anxiety and the other's sheer glee is a more jarring contrast than we have seen in recent history. Again, the chasm only seems to be amplified on social media. On one feed, you will find articles lamenting hateful acts being carried out in the name of Trump. On another, you will find posts decrying anti-Trump protests as an obstruction to the peaceful transition of power. There are almost no parallels between those two feeds, just as there are so few intersections between the life experiences of the two voters.

This mutual obliviousness between two factions of America terrifies us. But it also galvanizes us to engage across our differences. To create shared spaces that foster spirited civil discourse between those who disagree, rather than spaces safe from opposing viewpoints. To not smother the voices of bigotry but refute and reverse them with the strength of our own.

At Florida State University, a recent campaign was launched entitled #Power of WE seeking to challenge students to re-imagine diversity as a tool, not a threat. It has started convening students of different backgrounds and circles that rarely overlap to connect and collaborate to better the university community.

Endeavors like this give us hope. The notion of "stronger together" should never suffer the indignity of being a political statement. It is a fundamental truth about who we are.

So today, we write this as two friends bound by a shared commitment to the country we revere. We join forces to do our part to ensure those two Americas in our community intersect and interact. We join our hands in prayer that through sustained exposure and engagement, those two Americas eventually become one America — our America.