Growing up, I was raised Republican. I remember my father voting for Reagan and Bush and I was raised to think that the Republican system was the correct one.

As I grew older, I became increasingly focused on the poverty I saw all around me in my rural small town. Despite asking my Dad for what the Republican solution was, his answers left me unsatisfied.

So like any curious teenager, I started researching what could be done to improve the conditions that my neighbors were living under. As I read and read, everything I was finding kept pointing me to the same idea; a safety net to protect the most vulnerable Americans.

When I began to bring up these notions to my father, I was met with hatred and vitriol in reply.

As I matured into the values and political beliefs that I hold today, it began to destroy my relationship with my father and tear apart my family.

When I first registered with the Democratic party, my father cut all familial ties with me due to me being “a Commie Liberal.” After that point any semblance of a father-daughter relationship we had was utterly destroyed.

Around three months ago, I found out that my father had died of COVID. Among the stipulations that he prepared for the funeral was that I would not be allowed to attend.

It was a very conflicting feeling, losing a parent is a devastating experience for anyone and it hit me especially hard given the torrent of memories, some good but most bad, that washed over me as I processed the news.

We need to stop looking at America through the view of “Us vs Them” because ultimately we’re all neighbors. We all live together, we all work together, and we need to come together to show that America can be united and stand tall. I wish my father could have come to see the light on this but sadly he was never able to overcome the hate that came to consume him.

If you are able to, I hope that you’ll consider making a contribution to my efforts to bring back unity, respect, and kindness to our politics.