If a survey was given out to voters across the country, I guarantee most of them would agree with me: banishing the traditional political parties is a must to further our country’s greatness and potential to thrive.

The political dichotomy we adhere to is socially constructed. Someone long ago decided that voters needed to be placed in two contrasting groups and succeeded. They decided what group believed in what and ever since, we have blindly followed this system.

This is a major reason for the discord in Washington. Our elected representatives believe just as we do about their opposers. They see them the way they are depicted in the media and often go against them in decision-making simply because of what they are told.

Hence why everyone else in these parties belittle each other about the issues congress leaves unsolved. Everyone is convinced that the pigeonholes connected to the reverse affiliation are completely true when they couldn’t be more wrong.

For example, I’m a republican and that doesn’t make me misogynistic, racist or homophobic. All of these stereotypes swirling around about conservatives and liberals are simply that: stereotypes. They are what our media and our society have programmed in our heads to believe about the opposing political party. And, most of the time, they are wrong.

We are all politically divergent whether we like to admit it or not. We can hold values as well as beliefs of the opposite political party in which we identify with. That’s why this system of democrats and republicans is outdated. Because, let’s face it, most of us fall in the middle of the two anyway.

This is why we need to stray from this chasm of thinking. We are all more alike than we realize, but we can’t work together to improve our country until we see things in a new perspective. The republicans aren’t a bunch of greedy white men. The democrats aren’t a bunch of pot-smoking hippies either. We are not the stereotypes that the media designed to keep arguing and disagreeing with one another.

We have the ability to change the way we define politics. And I fully believe that doing so can reunite us to fix some of the things wrong in congress. All it takes is forgetting the clichés we’ve been taught.

For anyone who already identifies as independent or doesn’t let political parties influence their perception of others, congratulations on challenging our old-fashioned system. Hopefully someday we can destroy the belief that everyone can so neatly fit into one of two boxes. We are a nation too focused on individuality to succumb to that conclusion.

Bri Shelton can be contacted at [email protected].