On October 27, President Donald Trump attended the Houston Astros vs. Washington Nationals baseball game. Everyone was going about their day, enjoying the game, not even realizing the President was sitting above them in a suite. Once the crowd discovered he was there, enjoying the game like the rest of them, they proceeded to boo and chant “Lock him up.”

This isn’t a surprise he received this type of reaction, especially with the impeachment inquiry happening as we speak. Especially when he’s received this type of reaction throughout the entirety of his presidency.

President Trump isn’t a great person, I understand that. He has said a lot of things he shouldn’t have said. He’s as far from a politician as it gets, he speaks his mind and is informal and rude at times, but that’s the persona he’s always put on. He appeals to people because he isn’t a politician and doesn’t try to be one.

Because he doesn’t try to put on a political persona, he’s an easy target. He’s easy to call “racist” or “misogynistic” or “xenophobic.”

But it isn’t just President Trump who receives this treatment: it’s everyone in this country.

We live in an age where those who don’t agree with us are our enemies, where we cannot have a civil conversation without it exploding into a fight, where Twitter is the catalyst for all our political debates.

Why have we become so ignorant? What happened to respecting others’ beliefs and ideas? Isn’t that what the beauty of a republic is? Shouldn’t we respect others out of human decency?

I was raised to always hear both sides of a story, to know that everyone has an opinion, that it often won’t line up with mine. I’ve been taught to have strong beliefs and never lose sight of that, but respect others’ as well. I can’t say I’ve always done that, but I can say that I have always tried. It’s difficult sometimes, but it can be done.

It seems like that’s lost on a lot of people in this day and age. We’re so quick to judge, so quick to berate someone for having a differing viewpoint.

We’ve become less human, we’ve lost our ability to empathize.

In this next year, those Twitter fights are going to get louder than ever before. Our country is going to be at a crossroads, looking to choose who’s going to be our next Commander in Chief. The country will be in a frenzy, filled with anticipation, nervousness and excitement for the future. But before that occurs, I ask, how do you want us to be perceived?

In the eyes of other countries, America already looks bad. We can never get along, fighting over petty ideas and using social media as a way to attack each other. The adults in this country look like children. Do you want us to continue to be perceived that way?

Our generation has a chance to change the story.

Some of us will be able to vote in the next election. All of us will be able to vote in the one after that. We have the chance to change something, we have the ability to speak up. We have the ability to empathize with those who disagree with us, to make them our friends rather than our enemies.

This country needs to change, whether we want to believe it or not. And that change is not political, it’s societal.

We need to begin to have civil conversations, to respect others’ beliefs and ideas, to love the person next to us no matter how hard it may be.

It seems as though that has already been lost on the generations ahead of us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change it. We may just be “young and dumb” in their eyes, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change the way people think.

We need to emphasize again.

We need to respect others again.

We need to become human again.