The Founding Fathers warned against a two-party system. Our country didn’t listen, and here we are today—a country with a two-party system that is more divided than ever.

The Founding Fathers had seen that film before. England, the country they had broken away from, and their two-party system looming in the peripheral. John Adams, the United States’ Founding Father, and second President, expressed his distaste for two political parties.

“A division of the republic into two great parties… is to be dreaded as the great political evil,” Adams said.

Adam’s observation is an unfortunate foreshadowing of what we are experiencing today as our two political parties become divergent and disconnected from one another.

In Pew Research Center’s infographic, Political Polarization in the American Public, it shows between 1994 and 2014 the number of Republicans and Democrats in the middle have decreased over the years and have moved closer to their respective sides.

The decline in the cohesiveness of the American people, known as Political Polarization, has increased over the years due to a two-party system, biased news media, and inflamed social media intolerance.

In a TED talk by Andrew Yang Why US Politics is Broken– and How to Fix It, he identifies that usually 10-12% of voters participate in the primary process and those voters tend to be the extremists or the zealots of their parties. Following the trend of people being on opposite ends of the political scale. Those zealots vote for people to represent them, and news media that affiliates with that party amplifies the party’s message. Social media then ignites the flame by housing misrepresentations of truths and facts, which leads to citizens becoming less informed and more biased.

In the New York Times/Siena College Poll, nearly half of Americans can attest that a person’s political affiliation reveals something about whether he or she is a good person.

According to the Pew Research Center, 53% of Republicans and 43% of Democrats say members of the other party are dishonest, immoral, lazy, unintelligent, and closed-minded.

People aren’t inherently good or bad, but when talking about varying opinions on political issues, most people forget they are talking with an actual person.

So what can be done about the increasing polarization?  Politicians can appeal to the people more in the middle by changing from the two-party primary electoral process to enacting a Forced Ranking process in one general election to combat polarization.

Alaska changed to a ranked-choice process and has been the only state to do so, which skips over the primary election and goes straight into the general election. The primary process elects candidates for the general election instead of a forced ranking process where you rank your candidate choices. If your first candidate doesn’t have the number of votes necessary to win, your vote will count for the second candidate chosen. The candidate with the highest number of combined votes wins.

This system forces candidates to appeal more in the middle to get more votes overall than just from their political party extremists.

An undeniable way to find common ground is by consuming media from nonpartisan sources and ensuring that you are considering all sides of an issue before deciding your opinion. In a study enacted by the Pew Research Center, 57% of those who identify social media as their main source of political information have lower political knowledge. Instead, to prevent this, question if a source or post from social media or news organization is true before sharing and believing it to be true and letting it influence your political opinion.

The election is tomorrow. Regardless of who wins and who you’re anticipating in office come inauguration day, the most important thing people can do is find a common ground that benefits everyone, attempt to understand differing opinions on issues, and work toward common ground.

Lastly, the founding fathers also knew that the three branches of government gave us checks and balances in that each branch could change the acts of other branches so that the President wouldn’t consolidate too much power.

There are many elections yet to come, and in the passing time of four years until the next arrives, strive to be better and understand each other’s differences because this is the electoral process, and a president will be elected to represent all Americans, no matter what your political differences are. It’s crucial for everyone to come together in unity, fostering understanding and respect along the way.