If I were President I would promote peace and unity by getting in touch with my community. Many of the reasons for hostility come from feelings of abandonment, people often feel abandoned by their government. It makes us feel like the people who are supposed to hear our complaints and try to do something about it are holding their personal needs to a higher priority. Everybody feels this way at some point. Whether you feel abandoned by your leaders or by your friends. It’s easy to feel as though nobody knows what you’re going through. As president I would want to understand the needs of my people. This way there would be fewer problems in the communities and less hostility towards the government.

Communication is very important. I would try to constantly communicate my vision and my mission. That way American citizens would be loyal to my cause even if they’re not necessarily to me as a person. This would help the country form a sense of unity, a common goal. It seems that everyone has their own definitions of peace, but it simply means to have freedom from disturbance, to have quiet and tranquility. When looking at it like that it seems nearly impossible for an entire nation to achieve peace, and on some levels, I agree with that. In order to come closer to achieving the goal of peace I believe I would rely on having patience and a calm mind. Having compassion and the willingness to understand others situations is how I would try to promote peace. Leading by a good example.

The person who came to mind when I thought of peace and unity was Cesar Chavez. When people found out that he was protesting against the struggle and oppression of farm workers they laughed. It had been tried over and over again before with no success, why should this time be any different? But it was different because Chavez grew up working on the farms with his parents and he understood the struggle. In order to promote peace and unity you must understand how to solve problems from the inside. You can’t expect to triumph over the situations by simply looking in from the outside. Often times in politics we see politicians being divisive. We watch during elections how they degrade their opponents and put them down. This is not how we achieve unity. Respect plays a big part in that. They pit people against each other and turn neighbor against neighbor. Throughout history politicians have risen to power by pitting people against each other and we can easily see that in politics today. People have been divided by race, education, income, gender, and sexual orientation. I would learn from the past, researching world leaders and what they did to promote peace under their leadership and what they did wrong and try to build my presidency around that. I would listen to advisors, staff members, and the people because in the past councils tend to have been better than kings.