The Iowa State University College Democrats and College Republicans may have profoundly different visions of what constitutes a more perfect union, but we can agree that both sides are striving for more a perfect union and that people of all different perspectives deserve respect.

In order to meet the challenges brought on in our current time, we need to be collaborators instead of competitors, which means we, as citizens, need to stop disrespectful and unproductive behavior.

Last week, two incidents highlighted the unproductive behavior that turns away so many people from politics. Nov. 3, a group known as Vote Mob, unassociated with Iowa State, protested and interrupted a College Republicans event with Joni Ernst as its speaker.

Later in the week, a letter to the editor was published accusing the College Democrats of either orchestrating or aiding in this protest. The claims presented in the Letter to the Editor were patently false. Both organizations reject the protest and letter; these incidents are not representative of the democratic process.

We all want an informed and engaged electorate. In the most recent election only 13 percent of eligible voters in the U.S., age 18 to 29, cast a ballot, and this trend of inaction cannot continue.

Soon, we, the millennial generation, will inherit the institutions of this country and we cannot move forward when people stay cynical and uninformed. We need to create a political tradition that values cooperation starting on a basic human level. We aim to involve students in the democratic process and hope that more young citizens of the republic can find the compassion, kindness and humanity that we have found in working in order to make this experiment in democracy a more perfect union.