After the political turmoil that was the partial government shutdown, which oddly enough resembled the nightmarish two-year long budget impasse that almost burned Illinois and higher education to the ground, President Donald Trump will come before the nation and give his State of the Union Address Tuesday.

Regardless of where you stand on what’s going on from border control talks to abortion, we have a challenge for you.

We are calling on all of our readers to not only watch the State of the Union Address, but to watch it without political commentary in the background or without sidebars of what he’s saying or what people think he should be saying. And instead draw your own conclusions, a nicer way of saying, “think for yourself.”

Far too often people seem to rely on opinionated, biased, pointed commentary that doesn’t reveal the entire story.

People watch cable “news” or worse, read political organizations disguised as news organizations with articles that show up on Facebook news feeds (yes, we’re talking about Breitbart “News” and the Illinois Policy Institute). Then, they base their debates or political beliefs on what others say and then regurgitate that information without understanding what the actual story is.

This country has become so politically polarized that whenever something pops up that people don’t agree with, it results in a screaming fest with everyone fighting for something they don’t even understand.

What ever happened to fact checking? What ever happened to reading actual news from reliable sources and newspapers? What ever happened to thinking for yourself and cultivating your own conclusions based on what you analyzed?

It’s like everyone is politically lazy and refuses to do the work in order to form an opinion.

We wait for someone else to tell us what to believe in and give us our talking points.

That’s not how it works.

So, that’s why we, the members of the Editorial staff at The Daily Eastern News, challenge everyone, including ourselves and our colleagues, to watch the State of the Union Address and really think about what the president is saying and what we think about it.

Don’t wait around to jump on some bandwagon that suits you.

Do some research, educate yourselves and remember what it’s like to analyze something, and offer your take on it. Remember what it’s like to debate without name-calling and throwing out threats.

Now more than ever is it important to stay educated on what is happening in this country.

Therefore, turn on C-SPAN without the commentary and watch the State of the Union Address at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

It’s worth it.

The editorial staff can be reached at 581-2812 or at dennewsdesk@gmail.com.