Everybody seems to have an opinion this election season, and seeing as how I sometimes process things through writing, I figured that it would be a good idea to write down what mine are. Nobody asked, and if you do not care, that it totally fine. I am writing this to understand if I have a healthy attitude about things. That being said, if you disagree, I would be fine with having a civilized, informed discussion about it where we start with love and move from there.
That out of the way, I did not vote. To be honest, I merely forgot. However, had I remembered, I cannot say which presidential candidate I would have voted for. I do not know either of their politics particularly well, partially as a consequence of an election season filled with rhetoric and mudslinging. I cannot on the one hand justify voting for a racist bully who treats people, especially women, as objects to be used. That being said, I am very tired of the system, and I have hang-ups about voting for someone who just represents more of the same. That's where I stood. Morally, I couldn't justify voting for either.
However, I have more thoughts about the post-election reactions. Our democracy works a specific way, and that is the way that was set up years and years ago, a way that nobody seems to have a problem with until their candidate loses. Protesting is not a healthy way to deal with your anger at your candidate losing and the other candidate winning (tell me when protests don't turn violent and actually peacefully accomplish their goal. Shot of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose protests really did turn violent just with the violence directed towards him, you will be hard-pressed to find that). Instead, go out and make the world a better place. Go adopt a child in need, volunteer at an animal or homeless shelter, tutor underprivileged children. That is what is going to help fix America, not this...creative whining.
I do not want you to think that I am insensitive. I understand the fear that minorities, women, LGBTQ, and others hold at their autonomy and freedoms being attacked. I do. But nothing has happened yet. Nobody has rounded anybody up. No dictator was elected; last I checked we still have checks and balances and separation of powers for these very reasons. One man does not make all of the decisions. If and when anything resembling unspeakable evils do happen, I will be the first to welcome people into my home, offer my resources and time to try to prevent the atrocities. But Donald Trump was elected; he earned the presidency.
As well, this vehement hatred towards Trump supporters has got to stop! Comparing them to Nazis is not ok; physical violence of any kind toward them is not ok; and grossly overstating that all trump supporters are stupid, racist, hate women, etc. is not ok! Not associating with people who have different thoughts is never going to allow your thinking and opinions to be refined. No change will happen. When George Washington was elected president, his top two advisers were from opposing political parties. He welcomed the chance to hear differing opinions. Get to know people at a personal level if you want to make judgments about them. Try and understand their perspective and where they're coming from rather than just making a blanket statement about an entire group of people, 99% of whom you have never met. Again, process your anger by making the world around you better; channeling it into hate helps nobody. I say this not as someone who supported or voted for Donald Trump, but as somebody who firmly believes that it is right to love those different than you and accept the company of those with differing view points, as well as offering them hospitality.
Some of you will write this off, and I don't mind (even though you are proving me correct.). I am not, after all, interested in being right, I am interested in being righteous. There are many problems with politics in the US, and I do believe that the two-party system separates far more than it unifies. It allows people to ignorantly vote merely along party lines regardless of whether their candidate stands for something right or good or not, and takes away the impetus for critical thinking. But it isn't through protests and exclusion of those who think differently than us that this gets accomplish. It is by open discourse and loving those that have less, actively being a part of setting right the evils that we see in the world, that this gets accomplished. If you are too weak or lazy to put that into practice, than you have only yourself to blame.
