I support democracy. I support your right to vote for the candidate you feel is best fit for our country. While I support that right, I don’t agree with a lot of things our Republican candidate stands for. I grew up in a very loving, family of Republicans. I have never had a problem with that mindset, until I started reading more into this election. I love my family dearly, but when it came down to it, I knew I couldn’t vote for Trump. While I respect their decision to cast their vote in his direction, it was made very clear that they could not respect my decision to cast it differently. Living in a family of Trump supporters, here are a few things that I have grown used to hearing during this election season:

“Trump does not promote rape culture”. This is something that I heard my family member say to me, when I told her why I couldn’t vote for him. Trump has a court date of December 16^th, 2016 for a case regarding raping a 13-year old girl. This occurred in 1994, and she has just come forward now under her own name, rather than Jane Doe. He was quoted saying, “Grab them by the pu**y. You can get whatever you want”. While this was dismissed as locker-room talk, is this how you really want your president thinking? While this was years ago, the fact that he said this does not change. I do not support someone who ever felt it would be acceptable to talk about women this way.

“Everyone was like that 20-30 years ago”. I had a close family member say this to me, in regard to how Trump acted in the past, and about the things he has said. While that may have been considered, “acceptable behavior,” by some then, it still wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay then, and it isn’t okay now. It was tolerated then. I don’t feel that we should use that as a basis for accepting that behavior. That is the same as saying that slavery was okay, because it was accepted at that time.

“So, you’re support a liar? She should be in jail!” I do not understand why you get to ignore the fact that Trump has done many wrongs, but cannot ignore the email situation with Hilary. While, I don’t think what is going on with her is acceptable either, the thought process is the same. If you only believe the negative things about the candidate that you don’t support, you need to reevaluate your mindset. Also, there was always the option of voting for a third party candidate, and many of them were definitely qualified. If enough people were to have voted third party, there wouldn’t have been a majority in the Electoral College, and it would have go to the House for a vote.

“You clearly haven’t done your research”. Why is it that because I disagree with your candidate, that it makes me uneducated? I have done my research. I have weighed both candidates’ negative and positive traits, and I made my decision. I did not doubt your ability to research your candidate when you supported him, so why do you doubt my ability when I support my candidate?

“I am disgusted that you are voting that way”. You can feel any way you want about the way I chose to cast my vote, because that is the beauty of democracy, and freethinking. You have the right to feel any way you want about me voting for a different candidate than you, and frankly, I’m not that crazy about your choice either.

It has been a rough election season, and many people weren’t happy with the candidates we had, but if so many people felt this way, they should have gone out to vote in the primary election. Trump won because the majority of the country voted that way. To quote President Obama, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Go out there and be the change. Don’t just complain and wait for the next president.