Let's rewind to November 6, 2012, when I was a junior in high school: I'm sitting on the edge of my couch, at home in Kansas, eyes glued to the box TV sitting in our family room. My whole family is waiting in suspenseful anticipation for the winner of the 2012 presidential election. Obama wins. My heart drops, like a rock sitting at the top of a skyscraper that suddenly plummets to the ground. A million thoughts are racing through my mind. I thought Mitt Romney could win. I'm 10 months too young to vote. I didn't have a chance to contribute my vote. I'm devastated. Four more years of an Obama presidency. I will never forget the feeling that overcame me when I found out that Mitt Romney hadn't won. It's not like Obama really effected my life that much, but I had grown up under the Obama administration, while my family had been unstable financially because of my dad's repeated unemployment. Throughout junior high, high school, and college, I'd been under a democratic government. And at that moment my heart sank and my hope for America dwindled. Fortunately, I went on with my life, focusing on more important things like my grades, the ACT, work, family, and friends.
This election is exactly the opposite. A Republican candidate has won and the House and Senate have Republican majority rule. I should be ecstatic, excited, relieved, and jumping with joy. But there are riots and protests going on, staged or not, all over the country. The rights these protesters are exercising were given to them by the very government system they are protesting. The election is over. You can't change the results. Hillary said to approach Trump's presidency with an open mind. Obama said he wants to help Trump be successful. Are you listening to them instead of the bias media? Did I really grow up in an entitled generation that never learned work ethic? That never learned that not everyone is a winner? That not everyone gets a trophy?
There are children, all across the country, who still go to school while having concerns about how things will go when they get home. There are five year olds across America that leave their broken homes to go to school every single freaking day, and we don't see them demanding their teachers to let them miss school because life is too tough. We don't give them a free pass because life is hard at home, telling them there's suddenly no reason to worry about learning to add and read.
We have become a society where kindergarteners are more capable to handle life than adults studying at Yale, who are supposedly the best of the best. Newsflash: "There is something in my life that is bothering me” is not automatically followed by “Therefore I do not have to attend to any of my responsibilities". Sometimes you have to go to class even when you're sick, upset, etc. When you enter the workforce, you still have to go to work if you have a cold, if you're upset about something, on your period, stressed out, or sometimes even sick. Suck it up and respect the President-elect, just like I did for the last eight years!
Protests only work if human rights have been violated. Protesting for not getting your way is just a temper-tantrum.
