Given recent events in our country, I have found it imperative to speak out and provide a perspective that is often overlooked in politics. In a divided country, those who waver in the middle often get forgotten, and I want to use this opportunity to enlighten some on how the post-election world looks to a Moderate.
There is a lot of emotion out there right now and most of it is anger. The anger is coming from both sides, and it scary and sad to watch. Our country is more divided than ever and for whatever reason, people seem to believe that this division can be solved with more division, but this will never work. So let us have a little reality check and view the situation from a neutral standpoint.
For starters, to everyone complaining about Trump winning the election, please ask yourself, did you vote in the primaries? If you didn't, then you have absolutely no right to complain. You are a contributing factor to why we ended up with the two awful candidates that we did. Also, to anyone out there who posted a cute little picture with the "I Voted" sticker and made gushy posts about using your American right to vote, how come you only just realized that you had this magical power to vote on this one day out of the year? There are elections for other officials all the time, but those elections do not seem to really matter to many and that's a problem. Your local officials are more likely to directly affect you than Trump ever will, so pay attention. Use your right every chance that you can. If you want change, then you cannot stand there passively.
Secondly, to everyone signing the petition to get rid of the electoral college, please grow up. Just because the election did not go the way you wanted it to, it doesn't give you the right to destroy the system itself. Life does not work like that and if this is your mentality in life, you, my friend, are not ready for the real world. Pick up your big kid pants and move on. If the system bothers you so much, maybe you should have spoken out long before the election. Your signature on that petition makes you look like a sorry loser and I do not pity you.
In addition, have you ever asked yourself how informed you actually were before the election? Did you actually know the candidates' positions or did you just let Buzzfeed articles, late night talk shows and short little clips on Facebook inform your perspective? The media is beyond biased and the images that we were delivered of the candidates were inaccurate. The only way that we can be informed citizens is if we get the whole story. That means going onto the candidates' websites and getting cold hard facts, and watching news channels and reading newspapers from both sides. We will falter as a country if we do not properly inform ourselves on both sides. If the only policies of Trump that you know are the wall and the Muslim ban, then you are not well-informed on Trump at all and you are doing not only yourself a disservice, but also the country.
To address the emotion during this aftermath, I want to say that it is fine and your right to express your feelings, but it has to end at some point. While your opinion is valid, so is everyone else's, and because of this, it is not OK to attack others for supporting one candidate over another. Anger, violence, division — none of these things will bring about peace and they certainly will not heal the divide. They will only make it worse. We are destroying ourselves as a country by attacking others' perspectives and trying to force our opinions down their throats as if our way of believing is the only way to believe. There is no correct way of thinking and feeling, and while you may not agree with someone, you must realize that everyone is different and unique, and they have a right to think and feel as they please as well.
America is lush with diversity.
Our country would not be the same without so many different perspectives and we should never ask everyone to be exactly the same. We cannot in good conscience sit here and judge those around us, and we certainly cannot make assumptions about people based on how they voted. Assumptions are stereotypes and if we are trying to get rid of stereotypes, then we should be getting rid of assumptions as well.
Trump may be the president-elect, but let us not over-assume the amount of power that he actually has in our country. We live in a country with a system of checks and balances, three branches of government, the Senate, the House of Representatives and Congress. We have state and local officials galore. Trump's decisions go through so many people, and these people are in place to protect our rights and freedoms. Believe it our not, we live in a country that places a huge emphasis on our freedoms, so we all need to chill and stop imagining the worst.
Perpetuating division will break our country, so cut it out with all of those posts attacking others. The more we attack each other, the quicker we will fall as a nation and when everything goes to hell, it will not be the fault of Trump; it will be our own fault. Shape up, America. Let us learn how to coexist within the division. Let us work together and let us grow up and accept our reality. We, the people, hold the key to the future, not Trump. Never forget that.
I will leave you with these words as a Moderate: I will not pity the sore loser, I will not praise the exalted winner and I will most certainly not sit here and watch us destroy our country. Wake up, people. This is still America.
