I guess I'll just go ahead and address the elephant in the room. This past week, Donald Trump won possibly the most heated election in United States history, and it now feels like the country is more heated than it was before. Basically a week later and you still cannot get on any form of news or social media without people arguing over why the candidate they have been supporting won or should have won. Even worse than that, people are threatening others, fighting others and degrading others in a way that I have never seen before. Friendships and relationships are being torn apart. People are being bullied and are even fearing for their lives. This has got to stop.

We are extremely grateful to live in a country where we have the freedom to have and express our individual thoughts, views and beliefs. We are able to debate and discuss freely, and it is perfectly OK to have different viewpoints from others. We wouldn't be a free society if we all thought and acted the same. With that being said, it is not OK to threaten others for simply being different from you and having differing views. I have seen countless tweets and Facebook posts from different people stating how they are wishing for all white people to die. I have also seen countless tweets and Facebook posts from different people stating how they will cut off any friendship they have with someone if they voted differently than they did, no matter how close the friendship is.

People are upset with Trump due to them seeing him as closed-minded and intolerant of others. However, these people who are making such racist and ignorant statements are just as closed-minded and intolerant as they believe Trump to be, if not more. Grouping an entire race of people together, assuming they all voted for a certain candidate, and hoping and even threatening them with death, is completely racist and hateful. Ending friendships based off of which candidate they voted for is completely immature and ignorant. Instead of deleting people off of Facebook and out of your life, maybe try listening to each other with an open mind and try to see where they are coming from.

Let me just say, I did vote for Trump, and following election day, I lost countless Twitter followers and Facebook friends because of it. I have been called racist, sexist, and homophobic, along with many other accusations. Anyone who knows me knows that I am certainly not any of these. I definitely do not agree or support everything that Trump has said or done. However, there are far more things that Hillary Clinton has said and done that I do not agree with or support. Therefore, I chose the candidate that I felt would be a better fit for the president of our country and used my right as a citizen to vote and express my belief.

I have several friends that supported and voted for Clinton, and I have listened with an open mind to why they believe she would be a better president. I may not agree with them, but it is perfectly OK to agree to disagree. You should be mature enough to accept different views and continue your friendships with those that do not share the same views as you do. There are people on both sides of this who are using hate to divide us even more. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, we are all Americans. Let's stop labeling each other as Trump or Clinton, Republican or Democrat, white or black, straight or gay, Christian or Muslim, and so forth. We are so much more than these labels that we have been giving each other. We need to put everything aside and remember one important thing that we all have in common: this great country.

With that being said, all I can say is that we need to give Trump a chance. He ran for president because he was upset with how this country has been running, just like many of us were, and wanted to bring a change. He hasn't even been inaugurated yet and people are out rioting in the streets. He won the election fairly, just as how elections in this country have been won for years and years, and people need to accept that. If he does something in his presidency that you are offended by or don't agree with, that will be the time to protest. Until then, let's sit back and hope that he will bring great things to this country within his term as our president. In the meantime, let's all appreciate our differences, love one another, and set an example on how we want our country to function.