Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the United States. Sure, there may be a “faithless elector” turn around and Hillary Clinton will actually take the position, but as of now Donald Trump will be the next Commander-in-chief.
Most who read this article will react to that first statement with a variety of emotions: fear, excitement, sadness, etc.
But I am not writing to tell you how to feel following Tuesday night’s results, or that the country will go down in flames, or that it will improve exponentially. I am writing to tell you that it doesn’t matter.
The morning after the election results were announced, the sun still came up, people still got out of bed and went to work, and the world continued turning. That is what we must do. This is not a political post. This is a post to tell everybody that at the end of the day, whether we are black, white, purple, Democratic, Republican, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, gay, or straight, at the end of the day we’re all Americans. We are brothers and sisters under one flag, one Constitution, one country.
You can stand in the streets and you can burn that flag that watches over your head, symbolizing the freedoms and history of this country, but what are you really burning? You are not burning Trump, nor the election results, and you are not expelling hate by your actions. You are cultivating it.
Feel how you wish after Tuesday’s election results. I am not here to invalidate your feelings. Cry, scream, rejoice, cheer. But then you must continue moving. Continue to fight for what you support. Stand behind issues that matter to you. Use your voice to educate and empathize, not to spew hate. Question things that don’t make sense. Challenge that which you don’t like. That isn’t just our right but our obligation. We have power to make change, to spark love and equality and unity among this damaged nation.
We can spend our time strengthening the divides that already run so deeply through this country, or we can grab hands and build bridges across them. We can harass, attack, and hate each other for what makes us different, or we could rise above it. We are so engrossed in the “I’m right and you’re wrong” idea, but why? What good has come from seeing ourselves as superior to anyone we disagree with? You can cry tears of happiness or sadness over President Trump all day, but at the end of that day, what will you have accomplished? Do something.
This is not a liberal attack on conservative agendas, nor is it a conservative assault on liberal ideologies. This is simply a hand out, to grab onto and start building the bridges that our severely divided nation so greatly needs right now.
America is more than our President. America is more than the laws that go through Congress. America is more than the issues that plague our country. America is a melting pot, built on the foundations of freedom for everybody and unification without boundaries. It’s about time we start believing that ourselves.
