My niece,
Mary, wrote the following post to Facebook this past weekend. For disclosure, I voted for President-elect
Donald Trump and she voted for Secretary Hillary Clinton.
I have not edited this commentary, other than for grammar, as
I never do with a guest commentator. I like to, instead, share a reasonable, alternative viewpoint so
that we can all understand what others are saying. You know I do not
believe in political-correctness because I believe that is a form of censorship.
And I don't believe in censorship.
As always, your comments are welcomed.
Mary:
First and
foremost, I just want to say that I have done my best to keep an open mind
throughout this year’s Presidential campaign. This time last year, I was laughing at the idea of Donald Trump
actually receiving the Republican nomination. But I was wrong, he did. In
the name of democracy and as I have with EVERY
other election, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. So over the
course of the last ten months, I listened
to and honestly considered his agenda and attempted to see past the
egotistical, reality show stigma through which I viewed him.
On Election Day, I made a very thoughtful decision to cast my
vote for Hillary because at the end of the day my heart/morals reside with the
Liberals. I didn’t vote for Hillary.
I voted Democratic. I voted to STOP
TRUMP.
In all honesty however, character
aside, I don’t agree with Trump’s agenda, but I don’t completely disagree
with it either. His overarching campaign promise of “Make
America Great Again” highlights real and undeniable issues our country and government is facing. I
think if Hillary had attempted to
acknowledge and address these issues more directly she may have had a chance at
winning. But she didn’t, she ignored them, played it safe, held her Democratic course, and hung her
hat exclusively on her vast
amounts of political experience.
This combined with the fact that people were also questioning her albeit less
overt but equally offensive character is what lost her the election. The
people felt ignored, they disliked the
alternative, so for them it came down
to “change” or “status quo”, and on Election Day, the people rebelled and chose change. For them, either scenario was
equally “scary” but at least with Trump, they felt we as a people have a chance to
start fixing the corporate corruption of our government.
It makes me sad that we as
a nation are so desperate for change that we are willing to take the risk of
electing someone like Donald Trump when there is SO much at stake. I think in some ways we think we
are invincible and that nothing extremely bad can happen to us. Extremely bad
$#!+ happens to people every day in all kinds of places all around the world. We are not immune to another Great Depression, World War, Civil War, or
Holocaust.
BUT, the fact
that we are so desperate should be a
major wake-up call that there is something seriously wrong. Our
country is in a great amount of pain and regardless of if we are the ones
feeling that pain, as a fellow American we should recognize and acknowledge
that others are. So yes, I am
scared for what our future holds and from a moral standpoint am devastated Hillary didn’t win, but
a small part of me is glad Trump won. Part of me is glad there were people out there brave enough to
reject the status quo because I, too, crave much needed change.
As we move forward, I hope
that we can put our differences aside, come together to see this as an
opportunity for WE THE PEOPLE to
take back our government and start
healing the pain of our fellow Americans. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that it had to happen this way but
I also understand it needed to happen this way or it never would have happened.
To my
fellow Hillary voters…
I
feel your pain, but protesting is pointless. Hillary
lost, he won. Accept it. The Electoral College is in place for a
very important reason: it gives each
state a proportional weight regardless of its actual population. Without it,
we would end up in a Hunger Games-like society where the
cities have all the power. It’s not fair. The
people have spoken and has painful as it may be we have no choice but to accept
it. We’ve had Republican presidents before and survived. Luckily, our
government was brilliantly designed to have crucial checks and balances that
limit Trump’s power and even though Republicans are in charge of the House and
the Senate, no one is going to let Trump do anything truly insane..... I hope!!
And stop making this all about race and minorities because they
voted for Trump, too. If that’s all you’re talking about, YOU ARE COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT!
Moving forward, we have to shift our
attention to fighting the fighting on the ground with each individual piece of
legislation that he proposes. Volunteer and donate to the organizations to
which we hold so dear. Be the change we want to see in the world. Then, in 2020, we’ll get another chance to
resume our course.
To Trump
supporters…
Although I empathize with
your cause, I sincerely hope that we have ALL
evolved slightly left in our thinking over the course of the last several
decades. You can still lean right on certain issues (we are all entitled to our opinions) but I would hope that your
views on equality in particular aren’t nearly as extreme as they once
were. At the end of the day, we cannot
and should not lose sight of the fact that diversity
and equality IS what
makes America great.
To the
media…
PLEASE stop feeding the frenzy and go back to objective reporting of what is happening
and let the people form their own opinions. YOU ARE MAKING A BAD SITUATION WORSE!
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