).It doesn't matter how you voted now. The elections are over and the ugliness is behind us. This has been an incredibly fracturing and divisive election and we need to focus on building bridges between us now because no matter how you slice it the vote divided pretty evenly even if the electoral college didn't. And I'm not complaining about the system in place: it is what it is, and it's been that way for hundreds of years. America is a country of fifty mini nation-states and that, too, is what makes it great. So don't complain that the system is unfair: both candidates knew about the system and they worked it to try to gain footholds in battleground states.
However. People are not states. People are individuals. If you voted Trump, there is a very strong likelihood that your next door neighbor, or the guy down the block from you voted for Hillary. And sure, maybe the fact that he bathes in patchouli oil weirds you out, but you still need to recognize that you definitely know many someones that voted differently from you. And whether that different vote went to Trump or Hillary doesn't matter. If you voted for Hillary you need to come off your high horse and realize that the Trump supporters are not "deplorables." They are citizens of the great nation of the United States of America. Just like you. Just like me.
So what can make America whole again? 50.01% of us are disappointed. 49.99% of us are overjoyed. Those are pretty thin odds. But we need to understand what made America fractured to begin with.
The constant nose-thumbing from the Northeastern elite, the reference to "deplorables," the insistence that Trump voters are bigots, misogynists and sexists. The widespread belief that if you voted for Donald Trump you must be an angry, uneducated white male with a burning cross. The dogged clinging to the belief that you are right and just and superior and care about minorities but they don't.
The idea that Clinton voters think they are elitists, arrogant, rich fat-cats. That they are ashamed of being American. The line of thought that dictates that foreigners are to blame for the state of our nation. The thinking that denying basic civil liberties to our citizenry will somehow make us great.
If you've gone through these elections, you think one of those things about the other side. But nobody is just one thing. You can vote for Trump and think gay marriage is a honking great idea. You can vote for Hillary and think that she's kind of sketchy and that NAFTA was terrible. You can vote for Trump and think that the way he acts or the things he says sometimes are unacceptable and you can vote for Hillary but believe that we need a tougher foreign policy.
Because that is what it's time for. It's time to realize that people are angry with the state of politics as it exists today. We make up a great tapestry that are these United States, from Mississippi to Massachusetts., from New York to New Mexico, from Texas to Oregon and beyond. We are tired of our politicians doggedly sticking to one mantra, one party line, one theme and not recognizing that we are not stupid, we have opinions and that it's time to discuss the things that really matter.
It's time to take back our country. To make America whole and proud again. To make us proud of wishing each other not a generic Happy Holidays, but a Merry Christmas to you, a Happy Hannukah to me and an Eid Mubarak to my neighbor. We all want America to be great. Not great again. But great. Forever.
Let's not post #NotMyPresident on Twitter. Let's not post #LockHerUp. Let's instead put this insane circus of an election season behind us with #NotMyMonkeysNotMyCircus.
God bless Underlight. Zaxun 2016.
Michael
