What We Need Now

    "It's been quite a time for the United States and the rest of the world as we all watched the election results come in early Wednesday morning. Some of us wept for our country. Some of us celebrated. Some of us are already taking to the streets in protest. You all know how I wanted and expected the election to go. I wanted us to choose unity and inclusion over building walls and singling out ethnic and religious groups for hate and suspicion. I wanted us to choose progress over yearning for some long-lost mythical era when America was supposedly greatest. I wanted us to destroy the highest glass ceiling instead of electing an admitted sexual assaulter." John Legend. I wanted what John Legend wanted but this is not what happened. Trump is our president now. So what happened?

     This video explains that Trump is president because we did not listen to each other and try to understand each other.  Instead we just insulted each others views, criticized the other candidate,  and called each other demeaning names. But insulting each other and calling each other names does not do anything but make the other person shut off and not listen. These things do not persuade the other person to agree with or understand your ideas and perspectives. Both sides are to blame. https://www.youtube.com/wa.tch?v=GLG9g7BcjKs

     I think there has been a huge misunderstanding between conservatives and liberals that has divided us more this election than ever.  Conservatives do not understand why Liberals are so upset and think that liberals are accusing all Trump supporters of being racist, sexist, and bigots. Liberals do not understand how people could accept or even worse, support, the hateful things Trump has said and done. To liberals, a vote for Trump is saying that the hateful things he has said about minorities, women, Muslims and people who have disabilities are acceptable. A vote for Trump makes Liberals feel that Conservatives do not care about the rights of these groups enough to tell Trump that it is not acceptable to treat people the way he does. We all deserve the same rights and respect. Liberals are afraid that Trump will take their rights away. Here is another article that describes how liberals feel in more detail:  https://nouveauxromantiques.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/what-i-need-my-republican-peers-to-understand-about-their-hurting-friends/

    I have more liberal views, so recently I have been trying to talk to my conservative friends and family about their views to understand them better. Understanding each other promotes empathy and acceptance. What I have found is that most conservatives still care about everyone's rights but have different ideas about how to reach the same goals and a lot of  conservatives did not take the hateful things Trump said seriously.

    Both sides were afraid but just of different things. For Conservatives it was a fear of Hilary being corrupt and of terrorists getting in through open border,  and for liberals the main fears were the spread of hate and of their rights being taken away. There are more reasons on both sides but I won't go into every detail because what is more important is what we do next. So what should we do now?

     What we need now is understanding, empathy, support, and love.

    I hope the Republicans who do not understand why Democrats are so hurt, listen to their explanations before assuming it is just because their candidate lost. I hope Democrats listen to Republicans on why they voted for Trump before judging them as being all racist, sexists and bigots.

 As Benjamin Studebaker said "When we talk to folks who don’t see things our way, we needn’t accuse them of -isms or treat them with disrespect. We just need to talk to them about what we all have in common and what we all deserve. We need inclusive language which reframes society along unifying group boundaries that favor the policies and attitudes we’d like to see, which gently encourage us to pay attention to the things we share with the groups from which we might feel distant."

    Empathy is another thing that we need. For republicans, "some may think that the connections between some of the incidents (Trump promotes) aren’t that serious or plausible. But the (ones who don't understand) aren’t the ones the arrow is pointing at. It feels different when everything seems stacked up against you. That’s what those who don’t feel personally threatened urgently need to understand. Whether you believe the president-elect’s reckless and careless words and associations really reveal a racist intention or not, your neighbors in all of these groups are reasonably fearful that they do"Anthony Bushnell. Empathy does not require us  to“judge whether they should be weeping,”H.B Charles Jr., it just requires you to understand/feel the pain that others are feeling and be a shoulder to cry on when they need it.

    We need to support each other in order to let Trump know that he needs to support everyone too. Liberals "need to know that (Consevatives) are going to be sure to see that (minorities, women, Muslims and people who have disabilities) are protected and treated fairly and equally. They need to know (Conservatives) aren’t against them, and won’t forget about them or turn on them." Anthony Bushnell

    Finally, we need love. "It's clear that we all need more love and It's important that we show love and empathy to people who may not look like us or live like us. Those who are marginalized and rejected, feared and left behind."- John Legend. We all need to let each other know that we love one another, despite our differences.  "Love is universal. We all need it. We all can give it. And it will ultimately win over hate. I have to believe that."- John Legend
 
  I will end with John Legend's new video, " Love me Now".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmCFY1oYDeM&feature=share

And a quote from Obama :

     "Our youth, our drive, our diversity and openness, our boundless capacity for risk and reinvention means that the future should be ours. But that potential will only be realized if our democracy works. Only if our politics better reflects the decency of our people. Only if all of us, regardless of party affiliation or particular interests help restore the sense of common purpose that we so badly need right now.

And that’s what I want to focus on tonight, the state of our democracy. Understand democracy does not require uniformity. Our founders argued, they quarreled, and eventually they compromised. They expected us to do the same. But they knew that democracy does require a basic sense of solidarity. The idea that, for all our outward differences, we’re all in this together, that we rise or fall as one."