People Need to Take a Breath and Get a Hold of Themselves

Originally published on LonelyConservative.com

Good grief. The massive temper tantrum since Trump won the election has been incredibly over the top. Granted, he wasn’t your traditional candidate and did come off as somewhat unhinged at times, but still. This is a bit much, even for the safe space crowd.

I will be the first to admit that I was alarmed and upset when President Obama won in 2008, and again in 2012, but I certainly didn’t go screaming through the streets about it. The Tea Party movement which came about later was peaceful, and more about people being fed up with the direction he was taking our country.

And there is no need to go back and point out my many posts opposing the nomination and candidacy of Donald Trump. I was never for him. But he will be our next president and I accept that. It is what it is and I’m hoping that the Trump we saw when he graciously delivered his victory speech is the Trump we will see in the Oval Office. I hope I was wrong about him and that candidate Trump was just a genius at the art of political war and will stop his late night tweeting for good.

Anyway, people really need to just take breath and get a hold of themselves. An acquaintance of mine on Facebook, who I know professionally and normally seems pretty smart, wrote that she felt scared because she’s gay. Someone else then posted a picture of Trump holding a big gay pride flag, and rather than expressing relief my acquaintance told her friend to find out the truth and posted a link to Hillary Clinton’s website. Then tonight she posted a link to a petition asking the Electoral College to throw out the votes of red states. Seriously, here’s part of it:

On December 19, the Electors of the Electoral College will cast their ballots. If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win. However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine – which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay!

We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton.

It goes on from there. Most disturbing, this call to throw away millions of votes has 1,332,812 supporters as of this writing.

I try not to get to political on Facebook but I threw in my two cents:

Asking Electoral College to throw out the votes of red states? What next? Outlawing voting for all but progressive democrats? We live in a republic, not a pure democracy. These are the sorts of attitudes that brought about Trump’s victory. I didn’t vote for him, but he won. The sky didn’t fall. Just like it didn’t fall when Obama was elected. Although health insurance premiums have skyrocketed while private sector wages have been stagnant we survived that. It’s amazing how your perspective changes when you get out of your little echo chamber and start listening to all sides. Things become a bit less scary and while you still may disagree on policies you might learn that the other side isn’t out to get you. I challenge all of my friends who are upset over the election results to try to understand why people voted for Trump. It isn’t because they are racist or misogynistic. They’re mostly tired, sick of politics as usual, and hoping for a brighter future. Just like you are.

I don’t know if it will help anything with my little bubble of friends on Facebook, but I hope it does. And I really mean what I wrote about getting out of our echo chambers. It was my opposition to Trump that caused me to tune in to more liberal radio and TV news programs for the first time in years. Okay, not MSNBC or uber-liberals who are just wacky. But I do try to hear all sides of things. And although I haven’t become more liberal, it does help me understand how the other side thinks, at least those on the other side who don’t deny reality. Now if only we can get the other side to do that.

Part of the reason I stopped blogging so much is that I realized that politics was taking up just way too much of my life. It’s still important to pay attention and be informed, but it isn’t everything. By not making politics the center of my life anymore I’m happier and healthier. Things didn’t go the way I wanted, except for the part about Hillary Clinton not being our 45th president. I still worry about the future, just like everyone else. But instead of crying about it I will pray every day that Donald Trump is aware of the enormous challenge that awaits him and that he rises to the occasion.

Now everybody should just chill. Trump’s supporters should resist the urge to be smug and rub Clinton’s supporters noses in it. That only makes things worse. And Clinton’s supporters need to listen to her and President Obama when they talk about a peaceful transition and accepting the results of the election. It’s over, she lost. If the Democrats had nominated a halfway decent person without all of Hillary’s baggage things might have gone their way. Instead of acting out, they should be looking within to ask themselves why they nominated such a flawed candidate. They should ask themselves why they watched with nary a peep Obama’s massive overreach on health care and executive power that people responded to Trump the way they did.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for the moment. If any of you reading this are veterans, thank you for your service and have a happy Veterans Day. You all mean so much more to me than any politician ever will.

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