Like the fool that I am, I logged onto my Facebook page. There, I found Americans taunting each other, gloating and bragging about Donald Trump's presidential election win. The same people who have been posting for weeks and months about how they "just can't wait for it to all be over" are initiating posts that slam their friends for voting against the president elect.
I spent most of last night and this morning crying, intermittently (I even burst into spontaneous tears while on a hiking trail), but I have now managed to corral some of my feelings into something semi-articulate (I think).
If you voted for Donald Trump because you believed the "anyone but Hillary" mantra put forth by the extreme right, I can forgive you. You probably didn't do all your research, and if you did, I'm sure you were met with confusing media-produced contradictions about why, exactly, you are supposed to hate her- you just knew you should. It's ok. People make mistakes. Not everyone in this country cares enough about politics to read every scrap of info (sometimes, I fall into this category).
If you voted for Donald Trump because you are a lifelong republican, always vote along party lines, and either saw firsthand or were told the republican "horror stories" about Bill Clinton's presidency, I can forgive you. I'm a democrat, but I am not so close-minded that I refuse to accept that we are a two-party system. There wouldn't be democrats and republicans without people holding opposing views. If you felt that it was important to hold true to your republican heritage, I understand.
If you voted for Donald Trump in spite of his inability to stop his mouth from spewing ridiculous, hateful things, I am coming close to forgiving you. If you have faith that he truly can figure out how to fix some of our nation's problems, and you believe in his abilities so much that you are willing to overlook his penchant for word-vomit, I will probably get past it. Probably.
If you voted for Donald Trump because you watched his campaign, live streamed his speeches on YouTube, and caught all the instances in which he publicly expressed his views on Latino immigrants, Muslim immigrants, refugees, women, African Americans, homosexuals, developmentally disabled people and, (most recently) Jewish people, and you thought to yourself "man, I like this guy. He's a straight shooter and his views are really in-line with mine. I can get behind him as our president", then I do not forgive you. Now or ever.
There is an important distinction between having a difference of opinion and being a good vs. bad person. People who choose to hate and oppress others based on their skin color, sexual preference, gender, or religion are, at least by my definition, bad people. There was a time in my life when I was willing to overlook what I deemed to be "character flaws" in people that I otherwise liked. I had friends and acquaintances who would occasionally let a racial slur slip from their mouths, or tell one too many racist jokes. I let it all slide, because at the time, as naive as I was, it seemed docile and relatively harmless.
I believed it to be harmless for two reasons: one, I didn't actually think that these people were true racists, just guys cracking some jokes. Two, there was no immediate reason at the time to consider this type of speech dangerous.
Until Donald Trump became the republican presidential nominee.
Donald Trump, who is now the president elect of our country, has given a voice to racism, sexism, antisemitism, and many other forms of hate speech. In my (slightly) mature adult life, I have realized that any negative reference to someone's skin color, nation of origin, gender, religion, or sexual preference is hate speech. And this man lets it pour from his mouth openly, publicly refusing to apologize for many of the statements he has made.
So if you, dear voter, chose Donald Trump because he "says what's on his mind", or because he is "honest about his opinions", then you picked him because he's a hateful, racist, sexist person, and so are you. And there are enough of you in our beloved country that, along with the other three aforementioned categories of Trump voters, this man has been elected.
I'm all for unity, but I don't want a union with bigots. I don't want a thing to do with anyone in this country (or any country, for that matter) who believes they are superior to someone else because of their skin, birthplace, gender, religion, or sexual identity.
Because you are bad human beings. And I will never forgive you for that.
