All of America can agree: This has been a toxic election season. With the Trump victory, the toxicity has only increased. To say things are tense in the nation right now is the understatement of a lifetime. We’ve been divided before. We’ve been upset over elections before. We’ve even seen victory before, but whether one is celebrating the victory or mourning the defeat, I don’t know if anyone is actually happy. The angry are angrier. The hateful are more hateful. Those who believe in progress and equality are only holding onto their ideals tighter, and those who believe we have been on the wrong track for too long have become violent and/or defensive in their celebration and will be disappointed by Trump’s presidency.
None of this is all too surprising. Even if Trump had lost, his campaign polluted the psycho-sphere of the nation. It would have taken decades to get over Trump. Now that he has won, it will take lifetimes. Our children will live in recovery from our disaster. In the meantime, the big question everyone on both sides is asking is how do we all live together now? Our political climate (and lets face it, Trump) has made it nearly impossible to see the other side. The reason for this is that this election was made into a moral one. A clear wrong and right were presented and, in my view now and in history’s later, the wrong decision was made. The victory of Donald Trump was a moral defeat. We’re already seeing this as true. Yet we still have to live and work together. Specifically, we all have to sit around the table and eat together as families on this Thanksgiving Day.
So how do we do it? I don’t have the answer. I’m asking. What I’m expecting is tension at best and severed ties at worst. Families torn apart. Brother against brother, sister against sister, father against son, mother against daughter, blood against blood. I’m personally torn as to which of the two possibilities is preferable.
Lauren Alexis Reed 