At 3 a.m. on Wednesday, I lay in bed, struggling to fall asleep. Like many across the nation, I’d just watched former and now future President Donald Trump get reelected as the leader of the free world and was concerned about our country’s future. In Trump’s first term, he became the first president to be impeached twice. Since then, he’s been convicted of 34 felonies and promised to seek revenge on his political enemies when elected.
When I woke up in the morning, social media was flooded with posts expressing disgust with America for electing him. Some of these posts emphasized how terrible a person Trump is — as examples, posts cited that he’d like to take away women’s rights, that he’s anti-immigration and that he’s divisive — but others focused on his voters. Many wrote that they would never be friends with someone who voted for Trump and anyone who did should unfollow them, unfriend them and never speak to them again.
As Americans, we cannot end relationships because of this election. Not only will it create even more division, but it will also hurt Democrats in the future.
Trump won every swing state and won by the popular vote by more than 2 million. There are two elections in the next four years for federal government positions. If Democrats are to win either of these, they’ll need some Trump voters to vote blue. Unfriending, unfollowing and disrespecting all Trump voters is not the way to convince them. Whether or not one believes Trump is a terrible person, at the end of the day, more people voted for him than for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Democratic Party prides itself on being the party of inclusivity. In order to earn back voters, they’ll need to hold true to that claim. From top officials to the average voter to teenagers like us, this means accepting more views. Rigid viewpoints on every issue and a lack of flexibility will continue to push more people to vote red across the board, giving Republicans an even greater advantage in the House, Senate and state governments and create even more polarization in the process.
Even with Republicans winning all three houses, nearly half the country is disappointed by the election result. During times of division the best solution we have to make our country and world better is unity. Making posts telling Trump voters that they, like Trump, are terrible people, is just going to make them continue to vote solely for polarizing candidates, dividing us even further. If there is any hope of uniting these states we call America, we cannot enable that to happen.
