I’m writing this on my phone at 1 a.m. on election night. I can’t sleep, I’ve never felt more awake in my life. I was going to write my opinion piece on how uneducated Americans are about issues, but looking at election results, I realized something. Tens of millions of people voted for either side. Key word: people. Real, tangible, flawed, educated, uneducated, disenfranchised, wealthy, well-rested, stressed, and most of all human people. 

No matter which way you did or didn’t vote, there’s an equal number of people who didn’t vote for who you wanted, and they are still people. To be clear, I’m not defending people who are supporting the incumbent president for racial or gender based reasons; I’m not defending anyone. All I want to do is humanize both sides and break down the wall of polarization that is causing us to splinter into cliques. 

We as humans think we’re so special, but look around. There is an entire world teeming with life that we are ignoring in favor of ripping each other’s throats out metaphorically and literally. And look how we are treating each other! I am tired of hearing people defend lies, tell lies, and act so dramatically when hearing lies. At this point, I don’t care who’s lying, just get the truth out, but understand that people are going to hear what they want to hear. 

Here is the reality: people are flawed and we expect flawed people to run countries and then kick and scream when things go wrong. Well you know what America, enough of the temper tantrum, on both sides! Quit hating each other, quit the name calling, quit the absolute refusal to compromise. While everyone was arguing in Congress about stimulus bills, tens of millions went without food. While we were all bitching to each other about the election, mental health hit an all time low. Haven’t we had enough suffering, or more like haven’t we seen enough suffering? Apparently not, because we tolerate quite a bit for others. 

Let’s stop all the fighting and concentrate on something real and not about being right. Let’s start with human rights. Have you googled the Native American reservations recently? If prompted, how much do you really know about them? And you know what else, stop joking about how you’re gonna move to Canada if/when Trump wins. I’ve heard a lot of people joking or even seriously considering a move up north where the free healthcare and seemingly perfect political atmosphere are so tempting, when the real problem is that no one wants to address the problems here.

I understand the sentiment. It is difficult to accept reality when it is so far from what you want it to be, but to that end I am unsympathetic. I do not want to minimize pain and hardship, with that, I appeal to the empathetic parts of all of us when I ask all of you to take a hard look at each of your lives. How are you contributing to systems of exploitation every day by the clothes you are wearing on your back? The food you eat? The media you participate in? The US as an entire country is fueled by decades of bullying other nations into submission and playing into natural human greed. There is not one of us that is innocent from contributing to this system. 

Democrats, you can complain all you want that Republicans are uneducated hicks, and Republicans, you can complain about how Democracts are radical communists with a gay agenda, and Libertarians, you can sit back and laugh, but all of us are human people living on this planet together. The common ground is that America as a whole is by far taking more than their fair share of the planet, and it is not fair to the rest of the world that we demand so much attention for ourselves. America is the youngest child on this planet and that energy is toxic to the point that the world is literally on fire and burning to the ground. This is far from simply a result of Trump’s America, this is the science experiment that went so horribly wrong beginning with the founding fathers creating this country with the condition that one group would be in power. Fear and insecurity have always ruled this country; it is foolish to think that division only started 4 years ago. 

I am not naive to the point of believing that it hasn’t gotten more pronounced in the last 4 years, however I propose that a problem can’t be solved until it comes to the surface. Clearly, based on the tens of millions of votes Trump got, and is continuing to get, there were always people that were upset with the system. Trump supporters didn’t come out of nowhere, you think they felt supported by Mitt Romney or John McCain? There has been a massive chunk of the American population that has been upset for years, and considering this election isn’t exactly a landslide in the blue direction, they are still upset. I’m not defending Trump’s stances, anyone who knows me personally knows exactly what I believe. I am simply trying to humanize both sides which both claim to be trying to do but I’ve heard venom being spat in private. 

We, as humanity, can choose to be better than this, and if I sound like an optimist, it’s because I’m really trying. If I’m being honest, I’m a pessimist at heart and usually believe the worst in humanity and am pleasantly surprised when I meet genuinely good people, but to get through the next four years, either blue or red, I am really challenging everyone to think purple. Mix ideologies; it may seem absolutely impossible to, and in some cases there are certain things that can’t both exist. But the bickering, for the sake of this country, must come to an end, and swiftly. Lives are at stake.