By: Michelle Carr
I can't help but feel that during this last election so much has been lost. And by that I don't just mean my candidate losing the electoral vote. This isn't a blog for the candidates this is a blog for the people. Because I sincerely feel that we have lost sight of each other during this madness. That many people were quick to just throw labels on each other and build a wall of deafness to their words once they realized they were not of the same party. Some were afraid to even approach others, not mentioning the dreaded politics until they thought the other person couldn't hear. How did we get to this place? This is not a healthy place to be.
I've been through many elections before, not a new voter as some deemed to call me, but never have I ever felt such animosity from others before. But then again, never have I felt so passionately about the need for a my representative to win either. Most of the conversations I had with others, of a different party, felt as though I was speaking through the phone that had a bad connection. Felt as though the person I was talking to was far more eager to side with this person whom they've never met and whose character repeatedly proved him to be abusive and questionable over even trying to listen to what I had to say. It seemed that even those who have known me for a long time or even my whole life seemed to have forgotten who I am. Felt as if they labelled me an easily influenced person who couldn't see that this man was going to save our country. And all the while their way of convincing me to see the light was to sling hateful words my way or attack my candidate with falsities. While I watched and listened to them, I began to wonder what happened to the kind and thoughtful people I had known them to be. I began to realize that in our efforts to try and make the world better we have been forgetting why we are doing so. For those that believe this has all been for the power, you are mistaken, because it should be for those we love.
I can tell you, from my position, that it is incredibly difficult seeing those people you love wholeheartedly supporting and defending a person whose every action goes against all of your moral values. And I'm not talking my political views, I'm talking my core moral values. Values that I have been taught since childhood. Values that these very people have played a part in teaching me and I believed they held them true as well. Yet, when these loved ones defend these atrocities and some even encourage them ... one starts to honestly have a hard time looking at these people in the same way. That is what has hurt the most, in all of this. This disappointment I carry around now. ( And to clarify, it has nothing once again, to do with the fact that my candidate is not in office) It's because those who I believed would fight for moral values turned away and then mocked me for doing so. For what exactly... money? I have never been quite clear on that point. Because it was never really expressed to me how he was going to save us. Well beyond the fact he would build a wall and run America like a business...like his... his businesses that he has had several bankruptcies in... seems reasonable... anyway...
Through all of this, I myself have daily withstood those who didn't agree with me. Even had someone try and hack my own social media. I've been called names, yelled at and attacked on social media. I have laughed quite a bit at the name calling because I know full well that what they have said doesn't apply to me. And then embraced some, because damn right I'm a treehugger and proud to be so. If you don't love trees than you don't love air and who doesn't like to breathe? Anyway... but to be told that I need to take my dumb, lazy, pot smoking butt, get off government aid and find a job... I mean come on now... I have to find the humor in that. Humor with a touch of sadness, because that shows just how much we really aren't looking at one another. So this not so dumb, productive, never tried pot in my life, Liberal who has worked my ass off for everything I have, has decided to try and reach out in ways that I know how, through my words and actions. Because if you are still reading this it means there is hope. That maybe you are willing to listen. That possibly you don't have that glazed over look in your eye that I have become to accustomed to when I tell people that I'm a liberal. And maybe just maybe if I share my story with you, you will share yours too. Perhaps if we all reach out to one another we might manage to find that common ground again. Because guess what, none of us are going anywhere. WE are all in this together, we can rise together and protect our home and democracy or fall together. I choose rise.
