Dear Hillary supporters:
First, I want to say I am so very sorry. This morning, as you mourn the loss of progress toward a more equalized future, I give you my deepest condolences. I know there are no words I can say to comfort you right now. I know you are feeling raw, like you have a huge gaping wound tearing through your gut and bleeding out in front of you. I know you fear for your children. I know you fear for what is going to happen in the next days, months, and years. I know you are hurt and angry and outraged that the faith you had in our human culture has failed you so miserably.
As I hold my arms out to you, open for embrace, praying for reconciliation after a brutal election season, may I be so bold as to share a few things with you?
Mother Teresa said:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
We are a broken people. Much hatred and loathing and abhorrent behavior has been spewed between friends these last few months. Many relationships have been severed. escortstars.ch. Much has been lost.
I know it is simple, and most likely offensive, for someone on the “winning team” to say, let’s all just hold hands and move forward together. But it is the only thing we can do, if we want our nation to survive. A house divided against itself cannot stand. And if you truly do believe love trumps hate, if you truly believe that integrity and brotherly love are worth fighting for, then fight for it. Show the world that you will not allow fear to dictate your behavior.
Show the world that your love for our country and its people are more important than your suspicions and concerns for the future.
Mourn, yes. Lament, and weep, and ache for a time. Grieve over the loss of a future you so desperately longed for. Take this time to mourn over your loss, as you would the death of a family member. Give yourself the freedom and room to experience that sadness. But then, then move on to joy.
Joy is entirely different from happiness. Happiness is an emotion and temporary; joy is an attitude of the heart. Happiness comes and goes, sometimes as often as waves hitting the shore. It’s not something you can cling to when you’ve lost a loved one or are facing bankruptcy, or you’ve lost an election.
I know it may not feel this way, but I am on your team. I am rooting for you. I am rooting for me, too. I am rooting for our country, and for the future of our children. And I am praying you will allow me to hold your hand as you walk through this difficult time, so that we may walk forward together once the mourning period has ended.
I love you, friends.
For additional insights, please read my post from a few years ago on why I won’t tear down Barack Obama HERE.
Mark says
Perfect.
Andrea says
Thank you for this. I have been struggling to put into words how I am feeling, and you did it perfectly. Thank you for being gracious and for not gloating or being aggressive. I voted for Hillary, and you are right, I feel like I have a big, gaping wound. I appreciate your kindness and compassion, and your understanding. Praying our country can survive this divide.
Meghan says
I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised. We differ on a lot of opinions, but your gracious attitude is very refreshing. I have seen many people in my newsfeed gloating over the fact that Donald Trump won. And I have to admit, it hurt. No one has reached out and said that they understand our pain like this. Even if we don’t agree, I respect you and appreciate the fact that you are willing to walk with us through the mourning period. I think you’re right, we are going to have to put our political differences aside and work together in the future. As hard as it will be, it is important for our country!
Eric says
Your blog posts are awful & judgemental all under the name of the Gospel. Disgusting.
Shanti Landon says
If you see this post is judgmental, I don’t even know how to respond.
Evangeline Ling says
Dear Shanti,
I found this article you wrote after desperately and I mean desperately searching for a truly compassionate response from a Trump supporter to a Hillary supporter. Mostly what I find is obnoxious gloating, and downright attempts at belittling us. I will start right out by saying I was pleasantly surprised to see your article, it is certainly not the rule though its more of an exceptional attitude in an abyss of people who just want nothing more then to gloat and make their america great again while they pull out the rug of my america from under my feet all while pointing and laughing. And there has been plenty of pointing and laughing.
What Trump supporters need to realize right now, and I can only speak from my own experience and feelings, is that a Hillary supporter like me needs to feel that our Trump supporting friends have our backs. I fear along with many other people that Trump’s rise to power has given malicious people with bad intentions a new boldness to be out with their hatred. It is a fact that there has been a sharp increase in Hate crimes since the election, and the response from the vocal Trump supporters to this fact is to dismiss it and call it made up. Just the other day a Trump Supporter boarded a Delta airlines flight and proceeded to scare and insult everyone on board the plane. It was, to use Hillary’s word “Deplorable.” And right now people like that are becoming the poster children and very symbolic of a very ugly attitude that has come to the forefront.
Attitudes like this only add fuel to the fire because nobody from the other side seems to want to accept any responsibility for the bad behavior of their own side. I’ll be the first to admit I am ashamed at the way some of our protesters have acted. I believe that protest is an important function in a civilized society for the cause of important social change. But that protest must and always must be peaceful.
So what I need to know as a Hillary supporter is that the more reasonable, compassionate wing of the Trump supporters will be the very ones to be a voice of accountability in their own party. If I stand up against racism I’m written off as an “SJW” a “Libtard” or a plethora of more vile names that I don’t even care to repeat here. My voice is lost right now and falls on deaf ears to the party in power. And this is what scares me, I’m scared to think that people I care about will be marginalized whether they be immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ, People of color, women, the disabled. It seems like every single one of these groups has clearly been targeted in one way or another and does not in anyway trust that their america is going to be so great in the next 4 years. When Trump’s decisions and words make my america not great I need to know that the reasonable people who voted for him will be the ones to say “Hey that’s a line I won’t cross! And I WILL hold you accountable” I need to know that when my rights and my human dignity are trampled on by the president of our own country and by the extreme elements of his supporters that people like yourself will have my back and not theirs.
If that is the case, if people like yourself actually do that over the next 4 years by being vigilant in watching your own guy and the more extreme elements that supported him and putting on the breaks when they cross a line of decency then perhaps, perhaps the kind of compassion in your article can have a tremendous effect. However if its just words and sentiment followed up with a blind acceptance and a blank check to Trump and his legion of alt right supporters to do and say anything they please for the next 4 years then I’m afraid your words are wasted on people like myself at that point.
There is also a rather obnoxious tendency for people to want to convince me that Trump will be a good president. This kind of discussion although probably has some good intentions to it is having the opposite effect. It makes me want to go in the opposite direction. I need my Trump supporting friends to be ok with being my friend without having to convince me that they did not make a colossal error with their vote. Allow me to have the dignity of my opinion, and as much as I disagree with yours I’ll give you the dignity of having that opinion.
Sorry I’m ranting at this point. I just could not pass up the opportunity to respond what I can only call the only kind article I’ve seen so far from a Trump supporter to a Hillary supporter. As a Hillary supporter I will be paying very close attention to acts of kindness from the other side to see if they exist not only in words but in actions. I thank you for your words today, they definitely got my attention. And while not every Hillary supporter is going to read them in the same way as me, some are just going to be immediately skeptical like Eric above, I hope that you will also receive an equal measure of love and kindness from people like myself. I also hope that more then Hillary people reading your article right now that you have a lot of Trump people reading your article and then following your example in their own circle of friends in trying to be compassionate. As a Hillary supporter I pledge to receive that warmly when I do receive it and to give it openly as well when there is even so much as a crack in the door to do so.
<3 Eva