The streets are filled again. For months, real patriots have been taking to the streets all across the country. Real people, with good intent, have been standing up for what is right and not just for themselves, but for their families, their loved ones, and their neighbors. But today, people have taken to the street for something different: joy, pure joy. So many people have been hurting for the last four years. Less than half the country voted for a candidate that created divisions deep within the core of the country and told the rest of the world to "deal with it." That has ended today.
Donald Trump has lost his re-election campaign to Joe Biden and so much is happening. People have taken to the streets waving the American flag and applauding the 75.4 million that voted for democracy. As right wing extremist did everything they could, including threatening poll workers with guns and violence, others took down their Trump flags and put away their MAGA hats. Once in your face with their loud, obnoxious, entitled, sexist and racist (so much more can be listed), they are now hiding their shame. Or are they?
How can people who have screamed and spit in peoples faces, calling others snowflakes for exercising their constitutional rights, just stop because their guy lost? The cannot and we should not let them. The hatred and fear was present within them long before Trump started his campaign in 2015. When Trump won, he enabled them to become the nasty people that we saw over the last four years. Behavior that allowed white people to try to police brown people for not existent crimes. We have seen Trump supports coughing and spitting in faces for being asked to wear a mask during a pandemic that has claimed more than two hundred and thirty thousand people. We have seen white supremacist marching in the street, armed, angry and dangerous. They have ran people over during mass protests, All while being baited and encouraged by the leader of the nation. That hate just doesn't get to be stuffed in a box for later.
What we need to do now is not forget, hold these people accountable and engage in critical conversations. While these people find hiding spots for their distasteful Trump gear, we should strive to remind them how wrong it was to idolize a man that brought out some of the most disgusting behavior this nation has probably ever seen. We need to hold 70.9 million people accountable for being ok with domestic terrorism, white supremacy, racism, politicizing a pandemic, and almost allowing the United States to fall into a fascist regime. While it is exhausting, we need to keep reaching out with the intent to make the other side listen to reason and see through the lies that were fed to them over the last four years. Why should they be allowed to forget about the harm that they were accomplice to?
I plan to continue to challenge anyone who I come in contact with who voted in Trump. President Obama said before that "elections have consequences" with the intent to tell Republicans that they have to work with him. Electing Trump as the most divisive and hated president in the history of the nation should have consequences for those that supported him. We owe it to the violence and murder that BIPOC people faced as well as all those lives lost in the pandemic. The elections may have ended, but the work continues because the hate from the other side did not disappear the moment Biden was announced the winner.
Photo credit is not mine. Was taken as Trump supporters protested outside government buildings during the initial shut downs because of Covid-19 (April 2020).
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