Vitriol

The election is done.  It was terribly close, with individuals on both sides of the aisles sweating and counting electoral points and praying and hoping.  We knew that regardless of who won, nearly half of the country would be upset. Gloating and grumbling were expected, and promptly delivered when the call was made.   Words of joy, disappointment, relief, and bitterness were spoken, shouted, sobbed, and written.  

What shocked us was the degree of rage that was (and continues to be) splattered across social media, particularly Facebook.  Such hostility. Such pessimism. Accusations of sloth and sin and irrationality and stupidity.  Terrible, sweeping statements of dire end-of-times. It pains us to see.  Furthermore,we are certain that had the election turned out differently, the amount of vitriol would nevertheless have been the same in reverse.

Can we, as a nation, be at all rational with emotions running so high?  How can any one political party be deemed to have truly won, when we are a people so divided and angry?  How can we work together for the common good? What will happen?

As we move through the next four years, let us work hard to educate ourselves further, so that we will make the decisions we understand to be best.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power. ― Thomas Jefferson