Now that the election is over, I can breathe a sigh of relief. Relief that’s it’s over. Now I won’t have to read political comments on Facebook. Now I won’t have to hide posts from half my friends and family in order to avoid reading something that might make me lash out in anger. Right? I wish. Today, I”m still stumbling across extremely nasty, divisive posts. I have to resist the urge to respond. Sometimes I type out responses and delete them before post them.

There are many of us who have shared inflammatory posts. We’ve shared ‘funny’ cartoons or links we KNOW are going to piss someone off. We’ve gloated because our candidate won. Or, we’ve pouted and thrown virtual tantrums because our candidate lost.

Politics suck. They bring out the worst in all of us. Sometimes it feels like the person who voted for the candidate you didn’t choose is ‘against you.’ It feels like they’re not just voting against your candidate, but they’re voting against what you believe in. It feels like your morals and values are under attack. And if your candidate loses? It’s disappointing and frustrating.

So, can’t we go back to the way things were before all this election stuff completely took over our lives? Can’t we all just get along?

I’m not telling anyone to abandon their beliefs. And, by all means, don’t give up on our political process. Hold true to your values. Take action.* Write letters to your elected officials. Vote. Fight for what you believe in.** But, don’t fight on Facebook.

Accept the fact that some people don’t see things the way you do. It doesn’t make them bad, or immoral, or stupid, or illiterate, or unpatriotic… or any of the other insulting things I’ve read today on Facebook. We might not disagree on some things, but I bet there are many basic values we share: most of us love our families, love our country, and care about the people around us. Let those basic values unite us. Because guess what? We all share this great country of ours whether we like the elected leaders or not.***

Disclaimers:

*Don’t do anything violent or stupid after reading this post. By ‘take action,’ I mean either work within the law or work to change the law. Don’t be a crazy vigilante and make your own law.

** By ‘fight,’ I mean ‘work toward change,’ not ‘charge off like a lunatic wielding a baseball bat.’ (Kindly refer to the first disclaimer.)

*** Do not flood my comment section with crazy rants about any elected official or former candidate. I will either ignore your comment or change all my beliefs because your insults will have completely swayed my opinions. (Just kidding, I’ll ignore you.)