I’m sitting here still completely flabbergasted that the election has passed and that this seemingly grotesque man has won and will soon be leading our country. The popular vote didn’t match the electoral one, once again, and now the Electoral College is getting turned on…again.

The Republicans will soon have control over our country and the Democrats are scared that everything they’ve fought for will be taken away with a stroke of a pen. Will gay marriages become illegal once again? Will chronic illnesses be covered? Will birth control be covered? Will every foreign-born citizen, visa holder, benefiter of DACA be forced to leave? These are just some of the worries. There are surely more that I just can’t think of at this moment in time.

Republicans are rejoicing! Finally, they can save their families from terrorists, from the “gay agenda”, from being poor! They’ve felt like God has been taken out of everything over the last eight years. They’ve felt that they would have had to hide the fact that they are Christians if any other Biblical “no-no’s” became legal. They’ve been taken out of their safe zones far more than they’ve liked during the Obama years and they’ve had enough.

Protests have turned the attention of the media on them from all over the world. They proclaim with signs “LOVE TRUMPS HATE!” as they burn effigies of the President Elect. So I’ve got to ask you, “Does love really trump hate?”

The last eight years I’ve seen from my white “Christian” friends (online and in real life) some of the most hateful and spiteful memes aimed towards one of the nicest Presidents we’ve ever had. They’ve run around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off with these things! I’ve seen effigies of Obama being hung, his face on gorilla stuffed animals, and images of him with a turban. If you can’t equate that with images spewed all throughout our history of racists’ hate towards blacks, then you’re kidding yourselves.

Yeah, sure you aren’t outright calling him the “n” word or anyone else for that matter. Well, at least not out in public view. You’ve been doing it in the privacy of your own homes.

You haven’t? Uh huh, yeah sure! Explain to me then, how we’ve been seeing hate spray painted and yelled at all over our country, since Trump won? They didn’t just wake up one day with this hate on their minds. They’ve been hearing it from you and from seeing all those things you’ve been posting on social media. It’s not just racial hate either. It’s hate towards the LGBTQ community and all other peoples of color, as well.

Remember when Brexit happened? We all sat back while watching the news thinking how awful people were acting then. Many were even saying how it looked like Germany when the Jews were being pushed out. Well, here we are now. Look at us.

You Democrats sitting there on your high horse, you haven’t exactly been very loving either. I’ve had many extremely liberal friends doing the exact same thing against the evangelical right. Some have been mocking Christians as though we’re all going to the same church. We aren’t all walking around thumping our Bibles at you like the Westboro Baptist Church members.

It seems like every single time I turn around there’s a new lawsuit or law trying to be made to tighten the reigns of religious freedoms. We can’t sing classic Christmas songs in schools anymore. Many schools have stopped celebrating any type of holiday! It’s not just schools anymore. We’re seeing businesses follow suit.

I remember growing up being told that our country was a melting pot. We’ve always (yes always damnit, do your research) had many types of cultures here. There has always been a multitude of different religions here. Why can’t we all feel safe celebrating all of our own holidays? We should be celebrating our diversity. Hell, it’s even been proven that the more diverse our friendship circle is, the more intelligent we become. I like feeling smart. We should smart more. We should adult more. We should love more.

We need to take a deeper look at the example Hillary set for us with her concession speech. Did you notice how everyone on that stage wore purple? Red and blue can come together to be united.

So before getting angry with the opposite side, try to understand their viewpoints. Try to learn more than what you see at the surface. Actually read the articles they’re posting. Try to understand where the other is coming from. Because that’s really the only way that love will really trump hate.