Stop Saying Everyone Is Racist, Please

Donald Trump won the election yesterday and is officially going to be the next president of the United States. But even though this is a tragedy, a Trump presidency isn't the worst thing that has come from this election. The worst part of this entire ordeal is the blanket accusations of racism and sexism being thrown about by ardent Hillary Clinton supporters, as though anyone who could ever have a problem with the idea of her being our president could only have come to that conclusion because they are bad people.

This started more than a year ago during the primary, where HRC and her entourage were quick to create a "Bernie Bro" label for anyone who supported Senator Sanders for President. They designed an image of a straight, white, rowdy frat boy who hated women and painted everyone on Team Sanders with it, whether they were a 22-year-old white guy or a 65-year-old woman of color. Any mention of Hillary's vote for the Iraq war or her votes against LGBT marriage and equality until 2013 were brushed aside as excuses for misogyny. Bernie Sanders talking about her taking millions of dollars from the oil and gas companies was spun as an attack and he was told to tone it down, despite the fact that Clinton was the biggest recipient of oil and gas money of anyone involved in the election. Any mention of anything negative about Clinton was deftly spun as a hatred of her because of her gender, no matter how accurate the statement might have been.

Then, after winning the primary, Clinton began her campaign of "I'm Not Trump!" and started slinging mud at his supporters. They were racists. They were deplorables. They were nuts to support anyone other than her. When they responded that their towns had no more jobs because they had all been taken by NAFTA they were told not to worry, because that was better than voting for Trump. When they said that they didn't want a corporate politician who was going to let the gas companies build pipelines through their towns they were told not wanting to die in an explosion or deal with daily earthquakes from fracking made them racist. When they said that the recession of 2008 had gutted the few employment options available to them and that all of the economic growth went to the people at the top they were told that didn't matter because they now had the opportunity to vote for a woman and not voting for her would be sexism.

Obviously, her strategy of telling us that anyone who doesn't support her is an awful person didn't work. But just because Hillary Clinton lost doesn't mean that the liberals and progressives of our country also have to lose. We can move forward and fix the biggest problems in our nation. We can address inequality and climate change and all of the important things united together, but we can't do that if we don't look at why the Democrats lost this election. They lost because they refused to address any of the problems the people in our nation are dealing with, instead opting to try and shame everyone into voting blue. Let's move forward and try to create a political environment where we listen to each other instead of trying to shame one another into doing what we think is right.