Electoral map by counties • Ali Zifan, Wikipedia |
Richelle Thompson writes for the Episcopal Church Foundation’s Vital Practices:
I planned to be a gracious winner the week after the election.
I wasn’t going to rub it in the faces of folks who had been Donald Trump supporters. My social media presence would be demure, and while I expected to dance a little jig inside, my public persona would call for unity and broad arms to encircle the disenfranchised.
I didn’t expect to be the one needing the arms.
As a former journalist and an active member of a progressive Christian denomination, I was buffered on social media and in most real-life social circumstances, surrounded by people who generally believed in the same principles and supported the same candidates. Of my 1,000 or so friends on Facebook, only a handful regularly praised Trump.
I didn’t know that the discontent ran so deep, that so many felt profoundly betrayed by our current political establishment.
I didn’t know because I didn’t listen. I didn’t know because I didn’t think I had to.
