We must accept election results

It’s here.
The 2024 General Election is here. The anticipation and/or dread is over. Whether it’s the Republican candidate Donald Trump, or the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, we are about to have a new President of the United States. If Trump is elected, he will be president for the second time. If Harris is elected, we will have our first-ever female president. It will also show us that we don’t need two years of endless campaigning to be elected president, but that is another column for another time.
Instead, we are going to appeal to the humanity in everyone, and ask for calm, rational reactions to the presidential election. It’s possible, if not likely, we won’t know who the next president is when we all go to bed the evening of Nov. 5. Everything points to this election being too close to call, which means vote counts, and possibly recounts, in the swing states will decide the election, which could take several days.
This is where we are at at this moment in time in United States politics—Republican states are going to vote for a Republican candidate regardless of their qualifications or what they have done/have not done, and Democratic states are going to vote for their candidates regardless of their qualifications or what they have done/not done. It appears there is literally nothing a candidate can say or do to turn off their base voters, which means Independent voters and the swing states will likely decide elections for the next several elections. Landslide wins are likely a thing of the past in this dug-in, hyperpartisan country.
Regardless of which candidate wins the election, we must accept the results. What we want to see is the country rally behind our president, and hope they do the best job possible. If the president is doing a good job, the country is thriving. Isn’t that what we all truly want? If you root against a president merely because they are not of your party, we question your patriotism, and to some degree, your sanity.
This country has had a peaceful transition of power every presidential election year until 2020, and we all know the ugly events that unfolded on that day. Hundreds of people are now in prison because of it, and it drove an even deeper wedge into our country. Neither side is absolved of guilt, as we also recall that there were areas where businesses were being boarded up prior to the election, in fear (anticipation?) of a riot had Trump defeated President Joe Biden.
At the end of the day, we are all Americans. We have far more in common than we have differences. Your political party should not define who you are, and someone else’s political party should not determine how you treat a person. There is so much more to all of us than who we voted for to be president.
Join us in a pledge to accept the presidential election results, regardless of the outcome. Every election has a winner and a loser. The loser won’t have lost because the election was stolen. They will have lost because that’s how things work in a Democratic Republic.