Tyler Tyack, Columnist

I’m writing this article now on Sunday evening, November 6th, 2016. The deadline for Op-Eds is tonight, so as of right now, I obviously don’t know who won on Tuesday night, or more likely Wednesday morning. However, that doesn’t matter for the sake of this article.

I’m writing this article to remind everyone that after the result of this election is announced, we will have a new president-elect, and whether you voted for them or not, they still won. I personally do not believe that the system is “rigged” against either candidate, yet I do see the need for that system to be improved upon. That’s a separate conversation, but my intention with including that line is that I believe the outcome will be legitimate, and therefore the victor will be the result of the majority’s will.

This comes down to supporting the new president. We can all laugh at the people who say that if one candidate wins, they’re moving to Canada, but maybe one in a thousand people will actually look online for houses up there, let alone buy one. The next president will still be our Commander in Chief, and they still represent you.

That’s right, the candidate who got at minimum 50.1% of the votes will still represent the 49.9% of Americans that didn’t vote for them. The winner is still our president, and they still have to appeal to all of our needs. America still has a system of checks and balances to keep government power restrained, and no Executive official will ever be able to do away with this masterpiece of a system.

What gives the United States such credit as a democracy on the world stage is that we are rational. We aren’t a developing democracy, one where the opposition party can simply riot and wage war if their candidate is defeated, we are the pinnacle of liberty. Does our country have issues? Of course! Civil Rights haven’t even existed a hundred years yet, we don’t have universal healthcare, and we are still regulating the economy via the government. But this is still America right? We have our problems, but they don’t make us the worst country in the world. We are extremely lucky to live in a society where we can vote in elections freely, where we can voice our opinions without fear of censorship or punishment, and where we can live our daily lives without the fear of government oppression.

There are people on either candidate’s bandwagon that say the opponent will mean the end of America. They are idiots. Do they not realize that our country has had a Civil War, yet stayed together, or that we have never had a coup against our leadership? If you honestly think that either of these candidates will single-handedly bring about the end of our great nation, you may need to come out of your cave and look around. Both of these candidates love America, that’s why they are running to lead it. They differ on how our nation’s future should look, but they both will only do what they deem is the right thing to do.

In conclusion, I know America will still be here on November 9th. In fact, if you are reading this, it still exists a day later. We will still go about our daily lives, and we will still have our friends and families. So I hope that we can all be civil and proud Americans in these next four years, because our nation isn’t defined by our President, but by it’s people.