2016 Postmortem

We live in a red state, recently moved back home. My wife and I stayed up Election night until the election had been called. We looked at each other in disbelief and said almost simultaneously, "What do we tell the kids?" My high schooler cried her eyes out on the way to school because in her mind, bullies had been vindicated. My seven year old son, who had been ecstatic that Hillary won the Nickelodeon Kids election also cried. I told both my children that morning "It's ok to be sad. Even Mom and Dad are upset and scared. But whatever you do...don't show your emotion to other kids whose parents are Trump supporters". We were that scared...mainly because we had just moved from a very blue state to the buckle of the Bible Belt which was home for me and a second home to my wife who grew up in Louisiana. We're all hurting, and I fear we will continue to hurt. Casting blame at this point is just chasing windmills. The cure for that is to lean on each other with our common ground to take on the Trump assault that surely lies ahead.