What Is Tolerable in a Leader?

I have taken this week to be silent. I am silent because I am angry. Words cannot express how deflated I feel that a country could elect a man like the president-elect. I wish I could yell "It's rigged," but he won fairly. People I know and care for voted for him, and I do not know how to process my own grief.

Between the ages of 4 and 6, I was sexually abused by an adult. It took me until college to tell anyone because I was afraid I would not be advocated for. I did not have faith that there would be a system to scaffold me through my trauma. On Tuesday, America elected a man who is on tape bragging about acts similar to those I experienced. My friends voted for him. My family voted for him. They all said that he was a better choice.

I got the message. Sexual abuse is a tolerable trait in our country's leader. Why should I expect mercy, grace, or justice from a society who could look the other way? What message does it send the world when he gets voted in by "Evangelicals?"