After blistering campaign, Americans wonder how to heal
Trump extended a hand to such opponents in his victory speech, saying Clinton was owed a major debt of gratitude as he made an impassioned plea for both sides to join behind him: Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division. ...
Exit polls showed voters expressing not just unhappiness with the way government is working but, among many who found hope in Trump, outright anger.
"The bitterness could well get worse," said Robert Boatright, a Clark University professor and research director at the National Institute for Civil Discourse.
John Barnes, a 60-year-old retiree in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who cast his ballot for Trump, pledged to move on from his anger at a neighbor who supported Clinton, who he feared could destroy the Constitution.
Jennifer Farley, a 38-year-old chef and cookbook author in Bethesda, Maryland, who joked she'd drown herself if Trump won, said she was considering holding potluck dinners with people of different ideologies, seeking unity through the healing power of food.
[...] Tane Danger, a 31-year-old independent in Minneapolis, planned a series of improv comedy shows in divided communities to try to get people of different backgrounds in the same room to share laughter.
Democrats and Republicans shared the same pews, wearing voter stickers shaped like Georgia peaches, and shut out the barrage of news sweeping the country.
Enoch Bang, a 23-year-old law student who voted for Clinton, said the tenor of the campaign drove him to seek an escape from the election returns in the quiet of prayer.