Chris Pratt said in an online newspaper article about the US election that the country’s citizens needed to support each other despite the result.
More attention to social discontent
The “Guardians of the Galaxy” star wrote in a November 2 commentary for his mother-in-law’s website (“Maria Shriver’s The Sunday Paper”) that election hype should not overshadow the general discontent in the United States.
“Like so many of us, I have struggled through this election season,” Pratt said, “and I see things from both sides. I understand that people’s lives and rights are at stake. I also see that there are millions of people who feel overlooked and invisible by our government and are desperate for something to change.”
“Honourable winners and graceful losers”
To emphasize that there always have to be winners and losers in politics and that, as both a Democrat and a Republican, you should not let the election results divide you, the 45-year-old drew on his experiences as a wrestler : “One day after I came home from losing a wrestling match, I cried for at least an hour. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, tears streaming down my cheeks, and a calm disbelief overcoming me. Why did I cry? I decided to stop doing that. Looking back now, I think I became an athlete at that moment. At that moment I understood that losing is part of the game.”
Pratt concluded by appealing not to place one’s own victory or defeat above mutual solidarity. “If we become too paralyzed by defeat or too inflated by victory, loyalty to our ‘team’ can blind us to the fact that we are countrymen,” he wrote. “How do we become a nation of honorable winners and graceful losers? It starts with remembering that no matter who wins or loses, there are still people in this country who need help.”
