Now What?

I was raised to respect the office of the President of the United States even if I do not agree with the ideology of those that have put him there.

Never before have those teachings weighed so heavily upon me.

I will not, cannot, hope for the failure of our nation’s next leader.

But I can and do hope that his past history of success is not the success that he plans for us.

This is a leader who has cut his ties and run from every hardship and every possible failure he would face.  In the process, he left behind all those that were depending upon him to lead them through, right up until he abandoned them, while protecting his own interests at the expense of theirs and moving on without looking back.

Early this morning he called upon all of the people he had spent the the last 18 months denigrating and threatening to unite behind him with the same solidarity that he has refused to extend to them.

His path to success will be a hard one, because if he indeed intends to unite us, many of those that supported him will turn on him.  Viciously and violently.

But if he doesn’t, things will get much worse over the next few years.

I will continue striving to make the neighborhood, city, county, state, country, and world that I live in a better place for all of us.

I call upon him, and the Congress in place to support him, that no matter what his idea of success might be, that he not fail us in the process of attaining it.

I call upon us to keep moving forward despite the apparent set back.   No matter how big that set back feels.

Republicans have had 8 years now to develop their alternative to the ACA, now that they have both congressional houses and the Oval Office, they need to begin implementing that plan before fulfilling their oft denied dream of ending the ACA so they don’t cut 22 Million people out of the health care system out of sheer spite.

They will have to face up to how they expect a call to unify to be answered as they attempt to built walls, implement mass deportation, shun religions of which they don’t approve, and re-implement racial profiling and stop-and-frisk policing.

They will have to come to terms with the unleashed anger and rhetoric of the Non-Politically correct “Just telling it like it is” variety being directed at them now that they have normalized and legitimized it.

They will have to explain to their own wives and daughters why men suddenly just feel free to grab them by their genitalia and why consent no longer seems to matter because they’ve mainstreamed misogyny and rape culture, and victim shaming.

They will have to deal with the backlash from their own supporters when the calls to “Lock her up!” go unanswered due to lack of evidence to present in court.

They will have room deal with the backlash when they realize nobody in Congress is going to approve a budget with the national border wall in it.  And Mexico isn’t going to pay for it.

They will have to address the racial and religious discord they haven’t only condoned but fostered and perpetuated.
It is going to be a long difficult four years for all of us, and I seriously hope we all not only survive it but come out the other end moving forward.

I will be striving to do so, and continuing to help others do so, every day.