You’re an American. Your vote counts, and your opinion counts, even if you’re nuttier than squirrel shit.
And so does mine.
You don’t have to like our elected official, you don’t have to agree with his values or his plans, and you are not only perfectly within your rights to raise a stink when things go wrong, but in fact it’s your ultimate duty to effect change if that’s what’s best for the country. That’s what happened yesterday. Only 52% of this nation’s active voters got behind the guy who’s going to be your President. So there’s a big old glut of you out there who ain’t too happy about that.
But here’s where I stop understanding your pain: if you’ve got some huge fear that this guy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or that he’s orchestrated some nefarious scheme to hoodwink us all, then you’ve simply entered into tinfoil-hat territory. Sure, the nutty notion that he’s a Manchurian Candidate is pretty easily waved aside. But the assertions that the planks in his campaign platform are just ill-understood by the masses, or that we were all lulled into complacency by his lofty rhetoric and failed to see the “truth” of his plans, how they will destroy this country, or shake the foundations of what makes this nation great…is complete and utter horseshit.
It’s a stance of “I’ve got the truth, and you’re all fools.” And it’s a pretty reliable continuation of the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” sort of over-simplification and intolerant viewpoint that’s been propagated heavily since the beginning of the George W. Bush administration. It’s the “easy” way of conducting political discourse, because it’s inherently difficult to take the high road and see from the other guy’s viewpoint. Of course, it’s not a new way of doing things, but it’s an ideology that gains great traction when the leader of the free world employs it. You want to know why I hated Bush? That’s why.
But one of the many reasons I’m happy today is that there are slightly more of us than there are of you. And my hope is that we will prove to you that the way we’re heading after today will not only be the best solution to our short-term problems, but it will also strategically place our nation on a much stronger path. Give it time.