My body did not want to accept that it needed sleep. Even as
I sat on the couch, flipping back and forth between the media powers and
Seinfeld (a needed break to keep from chewing my finger nails off), I had yet
to come to grips with the conclusion that Donald Trump would be President. Yes,
that Donald Trump. The same Apprentice hosting, Casino owning, model marrying
Donald Trump. The same man who had managed to alienate every minority group in
the country, who had made fact checking a national sport, and who had blabbered
through three national debates without an ounce of preparation or any statement
that could be defined as “carrying substance or meaning” was about to win Ohio,
Florida, Pennsylvania and the damn Presidency.
I was completely caught off guard.
My mind kept running through all of the scenarios I had
digested the past few months. The map came into focus and fewer and fewer paths
remained open to stop this misogynist, racist heap of failing wig. There was
only one outcome and my mind, my presumed all-knowing of America mind, did not
want to give the idea any credence. No, no the understanding could be left for
latter. Now was the time to question everything, to even think about the
rigging of an election, to think about what groups didn’t make it out, to think
about the suppression of the Latino vote in my home state, and to swear up and
down that there were more like minded people out there. It was time to be that
crazy flag waving loser that I was convinced the other side would have morphed
into if the roles would have been reversed. If they can get away with it, why
can’t I? Why would anyone expect a rational reaction from anyone in this
election? After all we had been through didn’t it make sense to retreat back to
our respected corners, lick our wounds, and hope for a speedy four years until
we could line up again on each respective side to laugh in our presumed enemies
defeat? That would be the easy thing to do.
That’s what my mind told me as I threw a pillow from my couch
after Florida was announced in Trump’s favor. After emphatically proclaiming
the death of intellectualism in America and shaking my head in concurrence with
a few resounding comments on my Facebook feed, I thought of what my America
was. I knew it was not what Trump had proclaimed-this dreary, third world of a
country, with no jobs and no one to stick up for the common man. America was
not that and it had taken many years, many deaths, and many fights far grander
than this election to get away from the resounding racism that had infected our
country for so long. Trump’s America was not meant to be a melting pot but was meant
to be shut in, isolated, and contained. This bully of a man was not the
figurehead of my America. I didn’t understand.
For the first time in my voting life I was with the
minority, on the losing side. It was emotional and taxing to not what to scream
at the top of my lungs. How could all of what he said have gone unnoticed by
all of those people? How can you excuse suggesting immigration policy based off
of religion? An undeniable right of this great country. How can you excuse the
degradation of women? How can you tell your daughter, sister, or wife that this
is a man that should represent ALL Americans, men and women? How can you tell
your kids that the most intelligent, best tempered, and uniting people become
President? How can we sit here and say George Washington, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and….Donald Trump?
I tossed and turned all night with these questions-expecting
each turn or drop of sweat to magically awaken me from a pre-election
nightmare. It never came and it was only the Google electoral tracker that
brought it all home to me the next morning. It quelled my angry and alerted me
to the change in the aura of the country. My door unlocked all the same, my car
started, my office coffee still sucked but it was all different as it was in a
Trump America. The country had shown me what it was actually thinking in a most
rude and unapologetic way. The country even had the foresight to give me four
long years to digest and learn from it all. It gave me a silver lining. I
realized-finally with the only clarity that a national election can give-that
we were all hurting.
Most of these people hadn’t voted for him out of agreeability
but more out of an anti-establishment sentiment. The two party system had
wrecked America. We had become so blinded on our own respective sides, so out
of touch, that we could not even make out the other side and their own
opinions, wants, and needs. We were all
forever polarized, stunk on our respective ends without the slightest inkling
to think about each other or what had gotten us there in the first place. We
were bound to wander aimlessly with other likeminded individuals who only could
compartmentalize cause and effects for their problems instead of examining a
worldwide view of interconnectedness that points to not one solution but many.
We were left in our corner feeling like we were owed a democracy without
participation, representation without offering our voice, and socialistic
values without giving our own sacrifice and work. We all had forgotten that
there are no winners or losers in an election but only an assured four years of
being.
It’s not going to matter in a week who you voted for. Hell,
it doesn’t even matter now. The only thing that matters is where we go from
here. And….guess what….the other 65 million people or so who voted for Clinton,
Johnson, Stein, or others will be along for the ride. We’re all in this together.
There is no victory lap because nothing has been won, there are no spoils
because nothing has been conquered, and there should be no reaction because
there has been plenty of inaction. Let’s all realize that this is merely a look
in the mirror. This isn’t us getting dressed and seizing the day. Leave the
petty name calling, the grouping, and the dangerous generalizations for an
America that’s not a melting pot, that’s not a cultural mecca, that’s not the
land where anyone, anywhere, can do anything.
Go back to your own delusional idea of America if you don’t
want to make progress. Go back to your corners and be the same person in four
years that you are now. That’s the easy thing to do! Repeat the cycle and
you’ll continue to think of yourself as a winner or a loser instead of as an
American! Do all that and this election would have been for nothing. This great
look at us, this self-realization of the need to be moderate would have flown
by us as quickly as the many lies that were spewed in this election. If we
don’t settle with each other, if we don’t try to learn, and if we don’t try to
fight for the inclusion that is the foundation of this country then we will all
crumble.
Realize that this isn’t the victor’s country but it is the
country of the tired, the poor, the huddled masses who yearn to breathe free.
Realize that this is larger than any of our little versions of America. This is
about compromise, this is about respect and about homage to many generations
before us. Realize that one man cannot be America without the people. Realize
that we are a light of the world, that our country is never as bad as the media
makes it seem and that millions come here every day because of opportunity,
because of inclusion, and because of the promise of chance. We just received a
chance to show the world that we’re above one person and one thought. What will
we do with that chance?
