I have always put down people on the right who disliked Barack Obama so much that they said, “He is not my president.”
Before that, although I was no fan of George W. Bush, I put down people on the left who said the same about him.
So come inauguration day in January, even though I believe Donald Trump will be the most unfit winner in modern times ever to take the oath of office, I lost, he won. Like it or not, he will be my president. I would be a hypocrite if I put it any other way.
Likewise, through many presidential campaigns I have heard people say that if such-and-such candidate wins the White House, they will move to another country. But of course, they don’t. I won’t either. I cringe at the consequences of Trump’s victory, but I’ll stay and stand for my principles, whether or not they are the majority’s. That is my right. I’ll stay, not run and hide.
And since I was in New York City on election night, I jokingly e-mailed a few politically like-minded friends as the trend was clear that I was looking for a tall building to jump from and might fittingly choose the Trump Tower because it wasn’t 10 blocks from where I sat. But that’s all it was: a joke. The election is no joke, but the notion that life won’t be worth living is.
How could I see things any other way? I was on the East Coast, after all, to give a talk, appropriately on Election Day itself, about democracy. I had just told my university audience that real democracy is not just about elections, but about the follow-through of representative government. Government that gives us at least a pretense of participation in the policies that preserve and protect what we value: our security, our opportunity, our prosperity, our liberty. A government that is controlled by the people and not the other way around. Trump might cause chaos, he might make miracles, we’ll see. But he is our next president. The people’s choice. Democracy worked.
A cousin of mine wrote to me on election night, “No Republican with an ounce of morality is happy with the character of Donald Trump.” But she voted for him, because she wanted a Republican in the White House. She was not the only one who held her nose and cast that vote. What we have in common, going forward, is the hope that once he soaks in the awe-inspiring obligations of the Oval Office, President Trump will show character and compassion that we don’t currently expect.
I will hope for that miracle. He will be my president. There is no choice.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen is an author, public speaker, and former foreign correspondent for ABC News.
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