Election Day, like Christmas morning, always brings with it an endless (and seemingly interminable) build-up and then we blink our eyes, look around and say, ‘It’s over?’ Often, it seems anticlimactic.
Not this year.
Regardless of your political preferences, the voters have spoken and it’s time to calm down and sober up. The violent protests against the election of Trump going on across the country are as hypocritical as they are petulant. The same people who were horrified and outraged when Trump would not outright state he would accept the election results if he lost are now refusing to accept the election results. Opposition is not only good but necessary in a democracy; but when the protests turn violent, as they have, free speech has turned to criminality. The Constitution does not give people the right to attack other people or to commit acts of vandalism.
Luckily, we are not seeing these same reactions to the presidential election where we live. Many people have expressed outrage, disgust and concern about a Trump presidency, but there have been no riots. And yet, there is still a fear in many people — a fear to state that they support the president-elect or are hopeful in the actions he may take as president.
Every presidential candidate makes promises on the campaign trail they do not fulfill — and a major reason for that is, once elected, the realities of what is and is not possible or feasible sobers up a president-elect very quickly. Barack Obama pledged to close Guantanamo Bay and to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq immediately — and his tune changed once he was faced with the realities of the office. Last weekend, President-elect Trump already started backing off his pledge to repeal Obamacare and to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her alleged national security crimes.
So many people, especially those young people out protesting, think their freedom has come to an end, that America has come to an end and Trump will be the architect of a total extinction of personal liberty; but they have no way to predict that. History teaches us that presidents quickly sober up and settle down when the full weight of their new responsibility settles onto their shoulders. Presidents are reined in by their advisors and colleagues, the Congress, the press, public opinion and, if necessary, the Supreme Court; if they attempt a dictatorship, there is always impeachment.
Let’s all take a breath and give the president-elect a chance to create an administration and start to govern before we declare an end to our country by how the president-elect may govern.
