As if.
Some of us are very discouraged by the outcome of the election. With good reason.
Senior citizens like me are seeing the president-elect and congressional Republican leadership taking a machete to Social Security and Medicare. This is not encouraging.
Disabled citizens like me have the same concerns about the targeting of Social Security and Medicare and ACA, concerns that are amplified by an incoming chief executive who mocks the disabled and appoints to high office a known racist who has also blamed disabled children for high education costs. This is not encouraging.
Women like me are now confronting the reality of a president and vice-president whose policies are inimical to the very idea that we are fully capable of making our own health care decisions. These men come to their new offices with records of intent to punish women, not to mention the president-elect’s history of objectification and sexual abuse of women. This is not encouraging.
Citizens like me who value education are mortified at the prospect of a president who blatantly defrauded thousands via his false university, and then bragged about getting off with a light penalty. This is not encouraging.
Citizens like me who are sickened by the relentless poisoning of our air and water watch in horror as the seats of power are claimed by those who are heavily invested in preserving the continuation of those toxic processes. This is not encouraging.
White citizens like me take no comfort in the false safety - or accusation - of skin color. Or religion. Or orientation. Or political affiliation. Or national origin. Especially when those depredations are promulgated by a faithless misanthrope who is voluntarily dyed an odd shade of orange. Regardless of a sizable faction that loudly thinks otherwise, this is not encouraging.
What IS encouraging, however, is the recognition of the present circumstance as a setback, not a defeat. We have worked too long, fought too hard, climbed too high to give up now. Disappointment is not disappearance, and we aren’t going anywhere. Rather, our resolve has been reawakened. To their great consternation, we are gathering, we are rising up, speaking up, showing up. They insist that we have lost, we answer that they only think they won. Seriously, after two and a half centuries of history, do they really believe we are going to roll over and play dead for the likes of Trump? As if.
WE go on.
