Celebrate

In just nine weeks, Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States.

It's an astonishing thing to contemplate.  An embarrassing thing.  But there it is.

Now, I cannot join wholeheartedly with those who regard the results of November 8 as a national disaster.  For me, and for millions of other Americans, disaster of some sort became a foregone conclusion once the two major parties had nominated their candidates.

A lot of us didn't want Mrs. Clinton either.

But there's no getting around the fact that, while Mrs. Clinton would likely have continued, cautiously and gradually, down the path to destruction, Mr. Trump offers us the potential of an express trip to that destination.

It's going to be a long four years.  I hope we survive it.  I can almost hear Bette Davis advising us to fasten our seatbelts.

A lot of people are already mobilizing to oppose the worst of the prospective Trump appointees, and the most destructive of his policies.  We should all consider joining one or another of these groups because the fight is worth fighting.

And organizing - meeting people, finding common ground - will help a lot in two years, when we have a chance to take Congress away from the Republicans and turn Mr. Trump into a premature lame duck.

For those who seriously desire to transform the United States - to make it genuinely great again - the best bet remains, as it has long remained, a third party.

The Democratic Party is a disaster.  Only the Democratic Party could have arranged to lose to Donald Trump.  Only the Democratic Party could have reduced itself to a party of, for and by the urban coastal elites, while letting the rest of the map turn bright red.

The biggest bloc of entirely unrepresented Americans today is - as it has been for the past 36 years - patriotic citizens who are conservative in the old, honorable sense of believing in gradual, evolutionary change - rather than brilliant departures from tradition, with all their unforeseen consequences.

Citizens who share the values of the old Republican Party, before it was taken over by white bigots and evangelical theocrats, are without a home in today's two-party system.  Their former home, the Republican Party, has become a second, more sinister version of the Democratic Party - another coalition of those who place the tribe ahead of the nation.

What America needs is the genuine Republican Party - the party descended from the Federalists of Washington, Adams and Lincoln, and the Whigs of Webster and Clay.  The party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and George H, W. Bush.

But that's a long, complex story - for another time.

What America needs in just under nine weeks is an alternative for those of us who can't bear to sit at home while the Trumpets are dancing the night away at a dozen Inaugural Balls.

Some years ago, when George W. Bush being inaugurated, one of the local Democratic Committees in the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs rented the beautiful old Byrd Theatre for the night of January 20.  That night, they showed two films - The American President and Dave.  Officially, it was a fundraiser and membership drive - but it also gave a lot of folks a chance to escape, for that one night, the horrors that confronted the nation.

And munch some very good popcorn.

I suggest that good Americans all across the country find a way of doing something similar.  Rent a movie screen if you can. Show The American President, or Dave, or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  

Or Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

Or Spielberg's Lincoln.

Or gather in someone's house and pop in a DVD of The West Wing, or John Adams.

Or listen to a CD of Hamilton.

Or, if you're younger and more technologically up-to-date than I, do something more savvy.  Stream something.  You'll know.

Have a great time, in congenial company, on January 20.  Get a good night's sleep.

And then, get back to work.  

Our President-Elect

I'm going to keep this short and to-the-point.

I didn't vote for Donald Trump, and until about 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time this morning, I was really hoping he would somehow fail to reach 270 electoral votes.

Not that I wanted Mrs. Clinton as President.  I count myself as one among the many millions of Americans who have had it with both major parties, and long for a peaceful revolution which would reform a corrupt and dysfunctional political system.  I voted for Bernie Sanders as the one candidate, in either party, who wanted to reform things that badly need to be reformed.

I couldn't quite see Bernie as President, but Washington, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts weren't on the ballot.

And, having expressed my affirmative opinion in primary season, I expressed my negative opinion by voting for a third-party candidate this fall.  Because, until millions of us start doing that, nothing is really likely to change.

Now, I am hardly naive.  If you've read many of these posts, you'll know something of my autobiography.  If not, let's just stipulate it for the moment.  Because this needs to be short.  Let's just say, I've been around.

And if I desperately long for more options than the two existing parties, I also have a sense of what is appropriate in our present dilemma.

Eight years ago, the Republican congressional leadership greeted the election of our new President by declaring their intention to block everything he attempted, in order to assure that he would serve only one term.

I deplored that, then and now.  It might have been clever politics, but it was atrocious citizenship.  We have elections in this country, and the winners become - for a time - our leaders.  Any other attitude loses me.

If I could, I would revive the ancient Athenian practice of ostracism and use it on Americans - officials or private citizens - who take such a stance.

They do not belong here - or in any republic.  They belong in a nursery, under a rather strict nanny.

And that is precisely how I feel about those who have greeted this morning's news with the chant of "Not my President!"

Or rather, that is how I will feel on January 20.  For now, Barack Obama is still our President.  All of our President.

But when Donald Trump takes the oath, he will become our President, and those who can't deal with that should find themselves another country.

So - for the next ten weeks - tantrums are permissible, if in very poor taste.  But on January 20, Donald Trump becomes our President.  We can work toward his replacement, but in the meanwhile, we need to try to help him govern.

There are a lot of things we need to do if we're to fix our country.  The first thing is to start acting like adult citizens.