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.