What words are there?

I have typed and erased this probably one hundred plus times (and I’m still not happy with the result). I’m trying like so many of you to decide how to make sense of what happened last night. Trying to decide what is the right way to respond, and I honestly don’t think there is one good option among all the rhetoric floating around.

A few months ago I talked about Fear, about letting it win and control us, and now it has reached a very real pinnacle.

A man riding atop a crimson wave of hatred and fear has been elected into one of the most powerful positions in the world.

It is a desperate time. A disappointing time. From the ground, it seems like a time to lose hope. We are worried that all the ignorant promises will come to fruition. The wall. Excessive nuclear proliferation. Deportation squads. More importantly, we are fearful and disappointed in the over 59 million American citizens who voted for this prejudiced, disrespectful discourse and what they stand for.

And that’s the nature of Fear. It grows and spreads like a virus from person to person, culture to culture. It starts as fear of one thing, and reforms into fear of something else. It eats and bites and digs and scratches. Fear has set deep roots in this country and we are now seeing the branches.

What I think the grand irony of this election, and one I hope remains reflected in history books for years to come, is that Donald Trump ran on a platform plastered and labelled with one simplistic, marketing-appropriate phrase: “Make America Great Again.”

However, the fact that he won shows just how little greatness America has left. How uneducated and weak we are. How quick to irrational fear and unfounded aggression we are. How manipulated by media and a two party system we are.

I don’t know what the next four years will bring. I do know two things:

1. I will constantly be here for those I love. All my friends and especially those reeling in fear at the moment. I am on your side and I will fight with you. We are able to find hope together, even in the fog of despair.
2. Trump wanted this and he got it. Now I am determined to make sure he has the most difficult presidency it could. We need to be loud. We need to scream and rally and utilize all the rights of speech afforded to us. We need to use our power to grip our representatives by their cowardly, money hungry sacks and let them know that “We the People” can still mean something. If they want to press with fists from the top, we rise with barbs from the bottom. We can’t just roll over on this. We can’t let fear win. We need to show them what unity and hope can achieve.

Be strong, everyone. All we can do is hope and strive to truly improve this country from the ground up.

~C