I wrote the following musing a little while after the election. It is my opinion. If you don’t agree or don’t want to hear about it, don’t read it. I promise to have another cat blog up in a few days, and a 100-word story I’ve been working on as well. If you do, however, have thoughts on the matter, I welcome comments, though I check them first to make sure they are not offensive to me. To date, I have never refused a comment.

Today we are making history.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve cherry-picked my Facebook friends to be people who all agree with my ideals, or if the ones who disagree are the timid type who don’t put their politics on social media, but I have to notice how insulated I have become. Part of it is that I live in a blue state, in a city rioting over the recent election. “Not my president” they say. Certainly not my ideal of one either – I cringe at his voice, his bearing, his ugly face, and the thought of this man with the secret codes for our nuclear weapons scares the shit out of me – but don’t we have to examine how he got where he is today?

Somewhere in the midst of the outrage and fear, I read a comment that made me stop and think. It was from a Republican, probably somewhat of a racist bigot, who said, “Now you know how we felt for the past 8 years.” In other words, there are people who feared a black democrat president in a similar way to how I fear Trump. I knew it intellectually, but never allowed myself to empathize.

If the election hadn’t been so close; if Ms. Clinton hadn’t won the popular vote; if more of the complacent WTF democrats had voted; If Bernie and the 3^rd party hadn’t fractured the percentages; if there had been a man running against Trump… But the fact is, as much as I loathe to admit it, it looks as if he won fairly under our current laws. Can we just turn around and demand a do-over? I wish we could, but I don’t think so.

Before I get swept up in a self-righteous hissy fit because my side, the right side, lost, I need to know better what I really think: about the election, about the results, about the outcome; about the validity of protesting; about the far-reaching results of rioting. If we did turn this election around through protest, it would open the gate to an all-out civil war, and they have more guns than we do.

I’m leaning toward skipping the protest rallies unless they are well-organized, widespread, and represent a specific cause. I would most certainly back impeachment. I’m not going to unfriend anyone for their political views unless they become obnoxious. I know we all feel strongly about recent events, but I would plead that people think before they post and consider cleaning up their language a bit. Strong women, even nasty women, can get their point across without a string of swears.

There are sides, even within the anti-Trump faction: evolution vs. revolution. Some say, wait and see what happens. Others condemn those folks, citing apathy allowed Hitler’s rise. Trump is not Hitler; Hitler had a power agenda where Trump seeks only fame, fortune, and self-aggrandizement. Still, an ignorant snake is as dangerous as a smart one. We stand to lose more than we can fathom here, which makes it even more important to think through our next move.

I still haven’t seen anything I can do besides be kind, strong, and alert. Meanwhile I will follow some good advice given to me by a hospice nurse when my mother was dying:

Pick your battles; Save your strength. The hardest times are yet to come.