Moving Forward
For the past 8 years my values and the values of the leadership of this country have aligned almost perfectly. As of January of next year, when Donald Trump becomes president, that will no longer be true.
In a country the size of America this is bound to happen. But honestly, sitting here 10 minutes before the markets open on the Wednesday morning after the election, with the expectation that a big chunk of my retirement money is about to disappear down a toilet flush of international distrust and despair, it feels as if someone I loved and trusted has just died.
But they haven’t. All that’s happened is that my identification with the country I love has been torn from me. I feel like a stranger in a country that could elect Donald Trump to represent us at the highest level.
When I look inside myself, my values have not changed. The values of my friends and political compatriots have not changed. I, and anyone else who is having these feelings, will just have to move forward from this moment not able to point to our country’s leader and say that he represents me or my values, or anything about me. We will, once again, have to stand apart and fight our way back in. What had crept into my soul the past 8 years was pride and, dare I say, patriotism, and that felt very good. I won’t have those feelings for the next 4 years, at least not the way I’ve carried them throughout the Obama presidency. But we will win it back – the same institutions that survived Reagan and George Bush will survive Donald Trump. The pendulum swings both ways and the pent-up racism, misogyny and anger that Trump has decided to make his platform will have its day and will end.
