It’s understandable. People want to vent.
To say that not everybody is happy or even okay with the presidential election Tuesday would be so much more than the understatement of the year. Everybody is so not okay.
Thousands of people from Portland to New York City marched to 
protest the election results, chanting “Fuck Donald Trump” and “Love trumps hate” in the same ironic breath. Even in London, there was a protest at the U.S. embassy. There was a candlelight vigil at the White House Wednesday. The hashtag #notmypresident is trending. People are unfriending longtime pals on Facebook, shutting down highways and burning flags and trash in the streets of Oakland and Chicago.
Burning flags and trash in the streets! Like if this was Venezuela or something!
It wasn’t so long ago that President-elect Donald Trump was criticized, by some of these very same people, for intimating that he might not accept the election results. And now Hillary Clinton supporters are the ones calling for 
… what is that they want, exactly? For the election not to count?
Do we still live in a democracy? I may not agree with the presidential choice of “the people have spoken,” but I will die to defend him. Seriously, people. Don’t make me die for this idiot clown.
It is not easy to sit here and defend The Donald. Ladra does not like him. I did not vote for him. Of course, I didn’t vote for her either. Until the two major parties in this country provide me with better options, I’ll vote Libertarian or not at all. But I knew full well it was a protest vote and that Gary Johnson was not going to win. And I was ready to accept whoever did.
And I’m not about to unfriend my mom because she voted for Trump or unleash a obscenity-laced verbal attack on my sister via twitter because she voted for Hillary.
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Because we still live in a democracy, right? We are supposed to defend their right to vote for whoever they damn well please. Write in Fidel Castro if you want to. Write in David Dukes. You’d be stupid, but whatever. It’s your vote. It’s your right. And that is one of the main reasons my parents came to this country — so they and we could openly support whoever we want, so that we could celebrate elections without the riots and street fires and state brutality that permeates the process in so many other countries.
We also have a right to protest peacefully, as some Hillary supporters are planning 
to do at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Bayfront Park. But I have to wonder what that accomplishes? What exactly are the demonstrators’ demands?
The word impeach has been used, although I am not sure you can impeach someone who isn’t even president yet and I don’t know what “high crimes” would be cited. At the very least, the call for impeachment is premature. Protesters should wait until after Trump is tried for conning those poor university students. They don’t have to wait long. The trial is scheduled for later this month.
Some have suggested we throw out the electoral votes and go by the popular vote, which Hillary won by 233,400 votes — which, frankly, is really not something to be so proud of. Shouldn’t it have been considerably more? And that’s not the way it works, by the way. We have a democratic process that calls for electoral votes. Otherwise the people in California, New York, Texas and Florida would always pick the POTUS. Why would people vote in any other state? Why would any presidential candidate ever campaign a single day in Vermont for 270,000 votes? More people voted in Miami-Dade County.
“We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college.” said Ethan Miller of Jobs with Justice, an organization that defends workers rights to unionize and one of the groups that organized the D.C. vigil.
“But we’re not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country.”
What exactly are we afraid that he might do?
Palmetto High students in Pinecrest walked out of class Thursday just after noon — in the middle of fifth period — to 
chant “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.” And while I have to applaud these teenagers’ engagement, do they know what they are chanting? Or is this just an excuse to get out of algebra? As far as I can remember, Trump denounced the KKK leader’s endorsement. Did Hillary denounce Fidel Castro’s blessing?
It doesn’t help that many of the protesters seem to have agendas of their own. Whether its Black Lives Matter or Occupy Democrats, equal marriage activists or just plain and proud communists, it’s hard to believe many are really protesting the election results as much as they are protesting the impact on their particular issue.
Man up, people! Get over it! That’s the price of living in a free democracy.
Read related story: ‘Latino-loving’ GOP silent on Trump insults
Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe that Trump has acted like a racist, misogynist, homophopic, xenophobic pig, a pervert and a conman and a tyrant-in-the-making with zero public service experience or even respect for public service, little knowledge of world affairs and a fifth grader’s vocabulary. I do believe there should be some concern that someone with Trump’s temperament and judgement just became the leader of the free world, which comes with a red nuclear “go” button and control of the Supreme Court bench.
I also believe the racists who supported Donald Trump — and while my mom has her own reasons and is not racist 
there are definitely racists among his core base — have been emboldened and could feel empowered. Gays, Muslims, blacks, Mexicans or people who just look gay, Muslim, black or Mexican have legitimate reason to fear not Trump, himself, but what he may have unleashed. Just as we’ve seen protests of the election results, we’ve seen people in pick-up trucks shouting and waving confederate flags at impromptu honk-and-wave Trump rallies, yelling at people who don’t look exactly like them to go home — not knowing that home is Hillsborough County, USA.
Illegal immigrants have legitimate reason to worry that enforcement and deportation may be stepped up in a Trump administration. But, unfortunately, their lot always changes with the political winds. What they need is to get out of that storm permanently. What the people protesting Trump for Dreamers and immigrants need to be protesting is the fact that this country needs bipartisan immigration reform that is humane while it also makes us more secure. Now. Regardless of who is president. Trump is a symptom. The disease is our broken immigration system.
In fact, all these protests against the election results are misdirected. These energies should be invested, instead, toward the issues and values we hold dear, not the person chosen as our national leader by voters in a fair election.
Let’s organize to protect our rights and ourselves from the new hope found by those who hate.
Let’s work harder to elect people who do espouse our 
values and who treat women and minorities right and who don’t mock the physically challenged among us. Or, better yet, let’s run for office.
Let’s demonstrate to save the EPA or the Department of Education, both of which might disappear in a Trump presidency. Let’s protest any action he makes to limit our rights — if and when he makes them. Let’s demonstrate for or against the repeal of Obamacare, for or against a wall, for or against domestic partnership benefits in every state.
But to protest the election results is ridiculous. Because it is our own damn fault. The truth is neither candidate was perfect. And Democrats are as much to blame for the election results as Republicans. We share the responsibility for President Trump.
If you don’t want to hear it from Ladra, then listen to Hillary herself: “I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans,” she said in her concession speech Wednesday.
“I still believe in America and I always will. If you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future.”
Man up, people! Trump election protests are misdirected added by Ladra on
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Jo Manning has complained n cimplained for 25 years and NEVER ONCE HAS A CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION.
elaine, proud of you. as you not a follower of the president elect however he is our next president. if the time comes when we disagree we should not only contact him but those who represent us in congress and senate….political cortadito will go on
abrazos
Dra. isabel Gomez Bassols
A local attorney here in Miami — a Cuban-American, by the way, whose family fled Castro — yesterday characterized the peaceful protesters in Miami as “wackos” who were “disrespectful” of Veterans Day.
Last I looked, days did not belong to any one group, and calling peaceful protesters “wackos” is not to be tolerated by anyone who believes in the rights of citizens under our Constitution to peaceful assembly.
No way will any true American who believes in democracy accept this problematic individual as president or “respect the office” because less than a majority of voters put him into that office under the archaic rules of a system — the Electoral College — that simply does not work anymore. We should truly respect the office of president of the United States — the leader of the free world — and continue to protest just as the Ladies In White, in Cuba, have done. We should be no less than they in protesting gross travesties, and we need the practice, because what happened in Cuba — and in Germany and in Russia and in Turkey — I could go on! — is going to happen here.
“Ladies in White (Spanish: Damas de Blanco) is an opposition movement in Cuba founded in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents. The women protest the imprisonments by attending Mass each Sunday wearing white dresses and then silently walking through the streets dressed in white clothing. The color white is chosen to symbolize peace.” [From Wikipedia]
Jo, my dear friend and fan, I’m worried about you. Because we usually agree and while I find your outrage well placed, some of the outcome seems, well, radical.
I am not a real American because I will accept the results of the elections? Really? I don’t have to like them to accept them. And you just called my mom stupid. Do you realize there are a whole lot of normal people who voted for Trump for their own legitimate reasons. Whether it be Cuba policy or their disgust with Hillary, they are legitimate reasons. Please don’t paint everybody with the same racist brush. Because then you are doing the same thing that Trump does.
And tell your 19-year-old daughter that just because Hillary is a woman does not mean that people have to turn the other cheek to all the things that made her a terrible, just simply awful, candidate. “Oh, but she’s a woman. In THAT case.” Um, no. That would be like saying that Obama did a good job as president… for a black man. It’s not only ridiculous. It is slightly offensive and, ironically, really not politically correct. Let’s remind our daughters that the fact that she is a woman is supposed to be IRRELEVANT, not special. We want equality, not an advantage.
Last but not least, please do not compare the protesters of these legitimate election results to the Damas en Blanco. They are living in a repressive totalitarian government where their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons are serving prison sentences for what they say and what they think. They are constantly harassed, beaten and sometimes jailed themselves simply for marching on Sundays to demand their men be released. It’s TOTALLY different and it would be “wacko” to compare the two.
Speaking of protesters, like I said, I will defend their right to peacefully demonstrate. But why are they protesting the election now? Why weren’t they protesting Trump before? What we need to be doing, as I said, is organizing to protect ourselves from the things you fear may come, including any assault on the first amendment. But here is my question: If they are truly protesting his racist, sexist, xenophobic self and not the results of the election, then why weren’t these massive demonstrations mounted BEFORE the election?
But I still love ya, Ladra
“I used to be a big defender of it, and then I will tell you this: Go explain it to somebody overseas and when you no longer — the great American democracy! — and you can’t tell them it’s one person, one vote… When it’s difficult to explain your own voting system to somebody overseas, maybe you need a new one.”
–Chuck Todd, NBC News, about the Electoral College, during his network’s election night coverage Tuesday night.
Dear Elaine, agree with your article 100%.
My 19-year-old granddaughter posted this on her Facebook page this week. I copy it here. She is so right!
***
Waking up to the news and it’s a shame to say I’m not surprised. America deserves better than this. I don’t think anyone understands how hard it is for a woman to get to the position that Hillary has achieved. Women, like herself, have not battled against sexism for this long to be out-voted by a man who stands for none of those things. It makes me so sad to think so many women voted for Trump. Women should be empowering each other and yet we still live in a world where a man can be a misogynistic pig and still get to the top. Whether you like Hillary or not, she is a figurehead for women who have fought and are fighting now for equal rights. But not only to the women that Trump doesn’t support but to all the other minorities out there, I’m truly sorry that your voices will never be heard. This is an embarrassment for not only the democrats but for bystanders witnessing this all over the world. History has been made today and it seems as though we have only gone back in time. I hope when people look back on this day they think what the fuck have we done.
The Electoral College has outlived whatever use it may have once had; it needs to go. The popular vote is the valid one. I will never accept this piece of trash as my president; anyone who does is not anyone I can respect, and I have let those people know it.
My Cuban exile friends…who suffered so much under Castro, how can you ask me or any other American me to accept tRUMP and all the racism/ sexism/ bigotry for which he stands? You cannot.
In re: these organized protest marches… I did my share of marching during the misguided Vietnam War and it was an excellent way to express anger. I so don’t agree that we all have to play nice with this bigoted buffoon who will destroy our country. And destroy it, he will, you better believe it. I love my country too much to sit back and accept this farce.
Oh, a tRUMP troll said on Hardball last night that these protest marches don’t fall under freedom of speech… Do you-all understand that we will be lucky to have any freedom of speech in the coming 4 years? The stupid have spoken, and we are stuck with their freedom of speech, lucky us, but we are not going to have the same right of free expression, it seems…and it has already begun.
What stage of the 5 Stages of Grief are we at, now? Depression jumped the queue, it appears, and so did anger.
God bless America!
Sorry, Ladra, but your defense of the Electoral College with the excuse that “otherwise the people in California, New York, Texas and Florida would always pick the POTUS” is flimsy.
This archaic, 18th Century mechanism devised by our Founding Fathers is an embarrassing leftover vestige of slavery. Madison wanted to ensure that slave-owning Southerners had as much influence as the Northern states. So with the “Three Fifths Compromise,” the Fathers decided that slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person, thereby helping to guarantee Southern majorities in the elections of those times.
As much as all of us revere the Founding Fathers, they are DEAD and, for the better part of 2 centuries, have been pushing up daisies and mouldering in graves. Madison. Franklin. Jefferson. Adams. Washington. Hamilton and the rest.
WE are alive. This isn’t their country anymore. It’s OURS. OUR government, OUR elections, OUR times. This anachronistic manner of electing our leaders is an increasingly obstructive way of doing so: Twice already in 16 years has the people’s popular vote winner been denied the White House! And political scientists predict we’re in for more in the decades ahead. Shameful!
How many more “democratic” elections conducted in this way — with the popular vote winner being denied the presidency — are Democrats, are AMERICANS going to tolerate before we decide, enough is enough!, we’re going to relegate this damn College to the dust bin of history where it belongs? No other country on earth conducts an election this way! Yet while we have constantly lectured them on how to conduct democratic elections to choose THEIR leaders, we can’t even conduct one of our own using only a popular vote. What are we afraid of?
Worse, what does this impart upon our youngest voters? I fear what discouraging impact this will have on them and future generations. Many already despair that their vote doesn’t really matter. These type of Electoral College results will only validate for many of them that voting is pointless so why bother? If the popular vote winner isn’t really going to win, then what difference does voting make? In that respect, Trump was right about the system being “rigged.” Unfortunately, in this case, it’s rigged against the PEOPLE, not him.
So what else are they left but to take to the streets and protest? Hell, I hope they take to the gates of the White House by the millions on Jan. 20 and forcibly wrest control of the nation from this illegitimate leader. We’ve sat back and watched on our TVs other peoples in other countries do this when an election result was unfair and the loser tried to take office. It’s about damn time — the first time in 228 years of the presidency — that THAT happen here!
And lest anyone believe I am biased for Mrs. Clinton, I would defend Trump’s right to the office if HE had won the popular vote.
If this unfair, undemocratic way of picking our leaders can’t be scrapped fast enough for our satisfaction, then let ’em take to the streets! Are we or are we not willing to demand truly democratically-elected government that is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people”?
We repeatedly claim that we are a democratic people who hold democratic elections. Well, let’s finally have one!
Wow. And people call ME a jaded cynic.
I understand what you are saying and on some level it makes sense. But I also think that on some level, this system works. It is not perfect but it works.
You are afraid young people will think their vote doesn’t count. Well, if we go solely by popular vote, then the young people in Nebraska, Rhode Island, Wyoming or either of the Dakotas will KNOW that their vote will never count because they just simply don’t have the numbers of the bigger states.
This seems fair. It flies in the face of reason but it seems more fair than writing off people in less populated rural areas and small towns. No presidential candidate would campaign in Vermont ever again for a measly 275K votes. More people voted in Miami-Dade.
I understand the need to vent. I am not happy either. But we would have wanted the “basket of deplorables” to accept whatever outcome. We should do the same.
That said, and if you read the whole way through, I do believe that these energies and efforts should be redirected toward organizing to protect our rights and protest any real challenge to our freedom and individual liberties.
Always watchful,
Ladra
I don’t believe for a minute our friend about would be criticizing anything if the vote have gone the other way.. It seems historically this counterintuitive process has traditionally favored the conservative candidate
Having said that thank you Ladra for pointing out the obvious which seems to escape the vision of the media who warned us that the basket of deplorables would create anarchy in the streets if Trump did not accept outcome of the vote. Now they show us sympathetic B roll of “concerned voters” burning effigies in the street..
I can’t imagine the Dade County school board approving a “non school sanction activity” for conservative Trump supporters.. Instead they would be giving those little rich kids at Palmetto High lectures about our founding fathers vision of inclusion.
Our founding father by the way, would be horrified to learn that their model of democracy had create a non working class of political royalty with father’s passing the presidency to their sons and husbands to their wife.
…said the person who never read the Federalist Papers and doesn’t have a clue about the true import of the 10th Amendment. You want to feel disenfranchised? Try living in a rural state with a handful of electoral votes, fighting and scrapping to be represented in DC … or try imaging what it felt like to be a Democrat in Wisconsin. We are a Republic with 50 countries. The electoral college is genius and perhaps you should go back and read a civics book.