I Was Wrong

I dismissed it. I thought it was an impossibility. There wasn’t a piece of me that believed it would come to pass. I was wrong.

Donald Trump won the election. I didn’t think it could happen after everything that was revealed about his character. I didn’t think a person who starts wars on Twitter after one sentence of criticism could be elected into the position that receives the most criticism in the United States. I didn’t believe that someone who rejects climate science could be appointed into a position that would have the most ears when spoken about publicly. There were other things I didn’t believe, but the idea isn’t for this post to be a passive-aggressive speech on election results.

Of course I wasn’t alone in not believing those things. 59.6 million* people in the U.S. might have agreed with me. Of course, 59.4 million* people disagreed and that’s totally fine. Everyone has their reasons and I respect that. I have mixed feelings about the 200 million who didn’t show up to vote, but I suspect a few were sincere in their abstaining. The main thing is that the process was agreed upon and fair in that regard.

What is there to do now but hope? Let’s hope that he turns out to fit the “slimy politician” stereotype in that he said what needed to be said to get elected, however awful, but the reality turns out to be different.

Before I became a father, there were things that I thought I knew about parenthood, about love, about acceptance and giving, and about responsibility. There were things that I wasn’t sure I could do and ideas that I thought I couldn’t give up. The moment that I laid eyes upon my daughter after she was born sparked something inside of me and changed me forever. The sense of responsibility that comes with parenthood melted so much away that a new person emerged who was ready to take on everything.

With no malice or facetiousness, this is what I hope for Donald Trump in his stepping into the presidency. Let the stubborn feelings and pride melt away and let the responsibility emerge. Godspeed.

• Technical note for those who may be unaware about how the system works: More individual citizens actually voted for Hillary Clinton, but Donald Trump got the most representatives in the electoral college. In all likelihood, that means he will be president when the electoral college votes on December 19.