I’m very disappointed in many of my fellow Americans who, first of all, thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell that the Electoral College votes would be overturned. Secondly, that some people thought their anger and disappointment would overturn the election. Thirdly, that it was legal to threaten the electors, some even with death, to change their votes. Fourthly, that thinking that this nonsense wouldn’t backfire on them.

Number one, Donald Trump is still the president elect. Number two, your anger and disappointment can be channeled into something positive. The horse is dead already; stop beating it. Number three, please read this! You speak so much about voter rights, but you were attempting to interfere with their responsibility; an illegal act!

18 U.S. Code § 594 – Intimidation of voters

Whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote or to vote as he may choose, or of causing such other person to vote for, or not to vote for, any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, at any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing such candidate, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Fourth, Hillary Clinton actually LOST electors! She lost five of them to be exact and more than twice as many as Donald Trump. Obviously that didn’t quite work the way you or anyone else that was encouraging this thought that it would. It looks like the republicans were more united than you gave them credit for.

I get it. I understand that you have been fed a narrative for the last year and a half about how awful Donald Trump is and how our country, as we know it, will no longer exist. But let’s be clear about a few things. Our country has endured many things in its 240 year life span. If you need a refresher, read a history book for goodness sake! The idea that you thought an attempt to overturn the election would be better for the country without any regard for how that would impact our nation was incredibly selfish and self-serving, but definitely NOT patriotic or heroic!

I hope that you will begin to understand why this election happened the ways that it did and begin listening to the people you are neighbors with. That’s right, there were many people, maybe even some of your family members that voted for Trump but kept silent because they knew you just couldn’t handle the truth. Or maybe they were afraid for their safety and sanity! We should be building our communities up, not dividing them up into pie charts. We should be trying to understand why they voted the way that they did instead of blaming everyone else for their sole failure. No, it wasn’t the Russians that had a private server. It wasn’t the FBI that had DNC insiders giving them debate questions. No, it wasn’t a bunch of angry white voters that played dirty politics during the primaries. It wasn’t some mysterious hack that prevented Clinton from going to those “blue wall” states. It wasn’t Wikileaks that made her so arrogant that she didn’t think she had to talk to the people OR the press. These were her failures and her presidential campaign’s failures. I am waiting for her to next start blaming them, since she’s running out of other scapegoats. It was everyone except herself.

Moving forward what do the Democrats do? If they are sincerely interested in diagnosing what happened, they have to begin with being honest with themselves. But the mourning period needs to end. The election is over. Donald Trump will be the 45^th president of the United States. And as a citizen the one thing you should have learned is that every vote counts. Sitting out because the person you want wasn’t nominated, wasn’t the right thing to do either. Give your voice strength by exercising your right to vote in every election, not just the presidential elections. Know who is running and stop allowing yourself to be boxed into a party or group. Be true to yourself!