One essential quality of Americans, and one primary reason I admire Americans and am proud to be an American, is that as a culture we’ve never cleaved to a defeatist groupthink and we’ve never allowed ourselves to define our future in predestined terms of failure. It is part of what it means to be American. This is why I’m both befuddled and disappointed with all the rhetorical doomsaying already convinced that PEOTUS Trump WILL fuck up, he WILL destroy international relations, he WILL “Make America Sick Again”, he WILL help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, he WILL nuke the unborn gay whales, he WILL be forced to leave office… and all of this is decided about an individual who is not a career politician and we have no history or indicators of his policies beyond the hollow, blustery campaign promises all political candidates blow up our collective skirt to win an election.

This is un-American. I didn’t vote for Trump, I didn’t vote for Hillary, I didn’t vote for Romney, I didn’t vote for Obama, I didn’t vote for McCain. To me, all these candidates suck hard. Still, as an American, I went into the last eight years with the attitude “Let’s see what he can do.” Do I feel Obama messed up some stuff and made other stuff great? Yes. And as an American, I’m going to watch what Trump does, and the advisors he gets, and if he’ll listen to their advice, and weigh the worthiness of his decisions and choices as he makes them and as we learn of the efficacy of his decisions and choices as they play out.

I’m NOT going to buy into the “Let’s prepare to fix what he breaks” effigy-burning because I’m an American and that’s not what I’m about and that’s not what our culture is about. It is befuddling and disappointing, this defeatist climate. Let the PEOTUS take office, and then judge him based upon what decisions he makes, what choices he makes, and what the value of his accomplishments are. That’s what it means to be American.