Barack Obama
Original image found at whitehouse.gov

16 years ago, I had a hard time accepting George W. Bush as our country’s president. Many failed policies, two major wars and a huge deficit later, we all got through it. Barely.

8 years ago, I shed tears of joy as we started on the road to recovery with Barack Obama at the helm. Lots of progress was made, at least in the opinion of this supporter.

Today, I am shedding tears. Not of fear. Not of disgust or anger. But tears of gratefulness to Obama and the many things he did right to put this country in a solid and mostly stable place.

I criticized him for the several dozen or so things I didn’t approve of and things he left unfinished. The key word there is criticized. I have a saying that I’ve uttered many times over the last 35 years I’ve been a voting US citizen:

  • If you want them to do better, it’s called criticizing.
  • If you want them to fail, it’s called hatred.

Those who hated and despised Obama during his entire 8 years in office, wanted him to fail. They wanted this country to fail. They never once had a positive thing to say about him. Some were racist, as if they were dragging their feet through the decades of civil rights progress the rest of the country ushered in. Some are just die hard conservatives that only support those from their own party. I also know a good number of Democrats and liberals that are like that. I am not one of them.

I wanted success. I wanted change. I wanted hope. I felt we got a lot of that. I felt Obama got a lot of that right in 8 years. And he did a lot of it with dignity and being professional.

Goodbye 44

obama family
Original image found at New York Daily News

I am unapologetic when I say I’m going to miss this President. He was a force for not only what things got better during his time in office. He was an example to many. He escaped any family crisis. He was the moral president that the right never recognized or gave credit to.

I thank him for his service to this country. And I will always be grateful for the things he did to help move this country forward into a progressive age of love, equality and humanity.

Incoming 45

trumps obamas
Original image found at people.com

I’ve never hated any past presidents. To most that know me, I’m no fan of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and George W Bush. I also had some serious issues with Bill Clinton, mostly for how he treated the office of President during the blow job year.

I never wanted them to fail. I wanted them to do better. There was a time after 9/11 that I supported Bush as we rallied together as a country after that day of devastation.

Come March 2003, I lost any bit of support and respect I had for that man. I wanted him out of office. Sadly, the election of 2004 didn’t change that.

We now find ourselves – not with another progressive President – but with one that treated the election cycle as a long episode of Celebrity Apprentice. His treatment of the disabled was a deal breaker, at least for me it was [obviously 60 million people were ok with that incident]. The revealing of how he has treated women, now known by the famous “grab their pussies” phrase. Granted, that tape was from 2005, but we saw and heard many layers of disregard on the campaign trail to let us know a leopard doesn’t easily change their spots.

Yes, amongst all of the negative, there was the few and far between stories of helping others and donating his money to various causes. Nothing any wealthy person doesn’t do, mostly to reduce the amount of taxes owned.

But wiping out those snippets of goodwill and kindness were details involving almost 20 years of tax avoidance, encouraging violence of non-Trump supporters at his rallies and the hundreds of Tweets that ignored facts and ethics.

Unfortunately, this man – Donald Trump – is now our President. And even those of us that never supported him, have to admit that and find some way to accept and live with that reality.

The best way to do this is to hold his feet to the fire. Not in a way to turn him orange… that’s already done. Nope, in that he and the group of shallow people that will most likely be part of his cabinet, will not be easy for them to get away with anything they want to.

Phone calls, emails, going door-to-door… whatever it takes, we must find all of the non-violent ways of keeping this country together, without it being sold to the highest bidder acre by acre, in some cases.

We’ve come too far in the last 8 years to watch progress get washed away in the flood of greed and power.

Humanity Before Greed

I tweeted the following 3 days ago and I think it’s a reminder to everyone who doesn’t support Trump:

We can make it through what I hope is only 4 years of Trump’s America. Keeping our heads up and keeping an eye on everything he and his group try to enshrine as law will be our most sane option.