Let’s not kid ourselves, we are never going to be a united country after this divisive and dreadful election season, and quite frankly I don’t want to be friends with someone who supports Donald Trump’s hateful, racist, sexist, bigoted rhetoric and backward-looking politics. He wants to gut the Environmental Protection Agency, overturn Roe v. Wade and the Paris Climate accords and deny coverage to the 20 million now insured under Obamacare. All this hopeful talk of “uniting behind the president-elect” is BS. I would rather have my fingernails pulled out one by one than have a drink with a rabid Trump supporter.

I understand now that roughly half the country is unhappy with the status quo and stagnation in Washington, but do they understand that Obama was unable to pass any legislation that would have helped them, due to Republican pledge (thanks Mitch McConnell) to obstruct everything Obama tried to do? Don’t they understand that for all his words to the contrary, for Trump it’s all about the power and the glory and winning and that he doesn’t give a rat’s — about them? He has no policy in place to assist them except maybe to start up the “clean” coal plants ( isn’t that an oxymoron ?), start drilling on our pristine federal lands ( sparking wildfires and spills as is happening in Georgia) deport 11 million immigrants and build the wall.

Everything he proposes will set us back decades and more, a true American tragedy. And god forbid he should be impeached or assassinated, his vice-president, Mike Pence defunded Planned Parenthood in Illinois, believes the world was created in six days ( and wants that theory taught in public schools), wrote an op-ed article saying “smoking doesn’t kill,” and vows to send Roe v.Wade back to the “ash heap of history.” Yikes, I hope the Donald is wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Talk about rigged and manipulated, Russia has admitted to “being in touch with the Trump campaign during the election.” The New Yorker magazine cover that had Putin holding the bible for Trump’s swearing in, unfortunately, got it right.

Well, what next? We march ( DC 1/20/17), we volunteer, we donate, we sign petitions, we take to the streets like we did in the sixties — only now it’s not just our young men at stake — it’s our world, our environment, our health, our ideals and the sanity of everyone who voted for the only competent, experienced, responsible candidate, Hillary Clinton.

So enough of the handwringing. Let’s get to work.

Jaime Hamlin
Vineyard Haven