Monitor and Adjust, Feel Your Feelings, and Find a Way Forward

No matter which side of the election results you are on, you may be more present in your own life today than you have been in a long time. Right now, many are feeling their feelings, running the gamut from anger to elation, hope to fear, and everything in between.

Yesterday, a very wise and classy colleague of mine said to me very diplomatically, "What can we do but monitor and adjust, right?"

"I will," I responded. "Eventually. But today, I am feeling my feelings. I am not there yet."

This morning, I woke up again wondering, Is this real? Then I saw a segment on the Portland, Oregon protests that turned to riots. I was in Portland only a week ago. I cried. I am still crying. My god, what have we done?

As angry as I feel, I will never choose violence as a mean to protest. It only weakens the people we are; the person I am.  It weakens the message of "Love Trumps Hate." It weakens us as a nation.

I am not in any way suggesting that we beg the president elect's pardon. He does not get a pass on admittedly committing sexual assault and spewing racist, misogynist, hate-filled speech because 18.7% of the country (59,937, 338 out of 318.9 million citizens) turned out to vote for him. He needs to take responsibility for inciting this level of anger, though I am not holding my breath. I have yet to see this man take responsible for anything except winning.

Trump supporters are responding too. And while I have not independently verified with my own eyes acts of violence against "others," it's happening.

But Trump isn't the only person I'm upset with. I'm upset with the 50% of US citizens who didn't bother to vote. WTF? We call ourselves a civilized nation, a world power, a leader of leaders and yet, half of our citizens didn't even vote. While felony disenfranchisement explains what happened to 6.1 million of those unaccounted citizen votes, it sure as hell ain't everyone.

Another thing I'm upset with is the electoral college. This is the second election in 16 years (Bush v. Gore) where a president won the popular vote but did not win the election.

The purpose of the electoral college—created by our founding fathers—is to provide a buffer between the people and Congress to ensure that all people are represented regardless of their state's size. But in truth, this undermines the ideal of one citizen, one vote. When this happens, your vote doesn't matter. Democrats need to drop "your vote matters" as a talking point because it's simply not true.

Some say the electoral college is what makes the United States a republic—not a pure democracy—and therefore more stable; however, I will contend, that in a federal election, your state of residence—in an age where people are as mobile as running water—has zero bearing on the person you elect to lead this nation. Congressional reps, sure. State laws, yes. But presidents? No. No one, not even Donald Trump or Sarah Palin, has argued that your state of residence guides your inner voter voice. Voters are guided by issues, passions, and unfortunately fears.

But, the electoral college does determine where politicians pander which is exactly why they tell you that it can't be eliminated. If we didn't have the electoral college, they would have to be a nominee for all the people, in all places. They wouldn't know how to wrap their heads around that. They wouldn't know where to spend their money. They wouldn't know which talking points to use where. And why should any one state matter more than another? How many times did we hear this election cycle, Who would have thought our state (fill in the blank) actually matters this year?

If we are to be a country that values its people, its diversity, and its humanity, then the electoral college needs to be eliminated. This is one thing I can agree with DJT on. In 2012, the president elect described the electoral college as a "disaster" (like he describes everything else). The electoral college is the very definition of a rigged system in today's world.

While there are 10,000 other things I could talk about today, these are the three things that stick out in my mind as things we need to fix before 2020. We need to mobilize and get this stuff done ... along with those 10,000 other things.

Federal mandate for motor voter registration 
Eliminating felony disenfranchisement laws
Eliminating the electoral college

P.S. Mr. President ... I know you are busy and have a zillion and one things to do ... but if you could squeeze out a few more executive orders before you go ...