Teenage Thief. President Elect.

Ladies and gentlemen, the President Elect of The United States.

My wife is increasingly troubled by the election of Bozo the President. I’ve been outraged and surprised too but am moving from disappointment into embarrassment, hoping to progress to action. What action so far elude me.

Michelle Obama says, “when they go low, we go high.” I don’t know how to do that. It wasn’t enough to save us from our electoral disaster. I believe in the concept, but what do I actually do?

Yesterday my daughter figured out that she didn’t lose her earbuds at school, they were stolen. She knows who did it and approached the thief, gently accusing her of the theft. The girl denied it, but my girl knows her headphones and knows a thief.

This had me thinking of Robert Leonard’s New York Times piece, Why Rural America Voted For Trump in which Baptist minister J. C. Watts says:

“The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good,” said Mr. Watts,.... “We are born bad,” he said and added that children did not need to be taught to behave badly — they are born knowing how to do that.

“We teach them how to be good,” he said. “We become good by being reborn — born again.”

He continued: “Democrats believe that we are born good, that we create God, not that he created us. If we are our own God, as the Democrats say, then we need to look at something else to blame when things go wrong — not us.”

I’m a liberal democrat and progressive. Under Watts theory, I explain away the theft, attributing it to poverty and the effects of slavery and discrimination. But I disagree that this precludes me from blaming the thief and wanting to teach her a lesson. Watts’ would have her be born again, but Republicans would have her be punished until I feel better. I do want to feel better but doubt any punishment would make that happen.

I didn’t vote for Trump because he can’t keep my daughter safe, no matter what he claims. He can’t build a wall, expel all the bad people, or make anything great again because he refuses to acknowledge nuance. I could go into my daughter’s class, rip the headphones out of that girl’s ears, say thou shall not steal and maybe slap her a couple times, but it won’t make anything better and will make many things worse. That girl will continue to go low.

I don’t know how to go high yet, but I’m raising a good girl and maybe that’s what it’s all about. My girl knows lowness but continues to go high. I gave her my earbuds, told her to paint them and keep an eye on them.

As for the clown headed to the White House, I have only this to tell my wife: my anxiety has leveled off and I’m moving toward action. I’m embarrassed by him and those he follow him, but there is work we can do even if it’s just raising our daughters. That’s how the world is reborn.