After Trump’s election I had cause to stroll through the 14th street subway station and saw a peculiar manifestation of the mood here in the in the Metropolis. There was a desk with pens, markers and post-it notes sitting in the long hallway there. Thousands of people had stopped and written messages on the wall, affixing tiny squares of paper all over. And while there were too many messages to here relate one did strike me, and it is one I have heard many times since. Not My President.

I know what was meant. We all have a line, something beyond which we cannot stomach going. And for many people, especially around here, that line became personified in the form of Donald Trump. But the problem is that he is now, sadly, everybody’s President. That is how the system works. He was duly and fairly elected to be Commander in Chief of the entire American state, not just of those who voted for him.

But there is also a pervasive opinion going around, particularly on the Right, that those who opposed him and who feel the deep-seated revulsion towards him that I and others feel must now try and find common ground with this moral and intellectual weakling. As if we should forget who he is, what he has done and said and simply rally around this guy because he won the election.  That is not the case, and is in fact the exact opposite of what patriotic duty ought to lead you to do. If I could prevail upon your indulgence for a moment, there is a quote from Theodore Roosevelt that has been whirling around in my head over the weekend:

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

People must accept Donald Trump’s election has happened. They must also accept that he will now be the leader of the United States. But these realities in no sense require the abandonment of cherished beliefs, or demand  loyalty to someone who has shown himself so very unworthy of it. The President should not be supported simply because he occupies that office. We should hope for his foolish and stupid projects to fail, just as we  wish for any laudable aims he might have or develop to succeed.

Elections are not the end of the constant, messy combat that is Democracy. They are just another battle in the war. They don’t nullify what came before, nor should they. To insist that the other side just surrender after a loss is infantile and naive.

Yes, elections have consequences. The consequence of this one is the Trump Presidency. He will be everybody’s President, as each President is, with all the authority and power that entails. But that dosn’t mean you have to like it. And it certainly doesn’t mean you have to agree with him. In fact it makes dissent more important than ever.