Trumped

Wednesday, November 9, was a strange day indeed, in a "through the looking glass way."  Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States of America.

I don't think anyone saw it coming.  The pollsters were wrong.  Republicans were wrong.  Democrats were wrong.  I was wrong.  Whether you were for Hillary Clinton or not, her ascendancy to the presidency seemed inevitable throughout the campaign.  Well, it wasn't.    

The mood, at least in my neighborhood in the Belmont-12South area of Nashville and among my friends, was drastically different that it was eight years ago after Barack Obama was elected president.  Then, there was a feeling of hope and pride, I think, that America had elected its first African American president.  Change was afoot. Anything was possible.  A new day had dawned.  

Wednesday morning, I ran into our next door neighbor as she pulled out of her driveway to talk her daughter to school.  She rolled down her window, looked up an me and sighed.  "Weird morning," she said.  She looked like she might be about to cry.  It was a weird morning, for sure.

I talked to the husband on a close friend.  His wife was devastated, in large part because she believed that in her lifetime, she would never see a woman elected president.

There are so many sides to this presidential election.  So much to read.  So much to learn.  So much to understand.

As I told J.P. when I drove him to school Wednesday morning, we're Americans first, Republicans and Democrats second.  I hope people remember that in the coming days.