So you didn't vote for Trump 

I get it, you didn't vote for Trump. You're never going to support him no matter what he does. In fact, you’re not even going to accept him as your president. You despise him. You detest him. Instead you’re going to act, organize (i.e., Women’s March on Washington), do all that you can to prevent him from achieving any degree of success. And if he achieves even a modicum of anything, you’ll disparage it. You’re going to do all that you can to make sure he’s but a one-term president. Do I have that right?

Disappointing to me as that may be, I really don’t care. For it’s your doing, your representatives, and President Obama’s behavior and failures that’s put you in this spot. When President Obama was elected you had control of the Senate and the House of Representatives. In fact, you had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. In the past eight years you’ve lost control of the House to a degree not seen in almost 100 years. In the Senate, you went from a 10 seat advantage to a two seat deficit. The majority of states now have a Republican governor and Republican majorities in their legislatures. Face it, you have virtually no power.

We know you think George Bush was a lightweight at best, incompetent at worst, and President Obama is brilliant, a thinker the likes of which has not been seen in generations. Now you’re faced with this inarticulate, unprepared, pompous billionaire (and maybe not that rich since he won’t release his tax returns) who’s going to ruin all the progress made in the last eight years. You’re not interested in self-analysis. You’re not interested in why this happened. You’re just going to do all that you can to let everyone know you’re not happy. You’ll whine, you’ll pout, you’ll carry signs, and you’ll push back against any reason presented to you. You just don’t care. Am I still on track?

So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to move forward like adults, like what your parents should have done when you misbehaved as a child, and make America great again. Yes, America was great when it projected American strength, American values, and the American dream to a world desirous of security, freedom, and prosperity. We were a beacon of possibility and hope. Yes, we had problems and issues, but we identified them and made progress (hate to use that word) in addressing and solving them. And we have problems and issues today; we will always have issues and problems to deal with and, hopefully, we’ll have wise men and women to solve them.

Obamacare (a failed health insurance system) will be repealed and replaced with a more market-based system focused on choice and strengthening the doctor/patient relationship. The wall between the U.S. and Mexico will be built, and Mexico will pay for it. Believe me! Income taxes will go down for corporations, small businesses, and workers. Lawlessness by government entities such as sanctuary cities, political targeting by the IRS, private servers storing confidential information, etc., will end. Law and order will prevail. Any policies that negatively impact job growth, like excessive banking regulations or EPA rules and the like will be repealed or weakened to open up the economy so business can return to running on all eight cylinders.

Yes, we know you’re going to fight us, but we also know you have no power. You’ve put yourself in this position while we were working the last eight years to take it back. You thought we’d fail, but we did not. Now we have the power, and we’re not going to waste any time making the most of it. And we’re not going to try to get along because we know you don’t want to get along with us. So for those women marching through town and their supporters, may I suggest tacking further to the left behind the ideas of Bernie Sanders and the promise of Elisabeth Warren as future president … throw in Kamala Harris as VP and you’ll have an all-women dream team. A team I’ll look forward to watching lose, big time, in 2020.

Gary Wechter is a retired businessman living in Arroyo Grande. He can be reached at [email protected].

-- Gary Wechter - Arroyo Grande