I've had enough!

I've had enough!

I am tired of being served defeatism for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One month of that diet is enough.

I am being barraged by the most cynically intense disapprobation of every action of our president elect. Yes, I greeted the mind numbing news of his election with uncontrollable tears. Yes, I am still grappling with the complexity of the issues that allowed a country—my country—to elect a comic book ogre to the highest position in our land.

But now instead of reading news I believe I am observing a chilling exposé about the future of news coverage. An existential debate over the very word news itself. This feels like less of a story about the election of Trump than about the death spiral of responsible media. We need to stop letting it drag our emotions and beliefs down the drain with them.

Now—when it's too late for responsible coverage of the election—now they are playing Chicken Little, forecasting the sky falling in on our heads. Fuck that. We have four years to get through. A combination of optimism and pessimism is required here. This moment requires the aspiration to believe that America will survive and prosper. This moment requires our undivided focus on that effort.

The people who voted for Trump want a better future. So does everyone who didn't. And while we may not agree on the means, I suspect we would all recognize the goal were it to materialize.

The majority of the people in this country are not radical in either direction. But we are all terribly frustrated. Our congress needs to figure out how to serve that majority. Surely today more than ever is a time for the middle to coalesce—for the rational Republican and Democrat leadership to align in a powerful and unique opportunity. A fear of lunatics in power can hopefully do what nothing else could've accomplished.

Let's stop wasting valuable time. We need to plan, coordinate, and discuss our future. To create partnerships and coalitions. To reach across the aisle and find common ground. Congress allowed itself to be gridlocked for most of the last presidency. Here is an opportunity to move forward in a different manner. Democrats can show that tit-for-tat is not the way to govern our country; not a way to be great; not a way to lead. 

Dealing only in negatives is a position of weakness. It's just ranting while fleeing the field of combat. We are too good for that. Dealing from positive choices is the way to move forward—and the positive choice is to focus on what is important to us and how we galvanize the support to articulate and realize that vision. One issue at a time. Pick the one you care most about. Make a difference.

Spending—no—wasting precious energy on crap like guessing future actions of various cabinet appointees rather than helping to steer those actions is a self-defeating, frustrating and debilitating waste of time. If we continue listening to the press we will soon have a depressed nation all on Prozac.

"The magazine Trump doesn't want you to read! Subscribe to Vanity Fair."

Now there is an advertisement to make you stop and think. It was the line that finally made me say: Bullshit. Enough.

Let's move forward by concentrating on what we want, not who we hate.