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I don’t remember a presidential election in my lifetime that has resulted in such an open demonstration of everything our country isn’t supposed to represent.

The most radical of both parties are rising up and I don’t think they represent the majority of their respective parties.

Anti-Trump protesters are burning Trump in effigy. Trump supporters are openly spouting racist remarks. Rich entertainers talking of moving to Canada. The KKK reveling in the result, believing they have a secret ally in Trump.

Some losers are believing the anti-Christ has taken office and some winners think their Savior has arrived. The majority of us who didn’t like either and voted on our belief of the, “lessor of two evils” theory aren’t so completely devastated that we need to demonstrate in the streets.

What bothers me most is that school children seem to be taking their lead from adults who are acting on the same mental level as… well, school children. Reports are not only being made locally of kids harassing African Americans, Latinos, and Muslims, but it is happening nationally, as well. These kids are at an age where their little minds are forming a personality and beliefs that will carry forward into adulthood.

I don’t believe for a minute that if Clinton had won the Trump supporters wouldn’t be protesting. Their cries of a “rigged election” would be their call to action. As it turned out, our Democracy isn’t rigged. At least we don’t have to listen to that BS claim any longer.

Voting elects our leaders and though Trump didn’t win the popular vote, the electoral college is in place to ensure that it isn’t only high population states who control elections. Without an electoral college, candidates would ignore concerns of rural America.

Much to our surprise and undoubtedly to Trump himself, he actually won the election. He is to be our 45th president and it’s a job I don’t think he really wanted. It would have been far more advantageous for him to have lost, kept his following to put pressure on politicians to better his bottom line, and claim he would have done better as President.

Now he has to prove it and most of his pandering promises will never happen, though some could be partially accomplished.

Building a wall and Mexico paying for it? Not reality, but seized drug money and assets being used to beef up border security could be.

Mass deportation of the 11 million undocumented? If deportation enforcement squads would actually appear in neighborhoods and schools too many sane Americans wouldn’t accept visions of 1930’s Germany rounding up people, or our own history of Japanese-Americans being removed from their homes. Tightening future immigration rules can happen, as well as changing citizenship acceptance – such as women crossing the border to bear children on U.S. soil (making that child an automatic citizen), could come to an end.

Cutting taxes 35%? Forget about it. He would have to gut the military, which he would need if he wants to keep that promise of destroying ISIS. He would have to eliminate Federal money to states. He would have to gut social assistance programs, education, farmer subsidies, and almost everything else in the federal budget. People don’t realize how the federal budget ties into their own jobs, income, and expenses. They believe that nothing would change, other than they would be paying less taxes. It’s naïve and even George H. Bush realized that his promise of “No new taxes” wasn’t possible, let alone a cut.

I’ve been watching Trump closely in his recent appearances broadcast on television and I’m sure that his new demeanor has surprised those radicals in his following that expected him to enter the White House with his usual burning rhetoric. He was subdued and appeared to be a deer caught in the headlights of the weight of the Presidency.

Democracy allows for protests, but to protest the results of an election is asinine. I didn’t vote for him, but I accept him as my next President. I’ll protest any decisions he might make, that I disagree with, by voting in the next election and through my written words, but the man hasn’t even taken office yet.

President-elect Trump is about to learn that campaigning is a whole lot easier than actually governing. He has no political or military experience and though most of us hate politicians, we worry when a blind man is driving a car.

He will have to make amends with many in Congress. Some believe that it is they who have to apologize to him and Paul Ryan appeared to do just that, but in actuality it is he who needs them if he wants to get anything done and Ryan probably made that clear in private.

What people need to watch closely is who he surrounds himself with and so far, it appears that his “drain the swamp” promise will be his first broken one. He is drawing from a pool of members of a lobbyist swamp to be his advisors and on his cabinet. Because of Trump’s inexperience, one of them may actually maneuver to promote their own agenda and control the Presidency, much the way Dick Cheney succeeded with George W. Bush.

Leaders in his transition include former Rep. Mike Rogers, former Reagan Attorney General and Heritage Foundation fellow Edwin Meese, former President of Heritage Edwin Feulner, former Bush administration official and lobbyist Christine Ciccone, former Dick Cheney adviser Ado Machida, former Senate Budget Committee staffer Eric Ueland and former Sen. Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff Rick Dearborn.

The effort is chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Trump counts former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Sessions as close advisers. I take no comfort in knowing that.

Perhaps The Donald will be another Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson pandered to the southern racists and bigots, but did so only to further his political aspirations. He ultimately did more to advance civil rights than John F. Kennedy had planned to accomplish. With some hope in my heart, maybe Trump isn’t as far right in his ideology as the far right believes.

I have a “wait and see” attitude at the moment. Trump will be sworn into office in January. I will do what everyone should be doing until there is a need to do otherwise. I will STFU about President-elect Trump and hope he proves himself to be a different human being than he presented himself to be, during his campaign.

UPDATE 11/11

I won’t be making continuous updates, because there will likely be many more changes occurring, but this one happened so quickly I had to note it. Trump has already rethought his position of having New Jersey Governor Chris Christie lead his transition team. Only hours after publishing this piece, Gov. Christie, under fire for new revelations in the Bridgegate scandal, has been replaced with Vice-President Elect Pence.