Almost immediately after Election Day 2016, a movement representing itself with the slogan “Not My President” sprang up and spread cross the county. While it was a subset of the overall “Resistance” efforts against now-President Donald Trump, it based itself on the shocking sentiment that somehow Trump was not, as the phrase so simply puts its, legitimately their president.
The “Not My President” movement has survived and grown since then, holding frequent and regular protests across the country as well as at major events such as the Inauguration, denouncing and emphasizing again how they believe President Trump is somehow different from all the presidents that have gone before. Their influence is already being felt, as a March University of Chicago poll showed 57 percent of young people believe Trump is an illegitimate president.
However, the fact is that President Trump won on November 8th and is the 45th president of the United States and of all Americans, no matter who we voted for, our approval of him, or our political beliefs. We didn’t even have to go through a Supreme Court case or a tense recount, despite Jill Stein’s haphazard efforts last year, like we did in 2000.
The “Not My President” movement nonetheless continues with the outrageous and dangerous notion that President Trump is somehow less than a legitimately-sanctioned president. Not only is this sentiment extraordinarily disrespectful to the leader of our nation, it sets a dangerous political precedent that all Americans should be hesitant to encourage.
Even in the last month of the election Hillary Clinton repeatedly emphasized how we as Americans have to accept the results of the election and respect the peaceful transfer of power, despite what a tense election it had been. Of course at the time this was when multiple outlets were predicting that Clinton had a 95%+ chance of winning.
However, Clinton and many other Democrats, did laudably attempt to bring together this nation after the divisive election. Clinton, President Obama, and many other Democrats attended President Trump’s Inauguration and emphasized that, while they were unhappy with the result and would continue to resist the president, they accepted his legitimacy.
Some on the left did not choose a message of unity. Dozens of Democratic Congresspersons boycotted the Inauguration. Some tried to nonsensically delay the Electoral College proceedings or even challenge Congress’s vote-certification of the Electoral votes. Many others on the left openly refused to “normalize” and accept Trump.
Since the Inauguration some Democrats have continued to try to delegitimize the president in unusual and disappointing ways. The exact nature of the connections between the president’s campaign and Russia continue to remain uncertain. But it is at least well-settled that the election results were accurate and that the American people indeed chose Donald Trump as president under the system we have in place and despite significant knowledge of Russia’s interference.
Therefore when Democrats such as Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) go out and say, months after the Inauguration, that “[w]e may have an illegitimate President of the United States currently occupying the White House,” they show that they are willing to put scoring political points and whipping up voters’ feelings above our country’s traditions and constitutional structure.
As Trump’s presidency moves forward, the “Not My President” movement needs to take a hard look at itself and ask itself if it really believes its efforts will amount to anything positive and, if they think it will, is it worth the damage to our country’s historically unique and cherished political norms.
President Trump is undoubtedly controversial. He will likely never win over large blocs of this country. However he is still the president of our entire country. All of us should give him a chance, and even if some on the left can’t find it in their hearts to do that, at the very least accept that he is indeed the president – mine, yours, and of all ours.
Erich Reimer is a Republican Party Millenial activist and commentator. His website can be found at www.erichreimer.com and he can be reached at [email protected].
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