I heard you loud and clear. People of a darker hue are not wanted or welcomed in the USA (United States of Anti- Color). Ironically, the first step in the journey to make America great (again?) is the first step on the road to ruin. We won the cold war only to put a Russian in the White House. We elected as our leader a man who gleefully divided the country into “them vs us” camps, and for what? An ephemeral promise of greater economic prosperity in a time of prosperity. We abdicated America’s position as a beacon for countries that aspire to the highest levels of tolerance and fairness to become the new poster child for intolerance and bigotry, misogyny and sexism. We rebelled against elitism by consenting to be ruled by an elite in fact, outlook and temperament. At a time when reasoning and intelligence is needed most our choice for the person to represent our nation is a man too dumb to be an idiot surrounded by conspiracy junkies, white supremacists and on-demand fanatics. We could not have chosen a less fit candidate for the office. Tuesday we set our feet firmly on the path to fascism.

To paraphrase Gandalf, why did so many of my countrymen abandon reason for madness? I am not sure what hurts most.

• The fact that so many of my countrymen giving a chance to stand for unity opted instead for division.

• That the young people on whom I had penned so much of my hope for a better tomorrow proved no better than the worse of their elders.

• That the cornerstone of our democracy and the ideals that made America exceptional that I have believed in all my life were so easily and so thoroughly discarded.

• That the “liberal” media proved not so liberal after all and thoughtful members of the “conservative” media kept their thoughts to themselves.

• The fact that white friends that I have known for decades cannot seem to connect the dots. “This isn’t about hating others but an expression of national angst that will run its course in 4 years”, they say. Their collective view is that Trump’s election is painful like when your alma mater loses to its arch rival but no more life altering.

• The Republican Party that could do no better than Trump and the Democratic Party that should have done better than Clinton.

• The naivety or rank opportunism of the people of color who supported Trump. I liken the first to the handful of Jews who supported National Socialism and the second to elevated slaves who gladly put their foot on the necks of other slaves with the fervent hope that it will keep the master’s foot off of theirs.

• The people of color too lazy or too apathetic to vote and those who threw their vote away by writing in a protest candidate.

• The people who couldn’t vote for Trump but didn’t vote for Clinton. They stayed home or wrote in a candidate. As if life is not about making difficult choices.   Their vote for one or the other would have given us a truer measure of the situation. You never know what a coward in battle will do: turn and run, strike down his comrade or charge the enemy. Let’s hope they charge the enemy in 2018.

• The Religious Right who abandoned their religion to do wrong. Jesus did not condone hatred and bigotry nor would he have been party to any strategy to achieve good that was not good in and of its self. To the contrary. Indeed, you can tell the tree by the fruit it bears.