When the crying is over, it’s time to hold Trump accountable

Let me be clear. I did not vote for the President-Elect. I will not waste verbiage repeating all that has been written about why I thought he was unqualified.

{mosads}He will disappoint the people who want his most deplorable demands. He will not drain the swamp but be swallowed up by the entrenched Republican machine simply because he needs to hire a lot of people very quickly and where else can he turn. Few from the true outside will make it in. His closest public confidantes are Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie. More castoffs than outsiders.

His vice president is of the oldest Republican cast.

But I also say what is obvious. He won. If Hillary Clinton had won and his supporters had protested we (yes I voted for her) would be criticizing them. If only these protestors had been as agitated during the campaign maybe she would have gotten more than 25 percent of the electorate.

He won 25 percent as well.

Excluding the independent vote, 50 percent of the people did not vote, half the eligible population. Sadly, we got what we turned out for.

And while she may have been qualified for the job, but at some point you have to point at the candidate. She lost to the young black optimist and now she has lost to the old white negativist.

But he is here. So what do we do?

First caterwauling is going to change nothing.

So perhaps we do what we should have done a long time ago. Get reengaged. Not in the empty way of supporting the Obama anthem of hope but actually getting engaged.

Likely Planned Parenthood will be defunded. But what if people then step up and fund it directly and fight to protect women’s health with more than empty indignation. Might be a better position and free of the constant threats.

Perhaps now folks who had become anti-Washington and disenchanted will remember why it all matters again and get reengaged. Black lives matters has had the monopoly on outrage. Time for people to fight for rivers, and air and land and sea.

Obamacare is broken. Not all of it. But a few things. What happens if rather than junking, after the pontificating, Republicans instead fix it. Keep the preexisting condition clause and 26 year-old extension. That would mean taking on the insurance companies. So let’s see whether Trump pulls a repeat of his casino disappearing act or instead learns to stand and deliver. If he does the latter, great, if not, call him on it.

Trump gave voice to the ugliest tendencies of our country. Finally in the open perhaps we can forget about our safe spaces and show it for what it is.

Talk to small business owners and Obama’s misguided wage hour laws have done less to resolve employee mistreatment than line the pockets of unscrupulous attorneys practicing legal blackmail knowing small companies can’t afford to fight.

For many there is nothing redeemable in what is about to happen. Whatever it is.

But might something good come of this. That is up to us. I have learnt it is always dangerous to underestimate the resilience and resourcefulness of the American people.

I can only hope this will not be another Trumpian first.

Gelb is a an Emmy Award winning television producer who spent more than a decade with CNN. He is currently the director of the Washington Media Institute and a co-founder of DCWitness.org, a homicide tracking news site. Follow DCWitness on Twitter @dcwitness

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.