Something I was going to mention in my previous post but forgot, and it's important enough that I thought I'd make a separate post: today's Women's march was positive and inspiring, but there was one bit of rhetoric floating around that I don't agree with, and which I think is actually counterproductive: Much as it pains me to say it (and part of me is still trying to remain in denial about it) Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States. He won a majority of the electoral college. The results were certified by Congress. That's all that matters. Yes, the Russians may have tried to influence the election. They may even have succeeded. But so did James Comey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. There are very few clean hands in American politics.
The Republicans spent eight years arguing that Barack Obama was illegitimate because he wasn't born in the U.S. The Russian-meddling argument sounds to me every bit as petty as that. Donald Trump would not be in the White House if tens of millions of Americans hadn't voted for him. The Russians (or Comey or Schultz) may have moved the needle a little. They may have even changed the outcome (we can never know). But at the end of the day the American people voted without anyone putting guns to their heads and the votes were counted fairly (which is not the case everywhere). Trump won. Deal with it. Complaining about Trump's illegitimacy is pathetic and it won't do any good. So stop it. There is too much important work to be done to waste time on that kind of bullshit.
P.S. In no way do I mean to denigrate John Lewis, who is definitely a man of action contrary to Donald Trump's petulant attacks. But I respectfully disagree with his position that Trump is illegitimate, both on the merits, and as a political tactic.
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