Dearly beloved democratic party, this is all your fault. Not because you put forward a perfectly qualified candidate that everyone thinks is a robot. No, Hillary Rodham Clinton would have been a remarkable president, and I truly believe that. She wasn’t the candidate I pushed for earlier in the year. I felt the bern for some time and admittedly still do. Something about that Brooklyn accent punctuated with Vermont kindness really speaks to me.

Let’s start at the beginning. I grew up in neighboring New Hampshire, so his unrelenting pursuit of bettering the working class existence was whispered into my ears more than once or twice. When Senator Bernie Sanders announced he would be running for the democratic nomination in the end of April last year, I cried. I who am not easily moved to tears, cried. The only politician I’ve ever truly believed in had announced his potential candidacy and I felt that Dickinson hope sing deep in my spirit. It would soar to even higher heights within my being when I went to caucus for Sanders in Maine and I waited in the freezing cold for hours just to be another drop in Sanders’ vote bucket. Then, the suppression of voters in the California democratic primary happened and it brought that glorious song hope had poured through my soul to a discordant, screeching finish.

For Sanders’ entire campaign, he was a relatable champion of the working class people. Even the republican party was a little scared of his power to sway the working class. He wasn’t a lifelong democrat, in fact he was an independent. Grandmas and bros loved him alike, and even animal lovers swooned when that bird endorsed him. He was what the people needed: a person willing to fight the system by using the system.

So, when it became clear Clinton was the horse the democrats put their bets on, you can imagine I wasn’t thrilled. However, when it became clear that it was Clinton v. Trump, there was never a moment where I thought, well, that’s a tough choice. Because, in my mind, there wasn’t a choice. How could anyone choose a sexual predator over a political animal? It seemed such an absurd, unlikely outcome that I didn’t even make space for it in my head. So, naturally, the unthinkable came to be.

Trump is now our president elect, not because of a democracy’s choice, no Clinton would have been the democracy’s choice, but because of the electoral college. Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump won the system he called rigged. How did we get here?! I asked myself over and over again. How could misogyny win? How could alienating minority groups ever be something the American public would choose? Well, what does history say?

History says that oppressed people will help keep a group treated even shittier than them oppressed so that they themselves feel less oppressed. You might be saying, wait, what? Okay, let’s go with the classic poor whites in America example. Poor, southern whites in America, during the dark ages of slavery, did not want slavery abolished because they felt they would lose economic power. Even though they would have been better off fighting with those enslaved individuals against the wealthy men that oppressed both groups, they didn’t see it that way. Apply that to this election and you have poor, working Americans trying to fight against other poor, working Americans who may or may not hold a citizenship. Bernie wanted them to fight against the corporations, not each other. Clinton couldn’t claim this because she had worked for many of these larger corporations that oppressed working class citizens.

Exit Bernie and enter Trump’s rhetoric to working class citizens about rebuilding America. “Make America Great Again,” may not have been synonymous with “Make America Racist Again” to everyone who voted for Trump, but for many minorities it was. A people largely ignored by the democratic party, a people that had to rely on minimum wage increases through ballot questions rather than their elected representatives fighting for them in Congress, a people who thought they’d put the government in someone’s hands who spoke not so eloquently, who was angry like them, and who was, let’s face it, a reality tv star: modern America’s greek gods who get all the attention for all of the wrong choices they make.

So, Trump and his hateful, vitriolic attacks on politicians won, and I am terrified for the future of our country. I am terrified for women and minorities everywhere, but even greater than my fear is my anger. That singing hope that knocked around in the cage my spirit had formed has been consumed by the anger that welled up knocking at the edges of my spirit and forcing it to grow. Telling my being it must encompass more space for those I love and

care for. It is anger that has sharpened my focus and allowed me to realize we are more than the sum of our thoughts. We are more than teary eyed does after an awful, terrible election cycle. We are more than the complacent gender Trump believes us to be. We are women and men ready to create safe places from hatred. We are this generation ready to hold parties accountable for their wrongs. We are ready to tell parties that they -must- pull their heads outta their asses, stop fighting each other, and start fighting for us. For our rights. For our economic future. For our planet’s future. For our future together living in a country that seems completely divided. So, yes, the carrot-colored devil won the presidency, but we-the-people can fight his hateful rhetoric every step of the way by countering it with loving kindness for those who are oppressed, by protecting those affected by the society his presidency seeks to create, and by continuously reminding people of their rights even as you do everything in your power to protect those rights. It will be a difficult battle, but one worth fighting. And I intend to do so.