LOL, what an idiot, right?

NO. It's easy to be sidetracked by the incompetence of the messaging, and ignore the horrifying reality that our president-elect’s first instinct was to slander opposition protestors as professional provocateurs. That is something dictators do, not American presidents. We should not be comforted by Kellyanne Conway's attempt to paper over Trump's tyrannical instincts. The first Tweet is real. Take it seriously.

But Don’t Get Discouraged

Recognize the danger, but don’t let it paralyze you. It should inform us. Find articles and information from people who have been through this already, such as in Putin’s Russia. America has been through some tough moments, and I refuse to believe that she’s too weak to resist Donald Trump.

Be terrified. Be angry. Don’t be resigned. Pledge, today, to do something concrete to resist Trump. Donate to the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or Planned Parenthood. Call your Senator and representative and tell them to stand up against Trump, especially Congressman within the GOP. Research which local progressive and Democratic groups exist locally that you can join in person.

Also remember that America didn’t change on Tuesday. Many people (especially white folks) just got an awakening to the level of hate and prejudice that still exists our country. But this is still the same America it was on November 7, and our country is center-left and trending progressive. Only a quarter of eligible voters chose Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton will likely end up with more votes than any presidential candidate not named Barack Obama – and people across the spectrum hated her.

The most important Constitutional check on the presidency is the American people. Donald Trump lost the popular vote handily, and will enter office as the least popular nominee in history. The man has no mandate to lead a country that doesn't want him. The votes are there to challenge Trump. They just need to be leveraged.

The Existing DNC Leadership Must Go

The current leadership of the DNC has failed, utterly. The party has been decimated, and there is a glaring lack of young talent being groomed for future leadership. Even before this election, in the eight years of Obama’s presidency the Democrats lost over 900 state legislature seats, 12 governorships, 69 House seats, and 13 Senate seats. For eight years, Obama’s charisma masked the hollowing of Democratic power in this country. As for the Clinton campaign itself, they badly fumbled a very winnable election by alienating or ignoring key constituencies yet seem incapable of rationally analyzing why they lost, solely blaming the Comey letter. Realistically the letter probably did swing the election, but it should never have been that close to begin with.

The existing DNC establishment has lost any moral claim to run the party. They turned off millions of potential allies. They should never be allowed near another campaign again. It’s time for fresh blood.

The Progressive Left Should Not Dismiss the Political Process

Most people who supported Bernie Sanders in the primary are focused on opposing Donald Trump. But many feel disgusted with the Democratic Party and want nothing to do with it. They feel compelled to reject the party after perceiving the DNC as rigging the primaries against their man.

I don't want to re-litigate the primary fights, beyond stating that assertions that the primaries were "rigged" are wildly overblown. (A party that just got blown out by a joke campaign and couldn't get women to vote against a serial sex abuser isn't capable of rigging 50 state primaries.) I’m also not going to command that all disaffected Sanders voters put aside their grievances and rush to the next meeting of their local Democratic Party chapter.

But I am going to suggest that they do so, because the party needs to be rebuilt, quickly. The DNC leadership is not some shadowy cabal. It’s where all the kids who ran the debate team and Model United Nations went after college. The people who run the party are the people who show up to all the meetings, and if the Sanders left just starts consistently showing up, they'll have a voice in the party process.

Occupy Wall Street withered to nothing while the Tea Party effectively runs the country, and it's because the Tea Party understood from day one that they needed to engage with electoral politics. (They were nudged towards this understanding by big-money interests who wrongly believed this movement could be contained.) Cynically declaring the whole process futile will just neuter your ability to meaningfully engage the opposition.