Looking Back With Pride, Or Shame

 THE OLD REDNECK with an eighth grade education and several yellow teeth grinned condescendingly at me and rasped: "Hoe come you aint wearin' no Hillary Clinton campaign button today?" Exhausted from a sleepless night of voting counting and despair, devastated at the most  horrible political loss of my life,  I was in no mood for childish, classless taunting, so I replied by saying something unpleasant. You're a bad loser, he said. No, I'm not, I said. Yes you are, he said, No, I am not, I said. "Yes you are, he said again.!" No, I am not. Congratulations to Mr. Trump, and I wish him nothing but the very best" Disarmed, he of course lacked the class to acknowledge that he was wrong about me. And he was. I take the high road, always have, a lesson learned from a good upbringing from good parenting and long experience winning and losing quality tennis tournaments. I learned early and often that you're going to lose, and you're going to remember how you dealt with it, and you're either going to be proud of the memory, or not. That's why Trump supporters still amaze me, months after the election.  Their lack of class and basic decency amazes me, and always will. I have no interest in ever associating with anyone who claimed that the election was stolen from Trump; they are, frankly, beneath me. My behavior in response to Trump's electoral college victory in 2016 was a perfect role model. Or else, show me a better one. A democracy functions only if and when its members make it work, by participating in it honorably, and by accepting the results of fair and free elections. Trump is mentally ill. His supporters, previously presumed to be good people, have no such excuse. Its disappointing and shocking to realize that so many of my fellow Americans have so little class. they should be ashamed of themselves,  and probably are, but only subconsciously. they will go to their grades either never admitting their bad behavior, pretending that they never said anything about election fraud, or still claiming that their lie is the truth. the one thing they will never do is what is honorable. either they weren't raised right, or have forgotten what they were taught. The FBI, the CIA ,and every other American intelligence gathering agency assured us that Trump won in 2016 only with Russian assistance. he and his supporters conveniently ignored that stark, tragic, national disaster of a reality. And yet, I shook hands with them, and gave them a chance. For years later, they refused to lose with honor and decency.  They conveniently ignore the fact that basic principles of law require that all accusation of crime be accompanied with firm evidence. of which they have non,e never have, and never will. Seventy five million Trump supporters have no integrity, honor, nor decency. They are worthy of neither my respect and friendship, nor of their citizenship.