I did not vote for Donald Trump.

I sat down on Tuesday night, hoping to watch an election night celebration!  Katy Perry was going to sing.  The Glass Ceiling was going to come down, both literally and figuratively and history was going to be made.

It didn’t quite turned out as I hoped.  I was angry, I was disappointed and a little sad.  What I was not, was surprised.

As the night wore on, my mood lifted.  Not because my candidate was going to win, but because I found some real humor in watching the election coverage on one of the major networks.  Somewhere around an hour in, they gave up trying to be unbiased and starting going through The Seven Stages of Grief.

Denial:  “Maybe she can tie him if half of Wisconsin lost their ballots!”

Depression: “Trump is going to be President!  Why? Why?”

But what I really found hysterical was the SHOCK.  “How could this happen?  How could we not see this coming?”

How indeed!  I flashed back to a cartoon I once saw titled ,  “A Map of The United States As Seen By The Entertainment Industry.” It shows California and New York clearly outlined. The rest of the country is simply titled, “The Fly Over Zone.”

I have a bold statement the major news media outlets do not want to hear.  They are part of the entertainment industry.  I know they believe they are Journalists, but if it walks like a duck….They hang with entertainers.  They live in Los Angeles and New York.  They are treated like celebrities.  To say they don’t quite know what the average American is thinking is an understatement.  They live in an alternate universe.

As they continued to try to search for answers for this shocking turn of events, they finally had a revelation when a very pregnant Savannah Guthrie announced we were witnessing, “The White Washing of America.”  Tom Brokaw and the other “news” people nodded their heads in agreement.

Oh yes, those angry white straight males.  The ones we all knew were going to come out and support Trump!  Yes, yes THOSE people!  They had somehow cloned themselves and brought in numbers that no one could ever see coming! Cloning must be the explanation for their oversight!

I went to bed.

The next morning, amidst the mayhem on social media, I started to notice some interesting posts. People happy about the election who were not white and not males.

In my office, two people confessed, (we are in California after all!) that they were one of THOSE people.  One was a man, one was a woman.  One was Jewish, one was protestant. One was gay, one was straight.

As the day wore on, I began to realize, THOSE people are friends, co-workers and yes, our families. They do not believe that other people’s families should be ripped apart, people should be put in determent camps or even that their candidate is going to be able to build the much talked about wall.  So why did they elect a reality star billionaire with no political experience over someone who has worked in the political arena almost her entire life?

The one common answer they gave, is they really wanted change.  THOSE people are sick of the same people with the same names, getting into office and doing the same things. Jeb Busch didn’t do well this time around either, did he?  They are tired of politicians who take the party line and block good things from happening in this country because the other party thought of it first. They are tired of a political system that can be bought and sold to the highest bidders.

And I realized we had a common ground. 

Despite all the anger and name calling, we are starting to talk about some interesting ideas.  What if we dumped the Electoral College?  I say that not because my candidate won the popular vote, but what if instead of politicians spending their time worrying about “Swing” states, they went and talked to people from ALL states to find out what was really important to them and their families?

When we first started this country, The President was the person who got the most votes and The Vice President was the person who came in second.  I would have given one month’s salary to see Donald and Hillary, on stage together, holding hands and talking about how they were going to lead the country together!  Think how different a campaign would go if you knew at the end, you were going to have to work together?
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Crazy talk right?  Almost as crazy as a woman running for president and getting beat by a reality star.