If at any point during the last several months you said, “If Barack Obama wins the election, I’m fleeing the country,” please pack your bags and get on the next flight out.
Still with us? Good. Grab a chair and settle down. You’re stuck here, so you might as well make the best of it.
We get it. You’re disappointed. Personally, we’re disappointed that Proposition 204 — the extension of a sales tax that would have provided state funding for education — was voted down. Everyone is allowed to be disappointed.
But if all you’re going to do is run your mouth (or take to the Internet), you might as well go talk to a wall. You’re not doing anyone any good. Regardless of what you had hoped the election outcome would be, compared to what it actually turned out to be, it’s over now.
The tweets describing the death of your faith in the country will not change who won or what passed last night. No amount of Facebook statuses in which you threaten to move will launch all of us into an alternate universe where the exact opposite happened.
Have you ever even been to Canada?
In short, stop whining about things that you cannot change. You do not get a do-over. And if you’re going to threaten to do something, actually do it. We’re sure someone will drive you to the airport.
Maybe your guy won the vote last night. Maybe he lost. Four years from now, you’ll root for someone else. Maybe they’ll win or maybe they won’t. One or the other has to happen sometimes. That’s just how democracy works.
On the bright side, at least we can be done with the obnoxious stream of negative campaign ads now.
But seriously. It doesn’t matter how you voted. That was yesterday. Today, your job is to keep moving forward. There is still work to do, and if all you do is threaten to leave the country, then you’re not any better than the candidate you were rooting against.
Make your disappointment work for you. Be productive about it. Be the loyal opposition.
Even while at odds with the majority, the minority has to remain loyal to the nation. Although who plays the role of the loyal opposition changes with every election, the duty stays the same.
You cannot change what the election decided. That’s not how this government works. What you can do is challenge every elected representative to do a better job — the job that their constituents deserve from them.
At the end of the day, you are a constituent. Barack Obama is still your president. There are some people in Congress, in the state Legislature and in city government who are supposed to represent your interests.
Keep the essential values of your country at heart. Stand up for your convictions. Hold the people in government accountable for their words and actions. Ask them the hard questions.
Get used to it or get out.
— Editorials are determined by the Arizona Daily Wildcat editorial board and written by one of its members. They are Bethany Barnes, Kristina Bui, Jason Krell and Alex Williams. They can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu or on Twitter via @WildcatOpinions .
