No, Not "Legitimate"

I've been maintaining an uneasy silence this week. I'm alarmed and outraged by the reality of a President Trump, but haven't felt I could write about it without descending into a total rant. Still not sure I can. But let me start by saying all this sanctimonious prattle about the great tradition of the "peaceful transfer of power" is a bunch of crap. If this were Hillary arriving in Washington with the same lack of transparency and the same reality of, and potential for, historically off-the-charts conflicts of interests and Constitutional violations, and all the while having benefited from Russian intrusion into the election, to say nothing of James Comey's thumb on the scale, the Republicans would have impeached her yesterday. Yesterday. So no, I don't see him as a "legitimate" president, and this isn't because of a disagreement about policy. I would accept a Mike Pence or Ted Cruz, grudgingly. But by accepting Trump we normalize a man who rose to power through the spread of conspiracy theories, a man who has toyed with racism to an extent that can only damage our nation. I just can't go there. Even if he "brings back some jobs," if we legitimize him we will have surrendered ourselves to a megalomaniac authoritarian. All those Republicans who, during the primaries, called him an ignorant, narcissistic, bullying, con man who is temperamentally unfit for office now say it doesn't matter. Well, it still does to me, and I wish it would to them.