Post Trump?

Everybody keeps asking me the same question:

What happens after Trump?

And I think that’s the wrong question.

Because eventually, one way or another, every presidency ends.

Maybe Trump serves every last minute of his term. Maybe something unexpected happens before then. I don’t know. Nobody knows.

But someday Donald Trump will no longer be president.

And then what?

I think some people have this fantasy that the Trump era ends and half the country throws the biggest fucking party America has ever seen.

Champagne corks flying.

People dancing in the streets.

Fireworks.

Everybody wakes up the next morning and says:

“Thank God that’s over.”

Okay.

Party’s over.

It’s 8:00 the next morning.

Now what?

Because here’s the problem:

Trump might be gone.

But America is still here.

Every problem we had the day before is still sitting on the kitchen table waiting for us.

Healthcare is still expensive.

Housing is still expensive.

People are still worried about groceries.

We’re still arguing about immigration.

We’re still fighting about education.

We’re still trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is going to change our lives.

We’re still trying to figure out what the hell happened to the American middle class.

And we’re still divided into these ridiculous tribes where we’re supposed to hate somebody because there’s an R or a D next to their name.

Trump leaving office doesn’t magically fix any of that.

And here’s the bigger thing:

The people who supported Trump aren’t going anywhere either.

They’re Americans.

They’re our neighbors.

They’re the guy fixing your transmission.

They’re the woman standing behind you at Publix.

They’re parents sitting beside you at the soccer game.

They’re people you work with.

They’re people in your family.

And the people who despise Trump aren’t going anywhere either.

So what are we going to do?

Spend another twenty years screaming at each other?

At some point, somebody has to say:

Enough.

Not enough Republicans.

Not enough Democrats.

Enough of Americans treating other Americans like the enemy.

Because I’ve been talking to people.

I’ve talked to more than a hundred people—young people, old people, conservatives, liberals, people who don’t give a damn about politics.

And I’ve learned something ridiculously simple:

When you stop asking people what team they’re on and start asking them about their lives, we’re not that fucking different.

People want a safe place to live.

They want a decent job.

They want to be able to afford their house.

They want healthcare when they’re sick.

They want their children to get a good education.

They want their neighborhoods to be safe.

They want some money left over at the end of the month.

And they’d like to believe that their government isn’t completely full of shit.

That’s basically America.

So maybe the question isn’t:

What happens after Trump?

Maybe the question is:

What are we going to build after Trump?

Because presidents come and presidents go.

We’ve had forty-seven of them.

America is bigger than any one president.

And if we’re sitting around waiting for one politician to save this country—or waiting for another politician to disappear so the country can magically heal—we’ve missed the whole fucking point.

We’re the country.

Not Trump.

Not the Democrats.

Not the Republicans.

Not Congress.

Not Fox News.

Not MSNBC.

Us.

Three hundred thirty-something million messy, complicated, opinionated human beings trying to share one enormous country.

And we’re going to have to figure out how to live together.

That’s the hard part.

Winning an election is easy compared with that.

Removing a politician doesn’t remove resentment.

Changing presidents doesn’t restore trust.

Passing a law doesn’t make people suddenly respect their neighbors.

We have to do that ourselves.

And maybe that’s where the next chapter of America begins.

Not in Washington.

Not with another politician standing behind a podium promising to save everybody.

Maybe it starts in Greensboro.

Maybe it starts in Houston.

Maybe it starts in some little town in Iowa.

Maybe it starts when two people who voted completely differently sit down together and talk for five fucking minutes.

Not to change each other’s minds.

Just to understand each other.

Because eventually the Trump presidency will become history.

Every presidency does.

And when that day comes, we’re going to have a choice.

We can find another person to hate.

Another tribe to blame.

Another four years to spend screaming at one another.

Or we can finally ask the question we should have been asking all along:

What kind of country do we want to be?

Not what kind of country does Donald Trump want.

Not what kind of country does the next president want.

What kind of country do we want?

Because the morning after Trump, America is still going to wake up.

The coffee maker is going to turn on.

People are going to go to work.

Kids are going to go to school.

The sun is going to come up.

And 330 million Americans are still going to have to figure out how to live together.

So yes.

Someday there may be a party.

Have the party.

Dance your ass off.

Drink the champagne.

Set off the fireworks.

But the next morning?

Put the fucking champagne bottle in the recycling bin.

Walk outside.

Meet your neighbor.

And get to work.

Because the most important chapter of the Trump era may not be how it ends.

It may be what America does next.