<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alarm on Gregory Wendell\u2019s phone jangled, breaking the calm stillness of early morning. He dismissed the alarm and scanned the latest notifications on the screen, his eyes blurry with sleep. He jolted awake as he read the headlines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDaniel Trounce projected as winner of presidential election,\u201d proclaimed one headline. Another said, \u201cDaniel Trounces Karris in decisive election defeat.\u201d Nice word play. Any other time, it might be funny. But not today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His breath caught as a wave of nausea swept over him, and he felt like vomiting. He hurried to the bathroom medicine cabinet, found the pink Pepto bottle, and took a swig. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What happened overnight? How on earth did this guy win? When he went to bed late last night, the results were still being counted, and his candidate \u2014 Tamala Karris \u2014 was ahead by a considerable amount. How did she lose her lead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nausea passed, and now he felt sad and perplexed. He hoped that Karris, with her boundless energy, fresh ideas, and positive vision for the future, would win. So hopeful that a majority of Americans would see it the same way he did, that she was the best qualified person to lead America over the next four years. Surely Daniel Trounce, with his negative message of despair, hate, and retribution, would not win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gregory checked his social media accounts and saw a flood of posts from many of his friends gleefully whooping it up with unabashed celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps most disappointing was reading the giddy posts from his religious friends and fellow Christian believers, saying, \u201cPraise God,\u201d \u201cHallelujah,\u201d “God\u2019s anointed wins,\u201d \u201cAs the prophets predicted,\u201d and so on. Gloating. Rubbing it in, like salt in a wound. They seemed to view this man as God\u2019s divinely chosen candidate \u2014 a messianic figure ordained to lead his followers to the promised land. How could anyone argue with God\u2019s will?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And how could his religious friends \u2014 who claimed the moral high road on so many issues, and stood by the principle, \u201ccharacter matters\u201d \u2014 vote for a man of such low character? At least that\u2019s what they said for all those years until Daniel Trounce came into the political picture. So much for principle, Gregory scoffed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gregory remembered the threats Trounce had made during the campaign. About mass deportations. Prosecuting political enemies and those who opposed him. Fear-mongering. Name-calling, put-downs, and denigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite that, according to the headlines he was reading, the election was not even close. Daniel really did “trounce” Karris with 5 million more votes than she got. At least there would be no uproar about vote stealing and rigged elections this year. It seemed elections were always rigged whenever Trounce lost; whenever he won, things were fair and honest. What a hypocrite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What to do? At this moment, Gregory didn\u2019t know. All he wanted to do was go back to bed and wake up again to find it was only a bad dream. But he knew this was real, and no amount of sleep would change this outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He mulled it over and concluded there was nothing he could do for now but accept it. He had voted according to his conscience, as did millions of other citizens \u2014 unfortunately, more than half of whom voted differently than he did. He had cast his vote for the candidate he thought best qualified, although it was a losing vote. He reassured himself that a vote in good conscience is never wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One thing for sure, he would never say, \u201cnot my president,\u201d no matter what he thought of the president-elect. He would accept the election outcome, but he didn\u2019t have to like it. As a Christian believer himself, he knew he would pray for the new president, as scripture urged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conversely, he would not stand around idly for the next four years. He decided at that moment that he would do whatever he could \u2014 by prayer, grass-roots activism and everything in between \u2014 to help bring about a different result next time. He smiled at the thought and was at peace. This is how we do it in a democracy. This is the American way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The alarm on Gregory Wendell\u2019s phone jangled, breaking the calm stillness of early morning. He dismissed the alarm and scanned the latest notifications on the screen, his eyes blurry with sleep. He jolted awake as he read the headlines. \u201cDaniel Trounce projected as winner of presidential election,\u201d proclaimed one headline. Another said, \u201cDaniel Trounces Karris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,26],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-2575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-literary","category-satire","tag-flash-fiction"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The-Morning-After.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2575"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3942,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575\/revisions\/3942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}