Thank you. I appreciate you opening yourself up to a mature conversation, and I would appreciate you listening to my views and not resort to name calling or generalizing.
The reason people are protesting, myself included, is not because we are "sore losers" and we definitely don't believe that we are going to change the fact that Trump will be president. There is a slim chance, if any, that Trump will not end up being our president. Most people who are protesting acknowledge that he is our president come January and we are not denying that fact.
The #HeIsNotMyPresident that has been the face of many of these protests this week is not meant to be taken literally. It is metaphorical and symbolic of how we feel about ourselves, America, and the people who voted for Trump.
#HeIsNotMyPresident means that we are attempting to show the world (because believe it or not, Europe and many other countries around the world are in shock and disbelief that Trump and what his platform stood for actually won this election) that not all of Americans are standing behind this election. We want to make sure that other people that are watching these protests on tv know that many Americans are against a president elected on a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, ableist platform. Not all of America is okay with this, and we want to plant the idea in other people's minds that we are not okay with this election.
Furthermore, we want to give hope to our POC, our queer folk, our disabled folk, our women, etc. in this country who are going to be forced to live under a president that is not representing them. In fact, this president elect has stated on multiple occasions that he plans on fighting against many of our rights and our agendas to acquire our rights. Many people who disagree with protesting say something along the lines of "Well we haven't given Trump a chance to show what he will or will not do in office, so don't freak out until after he has done something etc etc". That may be true, but it is besides the point of our protests. We are protesting because people all over America, of every walk of life and every age group, have voted for a man who has openly stated he does not plan on furthering the fight for minorities and has in fact said in many cases he plans on attacking those rights. He may not actually go about those things in office, but right now we are protesting against the people who thought they would take a gamble with our safety. Who would vote in the spirit of saying "I want to further my own agenda, not protect the rights of millions of Americans who are already struggling to make their voices heard".
We are also protesting to give each other hope. (I don't know you, so I am going to assume that you are not a minority and talk about it in that way. If you are a minority, what follows is not meant to offend you in any way.)
If you are not a minority yourself, it may be hard to understand how alone people feel right now. I myself am a minority, belonging to the LGBTQIA* community and being a woman, and waking up and hearing on social media and seeing texts on my phone from friends and family members telling me that they proudly voted for trump, that I am being a baby, a "pussy" and a sore loser for protesting the president elect, made me feel extremely alone. No one took the time to ask me how this may be affecting me, no one asked me if I am in danger of being affected by Trump's possible policies, no one even asked me if I was open for a discussion on these topics. All I got was "you need to get over yourself, you need to stop, you're being a bad loser, we would have been okay if Hillary had won, blah blah blah". As a minority, all this says to me is that my friends and family did not care enough about my opinions, views, and fears to ask me any questions or discuss things with me. They wanted me to just stop being afraid and voicing my fears instead of asking why I was afraid.
The only people who understood how alone I felt in a country and family who voted for Trump was other people of minorities who are similarly isolated from their family and society. So we came together the day the election winner was announced and supported each other. We came together again in the days following to take to the streets and peacefully protest, to scream to the people in the city and the people we are holding hands with that we will not be silenced, that our voices and fears are valid, that we are scared and we will hold each other through our fear, not tell each other to just get over it.
It is so much more than just not wanting Trump to be president. It's that it revealed to us that people were okay enough with the things he said and the things he claimed to stand for that they voted for him to represent all of us. It's that we don't want him to stand for us, that we reject his opinions and statements and as much as he may be president of the United States for the next four years, he is not, and will never be, our president.