A lot of us have very strong, deeply held feelings or opinions when it comes to politics. I understand that, because mine are about as strong and deeply held as anyone’s I know.

When the Playboy from Massachusetts won the 1960 election because some people thought he was prettier on TV than his heavy-jowled opponent, I wanted to throw up. I felt even worse when he managed to hide the Cuban missile crisis until he could conveniently “discover” the missiles just in time to grandstand for the 1962 election and save his party from defeat.

Having to serve in the army while Lyndon B. Johnson played games with American lives in Vietnam was nauseating. Even though I was never a fan of Richard Nixon, I was thrilled when he replaced this vile man.

The 1976 election brought us Jimmy Carter, a President so bad a lot of us thought he would be forever listed as the worst of all time, and our nation almost died of the twin problems of inflation and stagnation, while our prestige around the world dipped to zero. Four years later, I was on top of the world when we elected arguably the best President we’ve ever had. Ronald Reagan took a nation that was circling the drain and restored it to greatness and respect.

When Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992, I was grief-stricken. I couldn’t imagine how we would get through his term. Then when Newt Gingrich put together his “Contract with America” for the 1994 Congressional elections, leading conservatives to a surprising and overwhelming victory, I was thrilled. I was dumbfounded when this roue from Arkansas was re-elected in 1996 as my party fielded one of the most blah men in politics to run against him.

Although George W. Bush disappointed me in many ways, he was such a huge improvement over his predecessor, both politically and morally, that I got excited once again. I can’t imagine what would have become of our nation after the 9-11 attacks had his opponent won the election.

To me, we hit our nadir in 2008 with the election of a Muslim imposter whose agenda seemed to be the final and utter destruction of the United States. Jimmy Carter was finally supplanted as the worst President ever. Again, my party picked Tweedledee is its candidate, handing the election to a man whose track record consisted of two years in the U.S. Senate without doing anything of any consequence. Then, in 2012, my party decided to nominate a Mormon, whom the Christian right could not in good conscience vote for, and the imposter won re-election.

Through all of those disappointments, I never burned a limousine, as protester did after President Trump was inaugurated. The people on my side of the spectrum, no matter how disappointed we were with election results, took a deep breath and went on about our business.

I never attended a protest rally where my political friends absolutely trashed the streets where the rally was held. In fact, I’m not aware of the existence of any protests rallies when my side lost. We accepted the results, no matter how horrible we thought they were, and just thanked God we lived in a country where we had the freedom to choose.

No patriotic conservative ever put on a costume designed to portray someone’s genitalia—male or female—in order to make a point about some perceived oppression or denial of some supposed right.

The few celebrities who agreed with my politics never promised to leave the country if our opponent was elected. (Not that those who made such promises ever lived up to them.) They never went on national TV shows and talked about burning down the White House.

The adults who vote on the right, unlike the two-year-olds who seem to have taken over the left, never proclaimed the desire for our opponents’ administrations to fail. We wanted our country to succeed and be strong and were willing to wait for the next election to try to correct what we considered to be wrong election results.

What has happened to common decency? Where is the sense of fair play that recognizes the right of those who disagree with us to disagree?

What do you think about the behavior of so many people on the left since the election?

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Writers may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

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Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.