Be thankful for Trump's presidency

Thanksgiving may officially be over, but Americans have much to be thankful for.

To my liberal and Democratic Party friends (not always one and the same), please enjoy the freedom you have to protest and fear the unknown that is President-elect Trump.

While Trump tweets and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence demonstrates calm maturity, political opponents from “Saturday Night Live” to MSNBC, from the Broadway stage to the streets of Portland all have the freedom to freak out, cry, pout and insult them in a variety of fashions, from rude and crude to self-aggrandizing.

In Cuba, one of the 167 political prisoners reported by The Associated Press is Yoelkis Rosabal Flores, a member of the Union Patriotica de Cuba, described by Amnesty International as a peaceful political party whose platform is in opposition of the Castro regime.

Flores was arrested in May 2014 for staging a protest calling for the release of a fellow party member. Flores was charged with public disorder and sentenced to four years in jail.

Protesters and their families might just want to take a moment a be thankful that our Constitution and those who vow to uphold it ensure no citizen is jailed for years simply for protesting that their candidate did not win the election, thus continuing our peaceful transfer of power.

We’re thankful not to have been born in Maiduguri, Nigeria, the self-proclaimed caliphate of Boko Haram.

So many thousands of little girls and women have been kidnapped to be used as sex slaves that it’s estimated every family there knows someone whose daughter, sister, mother or wife was raped.

Americans were shocked by the news two years ago when 276 school girls were kidnapped by these Islamic terrorists. Today, most of them are still missing, and the girls who were rescued from being raped nearly every day are shunned by their own people.

Some were as young as 8 years old.

And to think celebrated, adored Broadway actors are fearful … fearful … of a man who talks trash, is limited in power by two other branches of government and has begun building a cabinet including women and people who have disagreed with him.

To my conservative and Republican friends (not always the same), be thankful that we will not have four or eight years of mind-numbing Hillary corruption and scandals.

We will have Democrats and multi-million dollar Super PACS “investigating” and demanding Freedom of Information Act requests for tons of documents as they work to undermine the Trump Administration.

Even though Trump is not required to dissolve his companies or sell them and put the money into a blind trust, the political left will publicize as many appearances of business impropriety as scandals as well as any real scandals that arise.

And some will. After all, he’s Trump, not Walker or Cruz.

But be thankful Trump has promised to repeal Common Core. Any work to return education control to the local level is a blessing.

Let us also be thankful for the millions of Americans who put aside partisan politics, standing for the rights of others as decent, flawed human beings.

Thankful for the majority of Americans who refuse to acquiesce to racists believing Trump’s win is a win for white nationalists.

Thankful for the majority of Americans who refuse to accept black youth publicly beating white people because they may have voted for Trump.

While some in the media are giving white supremacists far too much publicity in their quest to equate these fearful people with our next president, let us be thankful for the majority of Americans who refuse to join their little cults who curse black people with the n-word.

Let us be thankful for what we do have and build upon it each day as individuals.

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Rick Jensen is Delaware’s award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL, streaming live on WDEL.com from 1 to 4 p.m. EST. Contact Rick at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL.