What's down the road anyway?

I would like to be able to get all of this straight. Let me try.

He won. That's indisputable. It still seems unreal, but he did. He won, therefore he gets to make policy. Elections have results.

But how then shall we live? That's the question.

I understand the need for vigilance when it comes to immigration, especially allowing would-be terrorists to come into this country. A country with open borders really isn't a nation. We should know who's here and who isn't. 

President Trump promised a Muslim ban, and now he's employed one. That plan is not total; it merely follows pre-existing strategies created by former Presidents, including Obama, strategies that laid out an estimate of which Muslim countries were most dangerous. 

Furthermore, he recognizes that Christians especially are at risk in those countries, so he makes some exceptions to the rules for entry. I get that. And I understand that he has only the best interests of America in mind. He's said so in his acceptance speech at the convention and made it perfectly clear in his inaugural address. The world is full of carnage, he told us. His mission is to protect good, hard-working Americans from the oppressive evil all around. The world is a mess. Hence, the ban.

But there's another side, and respectable people who believe so are confident that any kind of Muslim ban--call it what you will--is a mistake, not because they're opposed to the safety of good, hard-working Americans, but because they believe radical Islam is rooted in a worldview that details a cosmic fight to the death between Christianity and Islam. That's the ideology they peddle. Any move on the part of the side jihadists see as the enemy, the "Christian" world, will serve to make their ideology more alive, their mission more appealing. 

What those who oppose what the President has done say is that while implementing a Muslim ban may make us feel more safe, it will serve to create more suicide bombers and therefore do the opposite, not only here but around the world.

There you have it, right? One side says, "Thank goodness--he's protecting our borders. I can sleep better tonight." The other side says, "Right now, ISIS is pointing at his Muslim ban to recruit more foot soldiers." 

All right. What we have is two really striking arguments going to war. Both concern our safety and have the best interests of the American people in mind. 

Which argument is the stronger of the two? 

Let's just say you say the second--that a Muslim ban may keep us thinking we're more safe but will make the world that we're in less so--let's say that's what you believe, then what do you do? Go about your business? After all, he won, right? Elections have consequences. There's another one in four  years. Do you simply swallow your sense of what's right? Maybe write your congressmen and women. 

Or do you scream?

It took President George H.W. Bush some 1300 days before his detractors outnumbered his supporters, some 900 for Presidents Obama and George W. Bush. 

It's taken President Donald Trump just eight days. 

Seriously, what's going to happen to us? I don't know. No one does. 

But you can bet on this: the man we elected is not going to change.