Dear Donald Trump,

After last Tuesday’s election result, I spent a good 36 hours mourning what I felt like was the loss of my country. I cried a lot. I shouted a lot. I didn’t sleep very well, and I felt myself fall into a hopeless pit of depression. Most of all, I was afraid for what your presidency meant, not just for myself and America, but for the whole world, and I know there are countless more out there who experienced a similar reaction.

That being said, Donald Trump, I now refuse to be afraid of you.

What snippets of your victory speech I saw, and the pictures I saw where you fully realized that you were going to win the 2016 presidential election, I can tell you that I saw the face of a man who made his bed, never thinking he would ever have to lie in it. Well, the joke’s on you now, isn’t it? All of the things you’ve said over these past I-don’t-even-know-how-many years you are now being forced to uphold. The masses that united under your name and allowed you to set foot in the White House as the future president of the United States are now expecting you to live up to the words you said in your campaign.

I am not afraid of you, Donald Trump.

Seeing your reaction to your victory, I now realize that there’s probably a good chunk of things that you said that you never actually meant to begin with. I’m still not excusing you from anything you said, but I have a creeping feeling that YOU are actually much more terrified than any of us realize. I don’t believe you expected to get this far. Yet, here you are, and now you’ve got a steep price to pay for the things you’ve said. And, you have no one to blame but yourself. Welcome to the most important job in the world, where you can’t grab it by the pussy and you can’t throw a tantrum every time things don’t go your way.

I am not afraid of you, Donald Trump. But, I am afraid of the movement you uncovered.

I understand very well that not all of the people who voted for you are bigots. But, there are some who are being truly disgusting, and I say you "uncovered" them because the people who are coming out of the woodwork, hurling racial slurs and vandalizing others’ property, all in your name, have always been around. You just gave voice to the thoughts they were already thinking. You just told them it was OK to think those thoughts because you were “speaking your mind.” Even in my relatively sheltered, albeit conservative, area, I have already seen Facebook posts where properties have been vandalized with slurs and where people are genuinely concerned for the safety of themselves and their loved ones.

You didn’t start this movement, Donald Trump. You just allowed it to feel comfortable enough to leech out into a world that, in part, didn’t believe that it was as bad as it truly is. Even I held onto the illusion that, while it was still a definite and horrifying problem, we had still made tremendous progress in eradicating racism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism from the general public. I can now see that I was wrong, and I thank you for uncovering the truth that there is still a hell of a lot of work to be done in this country in order to let love reign over hate. Work that I, and so many others like me, are ready to get started on, even if we don’t have the help from you or our broken government.

At this point, Donald Trump, I am not afraid of you, I only pity you.

But, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid for my loved ones and the countless strangers I will never have the opportunity to meet who will be affected the worst by your possible policies and the blind hatred of those around them. I would also be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid for the future of us all. However, although I, too, will be drastically affected by what you do, I promise to do what I can in order to protect the people I love and the strangers I meet who need a helping hand and a friendly face in this troubled time.

Donald Trump, you don’t scare me anymore. I, and many others, will continue to fight for what we believe in and we will not back down from you, or the movement of hate that has thrown themselves wholeheartedly behind your cause.

Love is still more powerful than hate, Donald Trump, and I hope you're ready for what you signed up for.