“I hate the fact that I live in a Republican state.”

Clinton supporter Heather McKinnon Karzmer found out Donald Trump was her president the same way many Democratic party voters did: sleep-deprived and in denial at 2 a.m. on November 9.

“I thought I was going to celebrate the first woman president. I remember when Obama won the first time and how proud I felt. My immediate reaction to Trump was mortification. Then disappointment and embarrassment.”

Like many Blue voters in Florida, she did not anticipate that their Democratic stronghold under two terms of president Obama would swing so decidedly right in the 2016 election.

“All my news sources picked her winning in a landslide. I just didn’t think people were so stupid as to vote for a man so unbelievably dumb, vain and unqualified. Who so clearly didn’t have their interests in mind. People who voted for him were ashamed to say they were doing so. How sad is that?”

She blames the growing white nationalist movement and the American news media as reasons for the Trump presidency. “A lot goes back to how many angry white men despised having a black man as president.  Those people only got angrier. The other reason is Hillary was not a very strong candidate.  People I know that voted for Trump, who I like as people and friends, strongly disliked her. Now understand, these could only be their opinions since they got their information from Fox News. Fox eviscerated her on a regular basis. Make no mistake, the media is deeply dividing our country.”

Asked what she and her community of Democrats in Florida were doing in the face of President Trump, she said “I have friends actively resisting.  I consider myself a resistor.  None of us accept it. We are all sure people smarter than us will catch him doing something illegal and impeachable. If anything, him winning mobilized a lot of people to be more active in contacting their elected officials and demanding they push back on him. I’ve even contacted my Senators for the first time ever.” It is clear that what Democratic Floridians are not planning to do is accept their new reality without protest, as many Republicans have demanded of them.

“I just wanted to be a soccer mom. Now I have to get involved to fight for the rights we have grown used to having. And many of my fellow Americans are doing the same.”