Many still can't stand the idea of a President Trump

Washington

A SKIT on the popular NBC comedy show "Saturday Night Live" targeted the angry and frustrated American liberals who were having trouble accepting the fact that Donald Trump won the presidency.

"Looking for the ultimate safe space where you can find a planned community of like-minded free thinkers ... and no one else?" asks a narrator. "Look no further than 'The Bubble'."

Viewers are then introduced to a domed community where progressive Americans can pretend that bad things - and in particular, the election of Mr Trump - don't happen and they can carry on eating organic food, drinking raw milk and frequenting used book stores. "Need a place to feel safe, free thinkers? Come to The Bubble, and shut yourself in."

Unfortunately for potential residents of The Bubble, that kind of community doesn't exist in the real world where Mr Trump will be sworn in as the next American president in Washington, DC, next Friday, and short of unexpected intervening factors, he would serve in office for the next four years, and could actually be re-elected for another term in 2020.

To propose that many Democrats and liberals have yet to accept this bad news would be the understatement of the post-presidential-election period.

Suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the anti-Trumpists were at first confident that a recounting of the election votes would deny the Donald the presidency, and when that didn't happen, that some of the Electors who were committed to vote for the candidate who had won the Electoral College, would switch sides and vote to make Hillary Clinton the next president. Which, as we know by now, also didn't happen.

So perhaps Mr Trump will surprise everyone by announcing that it was all a big joke or a publicity stunt and now that he has won, he was planning to return to selling and branding real estate and appearing on the television reality show, The Apprentice, instead of another reality show, Good Morning President Trump?

But then after a lot of public crying their eyes out and experiencing a political meltdown, blaming everyone - ranging from the FBI director to Vladimir Putin and his Russian hackers - for the electoral loss last November of their Democratic presidential candidate, the anti-Trumpists have regrouped and insist that they would spend their time and energy in the coming months resisting attempts to "normalise" (a term they have been using) the Trump presidency.

GOP PLAYBOOK

In a way, these resisters may be taking a page from the GOP political playbook, following eight years during which the Republicans have tried their best to de-legitimise the presidency of Barack Obama, including by suggesting that the Democratic African-American president wasn't born in the US. So it's payback time, Republicans!

Some anti-Trumpists are already drawing up political scenarios under which Mr Trump would mess things up so much that his party would suffer major losses in the 2018 mid-term elections and lose its control of Congress. Who knows? If the media uncovers various crimes committed by the new White House occupant, Mr Trump could end up being impeached by Congress and be forced to resign from office.

And we all know for sure that there is no way in the world that he would be re-elected for a second term. Well, in the same way we were confident that he won't win the Republican presidential nomination, and forget the idea of him beating Mrs Clinton in November. No way!

But for now, the Democrats' goals remain a bit more modest. The confirmation hearing for the President-elect's Cabinet nominees began on Capitol Hill this week, starting with Senator Jeff Sessions who has been chosen as the next Attorney General, followed by Rex Tillerson, the nominee for the job of Secretary of State, as the Democrats try to place obstacles for them and the other nominees.

The Republicans currently control the Senate and need only a simple majority to get President-elect Trump's nominees confirmed. But the Democrats are counting on a few Republicans to challenge the president-elect's choices. Hence Mr Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, could face opposition from Republicans like Arizona Senator John McCain who are worried about the close ties to Russia that he and his company had had.

It's doubtful, however, that the Democrats would succeed in disrupting the nomination process of Mr Tillerson and any of the other Cabinet choices. So much of their efforts in the coming months would be focused on damaging the Republican agenda, which includes revoking President Obama's healthcare insurance programme (aka Obamacare) and approving the budgetary priorities of the next president.

At the same time, the anti-Trumpists in the media and entertainment industry - where the leading stars tend to identify themselves as liberals - are trying to ensure that the Trump presidency will not be "normalised" anytime soon.

So it wasn't very surprising that renowned Hollywood actress Meryl Streep used the occasion of receiving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's award for lifetime achievement during the organisation's dinner in Los Angeles on Sunday, as an opportunity to harshly censure the president-elect; and that her comments won the applause of almost all the giants of the movie industry in the room, with the exception of two or three lone Republicans.

Expect more of that kind of ridicule aimed at the incoming president continuing to come from members of the so-called bi-coastal elites, whether they are Hollywood actors, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, or creative types and other well-paid professionals in New York, say, a young well-to-do and liberal Jewish couple, a fashion entrepreneur and a lawyer, residing in Manhattan.

Indeed, if you asked a pollster to guess whether a nameless couple - a young well-to-do and liberal Jewish fashion entrepreneur and a lawyer from Manhattan - had voted for Mr Trump or Mrs Clinton in November, his or her answer would be, "Are you kidding me? If you are a wealthy, highly-educated and young liberal Jew, especially if you are a woman, then you are a typical Clinton voter. The chances that you would vote for the Donald are quite slim."

So imagine that Mr Trump wasn't running for the presidency last year, who do you think Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner would have voted for last November? For Mrs Clinton, the liberal icon and feminist from New York, or for, say, Ted Cruz, one of the most socially conservative Republican members of the Senate.

In fact, the two were registered Democrats (until Mr Trump decided to run) and regular contributors to the election campaigns of Democratic politicians, including to Mrs Clinton's Senate race. Most of the couple's professional and social milieu includes young and wealthy professionals like themselves, including lawyers and members of the media and the fashion industry, who are more likely than not to be Democrats and liberals. Chelsea Clinton used to be one of Ms Ivanka Trump's best friends.

CAMPAIGN HELPERS

But when Mr Trump decided to run for president, his oldest daughter - who is the executive vice-president of Development and Acquisition at her father's company - and her husband, Mr Kushner, who now runs his family's real estate business, joined the election campaign of the Donald and helped him win the Republican primary and later, the general election.

Ms Ivanka Trump, who had converted to Judaism before marrying the modern Orthodox Jewish Mr Kushner in 2009, played an important role in defending her father against attacks accusing him of being a misogynist and focusing his attention on women issues. Mr Kushner concentrated on developing the campaign's social media operations and helped to design Mr Trump's election strategy and to adjust it when it was confronting political blitzes from his election rivals and a hostile media.

The couple will be moving now to Washington, DC, and living not far from the White House, where Mr Kushner will serve as a senior adviser to the incoming president, while his wife is expected to play an informal role in managing the social affairs in the White House, especially in the first two years of the presidency, when the incoming First Lady, Melania Trump, will be staying in New York City to take care of their 10-year-old son, Barron, who has to complete his studies in a private school in the city.

So you should expect to see more of Ms Ivanka Trump in the coming years, as she welcomes foreign dignitaries to the White House, organises cultural events and takes part in projects that would focus on advancing women rights, provide assistance to needy families and help strengthen ties with the millennial generation.

In a way, both Mr Trump's glamorous daughter and her husband could help provide a 21st century pizazz and coolness to an institution dominated by an ageing guy in his 70s and provide a generational and cultural counterbalance to the mostly conservative men that will surround the new president and that may be out of touch with the new social-cultural trends.

And wouldn't it be an irony that if the Trump presidency proves to be a success and her father completes his two terms in office, a 43-year-old Ivanka may decide to run for the presidency and become the first female US president? Stranger things are happening in American politics, like a real estate tycoon with no political experience being sworn in as president next week.