Like many (not all) readers of this column, I was thrown into a funk by the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Yet I emerged determined to make America greater than ever. Let me explain.

Remember the words of Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Donald Trump showed who he was during the presidential campaign: a masterful showman willing to say whatever it takes to gin up excitement and get media attention. Whatever it takes. We’ll bring back jobs. Get the money out of politics. Cut taxes. Build up the military. Destroy ISIS. Toss out illegals. Build a wall. Abolish Obamacare and create a “beautiful” health care plan. And on and on. Charisma charms. Buzzwords sell. Screw the specifics. It worked. So now he’s our president because he won the electoral vote, if not the popular vote. (An interesting aside: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each won more popular votes in a presidential election than any white man ever has.)

Apologists might argue that Trump was just saying stuff to get elected, that he didn’t really mean all that. “Look at his record as a successful business executive,” they say. I would ask, “You mean ignore the lawsuits, the stiffing of contractors, the bankruptcies, Trump University?” Donald Trump has shown who he really is to the thousands of people who have had business dealings with him.

Putting all that aside, here we are. Like it or not, Donald Trump is the president. I would ask all readers of this column — including those who held their noses and voted for Trump and those who didn’t vote at all — to consider taking positive action to make America greater. (I’m not addressing the racist and sexist faction of Trump voters, the people who deserve the “deplorable” label, the yahoos who wave the Confederate flag and yell at Hillary voters to “get over it,” missing the irony).

Let’s heed the words of president-elect Donald Trump who in a 2012 Twitter post called the electoral college “a disaster for democracy.” It’s outrageous that the vote of a person living in Wyoming carries significantly more weight in a presidential election than a person living in California. Going to the popular vote would make America greater. Will he follow through?

Donald Trump got huge applause lines when he roared, “Let’s drain the swamp.” On that issue, many Americans would Bernie Sanders who railed about the inordinate power of millionaires and billionaires. Many Trump supporters wanted a guy who would, in effect, toss a grenade into the system and blow it up. The system is, in fact, broken; it needs some blowing up.

Sadly, today’s politicians have little incentive to fix the system, let alone blow it up. They forget — or ignore — “the American people” after they get elected. How can politicians empathize with the health care concerns of the average voter when they, themselves, get premium health insurance as one of their many perks? How can they feel the anxiety that ordinary workers feel about the future when they, themselves, are guaranteed a $175,000 annual pension for life? Why would members of Congress want to “drain the swamp” when the swamp, for them, is so lucrative, thanks to cushy lobbying jobs awaiting them after leaving Congress? And on and on. Well, Donald Trump, let’s see exactly how your charm and bravado can be put to work to drain the swamp and get Congress working for America again. We will be watching closely. Will your first major appointments be good for draining the swamp? Incidentally, during your campaign, you proposed setting term limits. Have you already changed your mind?

During the campaign, Donald Trump’s vision for tax reform included four key elements: 1. Reduce taxes across the board, especially for working and middle-income Americans; 2. Ensure that the rich will pay their fair share; 3. Eliminate special interest loopholes; and 4. Reduce the cost of childcare. That all sounds good to me, and, I would guess, to the vast majority of American voters. Okay, President-elect Trump, please keep us updated on progress on all these fronts.

Donald Trump often ranted about badly negotiated trade deals and currency manipulation as factors in America’s job loss; he also proposed stiff penalties for U.S. companies who move plants outside the U.S. in his quest to get elected. He claimed to have all the answers and millions of Americans believed him and voted accordingly.

As a first step to making America greater, then, let’s give Donald Trump time to fulfill his many brash promises, including the one to bring back jobs. Let’s hold Donald Trump accountable. The proof, especially in the case of a man with a history of breaking promises, is in the performance. We will be watching.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary or suggestions for future “Just a Little

Old” columns at [email protected].