I’ve seen some Facebook comments and tweets saying that we on the left should give Trump a chance and work with him. This is a puzzling request. For one thing, it’s a given. Trump is president; no one denies that. There were certainly some irregularities in the election process—years of voter suppression tactics by Republicans, the unethical actions of the FBI director days before the election, the inability to verify election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—some of which could have been enough to tip a close election from one candidate to another. However, the Electoral College voted and Congress accepted the result, so Trump is president.

And if Trump is president, he automatically gets a chance. He has a Republican Congress to pass legislation for him, so no matter what progressives say and do, he will in fact have no excuse for any failures to achieve his goals and fulfill his many promises.

But why exactly should people on the left give Trump a chance and work with him? After all, we can see that his ideas are wrong, his words are often morally repulsive, insulting, and divisive, and he has surrounded himself with a cabinet of billionaires who have never shown any interest in helping the common person. If Trump has bad ideas and says stupid things, the moral obligation of anyone on the left or right is to point out how wrong and stupid he is. The hope is that he, or one of his advisors, will come to their senses for a moment and therefore propose a better idea. I suspect the chances of this are slight but it would be worse to be silent in the face of the disastrous policies he has promoted so far.

Also, don’t forget for one second that the Republicans refused to accept and work with Obama for eight years. From day one, they devoted themselves to blocking his administration in any way they could. Why is it that a significant percentage of those on the rightwing believed the obvious lies that Obama was born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim? It’s because many on the right, including Donald Trump, pushed these lies in order to delegitimize Obama’s presidency. The Republicans in Congress mounted the most obstructionist campaign ever seen in the history of this country’s Congress.

And you think progressives should grow up, accept Trump, and work with him? Get real. Politics is sometimes contentious, sometimes means a clash of ideas and movements. That’s life. Accept it, grow up, and learn why progressives see through Trump’s lies and are concerned for this country’s future. Those who voted for Trump clearly had a lot of anger, but it’s unfortunate that they were fooled about the sources of the problems that led to their anger and it’s unfortunate that they were fooled by decades of propaganda against Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is not perfect. I doubt if she would have reined in the greed and corruption of Wall Street, nor helped enough to reduce the growing economic inequality in this country. However, she would have made a vastly better president than Trump. Trump proved that already during his days as the president-elect, and his continued lies and childish ranting have proved it each day of his presidency.

So, don’t whine rightwingers. Trump gets his chance every time he acts, every time he speaks, and every time he tweets. And every time he does something stupid, every time he lies, he deserves to have that mistake, that lie, mercilessly thrown back in his face. So far, all he has done is blow the chances he has gained as the head of this country.