Nine days have passed since Donald Trump was named the winner of the presidential election, and the world has not come to an end — although for many, it may seem like it.

Certainly, the Trump victory has turned the world upside down.

Consider this: He drew the ire of thousands of people when he said he wouldn’t accept the results of the election. Now, ironically, thousands of people in cities from Portland to New York — even Richmond — have taken to the streets signifying their widespread difficulty in accepting the results of the election.

“Not my president,” some of the signs have read.

“I respect the presidency, but not the president-elect,” others have said.

The topsy-turvy continues as Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, urge the nation’s discontented to give President-elect Trump “a chance.”

These are the same GOP leaders who for months during the campaign sought to distance themselves from the vulgar, smut-mouth, bigoted candidate Trump. Speaker Ryan even disinvited Mr. Trump to a GOP election rally in Wisconsin because he didn’t want to appear with him. Now they want us to “give him a chance.”

Speaker Ryan also was among the GOP crew that met the night of President Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 to map out strategies to tank his presidency.

“Let’s make him a one-term president,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said of the nation’s first African-American president.

And he, Speaker Ryan and other GOP members of Congress spent the past eight years blocking President Obama at every turn — from significant legislation to his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Where was Speaker Ryan’s magnanimous “give him a chance” when President Obama took office?

Perhaps the most wry example of life turned upside down strikes President Obama. In the final days of his presidency, this man of grace, class and intelligence is tasked with trying to put lipstick on the pig Americans voted into office as he meets around the world with NATO leaders and other allies who are just as perplexed by the election results as we are. He is trying to assure them that the world, the alliances and the treaties as we know them will not be voided.

We applaud those who refuse to take the Trump presidency in silence. The next steps are to continue to watch what he does, then mobilize and apply pressure to ensure that the progress in health care, voting rights, civil rights, gay rights, women’s reproductive rights, environmental protections and other important areas are not retrenched under a false banner of making America great again.

As one pundit pointed out, personnel is policy, and we can tell where a Trump presidency will be headed by the people he places in top offices.

The president-elect claimed in his Nov. 9 victory speech that it was time to “bind the wounds of division” and unite the country. But he has selected as his chief strategist Steve Bannon, a former Richmonder whose work as head of Breitbart News championed racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. White nationalists and hatemongers, including David Duke, former KKK grand dragon, and American Nazi Party Chairman Rocky J. Suhadya, have praised his appointment.

Mr. Bannon’s appointment gives the green light to America’s racist haters who have taken part in acts of harassment, intimidation and violence against Muslims, Latinos, African-Americans, Jews, women and other minorities in this country since the election.

Under Mr. Bannon, Breitbart News declared that the “Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage” and that the alt-right is a “smarter” version of “old-school racist skinheads.”

How can a president’s top adviser help bring healing to the nation when he espouses such views?

No, we can’t dump Trump, but we can keep our eyes open and continue applying pressure.

We join concerned groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and scores of right-minded lawmakers who call for President-elect Trump to rescind his appointment of Mr. Bannon. We join them in saying “no” to Mr. Bannon.

Keep the pressure on.