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I broke down crying last night.

Because I thought my country was better than this, and instead it proved itself to be worse. And it will go on getting worse, in ways big and small, because soon we will have a president and a legislature and a Supreme Court that do not care about the well-being of women or minorities or LGBTQ people or the environment or anything other than themselves, and because every small-minded reactionary bigot in the country has just had their bigotry validated on a nationwide scale. Because this is what the Republican Party has created, and the older generation who took a country that worked and systematically broke it, and the white citizens of the United States who fear the rest or else just don’t give enough of a damn — not every one of them, not without exception, but in the aggregate.

And I don’t know how to fix it. Because it can’t be fixed, not in any simple sense of the word. The best we can do is batten down the hatches, join hands with one another and achieve whatever good we can, however small. Not just for the next four years, but for a generation or more to come, because make no mistake: the damage from this will be lasting.

I don’t really know how we’re going to do that. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after that, I’ll be able to think about it.

Not today. Today, I don’t even know what to do with myself.

2 Responses to “”

  1. Trevin Matlock

    We have been alternating between inchoate rage and depression. One or the other of us will slam the arm of a chair we are sitting in. Or suddenly yell. It makes me want to become them in certain ways. Urge my senators and reps to obstruct the way they did. And that is not helpful. But oh how I alternate wanting to with realizing it actually plays into their hands.

  2. Nigel Phillips

    I am not an American so I am looking at your election from the outside, from the UK. Trump was keen to emphasise the similarity between your election and our recent referendum, and he is right to do so. In both the most base xenophobic instincts were roused and unleashed causing lasting damage to our countries. Sadly in the American case this was augmented with grotesque misogynist and homophobic filth. After the vote here every vile little bigot felt vindicated and a wave of racist abuse and attacks swept the country, especially against Poles and Muslims.
    The only real sign for hope that I see is that in both countries young people were the most vocal and determined opponents of the dark. I am an older man in poor health so I doubt that I shall see the time when today’s youth push back the tide of hatred and division but I am confident that time will come.
    In the meantime let us rejoice in Canada!

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