America voted for fear, last night. And while we can take some comfort in knowing that the Cheeto Bandito did not win the popular vote, the horror is that enough people voted in all the right places to hand him the Electoral College, and therefore the Oval Office.
This is 2000 all over again, except that the Marmalade Sasquatch makes W look like a well-spoken, well-meaning genius.
This is 1994 all over again, except that this time there is (maybe) nothing to throw a brake on the runaway Republican revolution.
And this is its own unique animal, loose on the world at last after festering in a cage under the back porch for far too long. And may the Gods have mercy on us all.
However, there is hope. There is always hope.
If nothing else, two years of President Von Clownstick may give rise to the same kind of revolution we saw in 1994. Whatever crazed electoral skullduggery brought this beast to bear will hopefully have subsided by then, once enough people realize the horrors they've wrought on this nation. And 2018 could see the rise of a Democratic congress to stop further encroachment, and turn the tide.
Another hope lies with the other side of the aisle.
It's no secret that a lot of Republicans were not happy with the choice they had, this time. A lot of well-meaning and high-principled folks crossed party lines, quite publicly, to break with him. If they refuse to fall in line, now, and engage in some kind of third force, then the agenda the Mangled Apricot Hellbeast wants to enact may apart.
And hopefully they could act to reorient a party that has ceased to be the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower (and Reagan on occasional good days) and has instead become the party of David Duke and Alex Jones.
And yes, the cavalcade of trials and legal woes that await could force him to resign. Provided he doesn't pull something nasty out of his hat to nullify it all. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything.
After last night, surprise is a box I don't want to open.
May, Hopefully, and Could are powerful words. They're also not worth a bag of old beans if people don't work their butts off to make them grow into realities.
But one thing is for certain: after eight years of having it better than we could have imagined -- after eight years of having it not nearly as bad as it could have been, at least for most of us -- we face a future where things could be worse than we feared.
So yes. Cry if you have to. Rage if you must. Get drunk. Smoke trees. Have terror sex. Whatever.
But this is not the time to run to Canada. This is not the time to run to the hills. This is not the time to hide under a rock or behind a mask.
This is the time to stand and fight for your neighbors, for yourselves, for your freedoms, for your rights, for your country.
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