The Morning After
I should apologize up front to my conservative friends and family who don't expect me to wax political here but I'm not going to.
I left my wife in tears in bed this morning over the election results. I wish I could have joined her but I had to go to work. I left her with a cup of coffee and a cat. I thought I might get some traction with a pussy grabbing metaphor but I'm afraid I wasn't much help cheering her up.
She was crying for a lot of things. She was crying because her parents, both in their 90's lived to see this. They are both big Hillary fans. Her mom read an essay to her women's study group this summer in praise of her. She did that in Waterford NY, one of the oldest towns in America and so conservative, there has never been a Democratic party presence there. She knew it wouldn't go over well but she read it anyway. It was an incredibly brave thing to do. We wanted that bravery to be validated. America wanted an incompetent, failed huckster for president instead.
She was crying because she's tired. We're both tired. We're lifelong Democrats and we've lived through Nixon, Reagan, and two Bushes. We don't feel like the liberal elite. We feel like the maid service. Our party gets the place cleaned up, gets things in order and then America invites the hair band back into the hotel room to trash the place. It's a different band every time. It was bad before. It's going to be worse this time. I know, I know. That's a gross oversimplification and it's not like the Democrats haven't smashed a few TVs along the way and blah blah blah. I don't care.
She was crying for what America has become, what it will become, and what we will do. We're trading the land of the free for a bunker state filled with paranoia, guns and vitriol. We are doing this to ourselves but it will reach way beyond our country's borders. Tens of thousands of people will suffer and thousands more will die because of the results of this election.
Perhaps that would have been true regardless of who won last night but at least - and this is cold comfort - the responsibility for that suffering and death will fall squarely on the shoulders of the people who voted for Donald Trump. What comes next is on them. All of it. The next four years are going to be a horror show and it's their damn fault.
I left my wife in tears in bed this morning over the election results. I wish I could have joined her but I had to go to work. I left her with a cup of coffee and a cat. I thought I might get some traction with a pussy grabbing metaphor but I'm afraid I wasn't much help cheering her up.
She was crying for a lot of things. She was crying because her parents, both in their 90's lived to see this. They are both big Hillary fans. Her mom read an essay to her women's study group this summer in praise of her. She did that in Waterford NY, one of the oldest towns in America and so conservative, there has never been a Democratic party presence there. She knew it wouldn't go over well but she read it anyway. It was an incredibly brave thing to do. We wanted that bravery to be validated. America wanted an incompetent, failed huckster for president instead.
She was crying because she's tired. We're both tired. We're lifelong Democrats and we've lived through Nixon, Reagan, and two Bushes. We don't feel like the liberal elite. We feel like the maid service. Our party gets the place cleaned up, gets things in order and then America invites the hair band back into the hotel room to trash the place. It's a different band every time. It was bad before. It's going to be worse this time. I know, I know. That's a gross oversimplification and it's not like the Democrats haven't smashed a few TVs along the way and blah blah blah. I don't care.
She was crying for what America has become, what it will become, and what we will do. We're trading the land of the free for a bunker state filled with paranoia, guns and vitriol. We are doing this to ourselves but it will reach way beyond our country's borders. Tens of thousands of people will suffer and thousands more will die because of the results of this election.
Perhaps that would have been true regardless of who won last night but at least - and this is cold comfort - the responsibility for that suffering and death will fall squarely on the shoulders of the people who voted for Donald Trump. What comes next is on them. All of it. The next four years are going to be a horror show and it's their damn fault.
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