I didn't watch the election results as they came in yesterday; they wouldn't have changed had I done so. This morning I got up as usual a little after seven. The sun had risen, Jack, Puggles and Louis were asleep on my legs and the litter boxes needed cleaning. The world was much as I'd left it yesterday: the leak in the spare bathroom was still dripping as was the one on the patio and my to-do list was no longer (or shorter).
All that had changed with Trump's reelection was definitive confirmation of what I had long suspected: that "this is not who we are" is complete bollocks. For whatever reason over half the country doesn't seem to have a problem with the lies, the racism, the misogyny, the bullying and threats that Trump so proudly displays. For me, it's is a sad reflection on our collective values but it is who the majority of Americans really are, despite the coastal elites wishing it were not.
And when Trump leaves the White House in four and a bit years, his values (or rather his lack thereof) will endure; others will replace him in his image. Like trust, trampling norms and discarding values in a race to a more primitive, visceral, primal bottom is far easier, and happens far faster, than collectively developing and maintaining them.
The only positive aspect of the outcome is that Trump won the popular vote and the race decisively so we are spared the two months of bickering, uncertainty and ultimately violence to which he subjected us four years ago. I am thankful for that very small mercy.
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