What now?

Our household went to sleep sometime after midnight, when the handwriting was already on the wall. It is astonishing to me — because I’m always an optimist, I suppose — that American voters have chosen a dementing racist and misogynist, a twice-impeached convicted felon, a malignant narcissist, serial philanderer, and adjudicated rapist to lead their country. They have chosen a fascist in a girdle and lifts who projects a bizarre sort of supposed strength and stokes an irrational fear of an other, whether the other is a trans kid or an immigrant or a Democrat. (Hi, my name is the enemy within.) And American voters have chosen an aspiring autocrat who has promised the weakening of our alliances, the prosecution of political enemies, the end of any effort to reverse climate change, the end of the Affordable Care Act, the end of women’s reproductive rights, healthcare policies engineered by a nutcase, and concentration camps followed by mass deporations. I could go on.

If your only concern is the price of a loaf of bread (on PBS last night, David Brooks helpfully told us that it’s $1.93), you’ll vote for the strongman. The cost of groceries is a legitimate concern. But so is the cost of healthcare. And so is everything else. A vote based on the cost of a loaf of bread might come at a much greater cost.

All I will add is that I won’t obey in advance.