ONE MORE PROCESSING-BASED POST-ELECTION POST FOR YOU TO READ

No Cutesy Sub-Title Today, Friends

To that end, let me acknowledge my entry from yesterday, which shattered a readership record and which I appreciate, though given what happened, I admit to feeling a bit of guilt …

Second, my deepest apologies to those who reached out to me freaking out and feeling some sort of disdain or impatience from me for your feelings in the run-up to Election Day. While I tried to understand and make space for your nerves, in the end I should have really listened more and absorbed the fears and not be as impatient as I occasionally was. You had insight into this election I missed, and I should have paid more attention. Genuine regrets to you.

Third, to dip a toe into what the Hell happened, in the end it is the margin of the win that for me is the biggest immediate shock to absorb. Trump had the same number of votes, more or less, as he did in 2020 – but somehow, despite every empirical bit of evidence seemingly out there and every resource available and a talented team, Kamala Harris apparently wound up with over 15 million fewer votes than Joe Biden four years ago. Conspiracy theorists are lashing out at that and demanding an investigation, but I suspect that’s more anger and bargaining than real. And nobody – not the pollsters, not the Republicans, certainly not us – expected that vast a difference.

Fourth, that number is a significant part of what I think fuels the shock and anger and depression over the fact that too many people – white men, white women, and Hispanic men in particular – embraced a still-clearly-enfeebled autocrat, the billionaires who propped him up, and the little pup who more than a few of us suspect will become 48 in due time, to stun the world in the worst way possible except for many of the worst people around.

Fifth, while it is way too soon for more and deeper analyses than that – especially with the need to build resistance and support networks for family and friends and neighbors who will be singled out as the Heritage Foundation gets Project 2025 up and running and we wait to see if Trump remembers to start deporting people and sic the Department of Justice on his real and imagined enemies (which if he is around long enough will be everyone not named Vladimir Putin) – one item that did catch my eye was from Simon Rosenberg, who thought the 2022 Dobbs decision would be a larger driver of the vote than it tragically turned out to be. In his brief comment, he pointed out that, should there be some form of Democratic Party or elections going forward, the need for new leadership and new models and allies to find ways to battle MAGA is now imperative moving forward. I agree.

Because Sixth, I have always been of the belief that there is always another action that can be taken, another move to be made, and that standing still is what will ultimately do any person or system in. The world is too dynamic to stay in one modality, and while I acknowledge I am writing about a peculiar force that seems to have the horrible ability to bend modalities to his despite being everything we know him to be (or perhaps because of all of that?) (until he can’t, which inevitably happens), so many things are going to be coming down the pike – from Project 2025 to the health of the Leader to things he really can’t control like violent weather patterns and who knows what else? – that the situation we are in will be very different in two, six, twelve months. (Sure, often those situations could be worse in ways we can’t think of, but I hope you get my point).

When Pennsylvania was called, I got up off my couch – which I hadn’t left from about 7:30 except for one slice of pizza and one beer – and typed up the first draft of this. I realized that was probably not a good idea to re-read and send, so I tried to grab a little rest by going to a different part of the couch and dozing off using two throw pillows as blankets and not even bothering to take my shoes off. I work on this in between funeral-quiet classes at Roosevelt University in Chicago (where, I will say as a point of very personal privilege, I worry that my role as a President of a small adjunct teachers’ union at a school that preaches social justice will combine with my loudmouth tendencies to perhaps put me on some kind of radar from the incoming administration); my first class did not want to talk, and we had to break the news to one student in my second class that hadn’t heard it.

This sucks hard. Suddenly questions about what I will do post-election have gotten both clearer and scarier, and my understanding of what people want in this country got darker and more infuriating. Here we go with a resistance that we don’t have the advantage of numbers and a disputed election like we did in 2017. But resist we must, and respond with caring and love and self-care is even more of a must.

Because I do believe in the adage that the one thing autocrats can’t respond to and get most frustrated with is mockery, and that they also can do their work by suppressing joy and promoting mass depression. Whatever other skills I have, snark is one of my bigger ones, and if it helps a few people a tiny bit in the days to come – and as long as I have the wherewithal and space to do it – do it I shall. Other strategies will come, but right now I agree with all that say today and for the next few days, be kind to yourself and disengage if you need to. There will be time to rev up the engines again because we will have to, but we will do that later.

Or, as the “Orcas Sinking Yachts” Threads account puts it, “Hopelessness helps no one. Resignation is a trap. Complacency is poison. The hard part is the best and most fruitful part. Get ready for the real work, no matter what comes next and who is in charge. There are yachts to sink.”