the day after

I'm still reeling and functioning on only a few hours of sleep. Around midnight when things were looking really bad, I gave up and went to bed, but I kept waking up and panicking. 

After watching state after state turn red on the electoral maps as the night wore on, I began to wonder what I'm going to tell my children in the morning. Bullies win. Experience and expertise don't matter. The American electorate is desperately short-sighted and uninformed and frighteningly okay with racism, misogyny, bigotry and threats of assault from its own president-elect.

I can also tell them this: take nothing for granted. Take one day at a time. And - as trite and cliché as this sounds - be the change you wish to see in the world. Today, I would expand that to say don't depend on others to do that for you.

Well, that's democracy. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
To paraphrase Pogo: The majority do elect who the majority do deserve.

To paraphrase your mother (before you were born) (she says she doesn't remember it, but I do): The indictment of American education is the election of Ronald Reagan as president.

I myself am extremely disappointed, but not at all surprised.

Opa

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