I don't know where anyone else stands on their Kubler-Ross stages of grief. For me, as the shock of Wednesday morning has worn off, it hasn't receded into acceptance. It has brewed into a blistering rage.
I'll begin with the obvious. If it had been a Hillary victory, surely some people would've been furious. But no American would fear for their physical safety. Especially those Americans whose rights are most vulnerable. We see people being attacked or living in fear of such assaults. Children of immigrants fear of abuse from classmates or expulsion from the only country they call home.
This election wasn't just a repudiation of everything I believe in. It was a shocking rejection of the very core ideas of tolerance and decency that I assumed all Americans shared.
So Trump people gloating on my feed: Don't tell me to move on or get over it. Don't tell me to stop whining or take a deep breath. Don't give me this "at the end of the day we're all still friends" banal and disingenuous platitudes. I don't root for the bully. I don't ignore misogyny. I don't vote for those who promote racial hatred and tacitly accept racial violence. I don't want to roll back LGBT and reproductive rights. Or scapegoat immigrant groups as a cynical means of winning votes from those beset with real economic anxiety. These values are anathema to everything I believe. And they are views that I'd never seek out in a friend.
This isn't about accepting results. Of course, I accept them. I don't cry "rigged election." I'm simply dismayed by them. And what they reveal about the country I love.
Yes, yes, I'm not stupid. I get all the reasons she lost. She was the ultimate Establishment in a decidedly anti-Establishment election. She didn't suitably enthuse the base. She didn't pass the Bernie Bros progressive litmus test. And mostly, and this is the saddest, the Democratic Party has ceased to continue resonating with the Labor households that were once THE backbone of the Democratic coalition, practically it's raison d'être.
But none of those justify being in league with White Nationalists. With stirring ethnic and gender enmity. With endorsing a racist, a con man, a bully, a sexual predator, a peddler of time-tested anti-Semitic imagery, a mocker of the disabled, POWs and Gold Star families.
And save your canards. "Hillary hates Israel." "Huma Abedin dislikes Jews." Emails. Servers. The foundation. These are reasons people find to justify already hating her. Not reasons for turning the White House over to a wildly unqualified, race-bating, pussy grabbing grifter.
I know why some people, feeling genuine economic pain, bought it. Ultimately, in my opinion, all national elections, are referendums on how comfortable people are with modernity. Do they embrace the changing demographics of their neighborhoods or the shifting dynamics of their local economies? Or does that create discomfort that makes them want to turn back the clock to another kind of America. I don't agree with that tendency but I can understand their anxiety. If not the racial undertones to their solutions.
What I don't get or accept are people I know who sided with a hate monger because it helps their taxes or the embassy will move to Jerusalem or didn't use the phrase "Islamic terrorism." If you believe that outweighs the people living in fear of deportation or a Muslim ban or race-related violence or stripping gays of marital rights, then shame on you. And that applies equally to the Bernie-ites who went on self-righteous "I told you so tours of Facebook" with the intent of depressing Democratic turnout and enthusiasm. Mazel tov.
Maybe someday I'll get to the point where some of you already are: hey we need to come together and support our President. Please. Like your thousand nasty posts about the Iran deal and the Affordable Care Act and Benghazi and private servers. #Hypocrisy. #CanTheBalloonJuice
By the way, I've been on the side of far more losing presidential elections than winning ones, including 5 of my first 6. But this was different. This was watching a movie where the bully did and said horrible things and got away with it. No third act redemption. No good guy comeback. Just Daniel-San being wheeled off in a body bag.
I'm an American so I respect the democratic process and the will of the people. But I'm also an American who believes in the fundamental goodness and decency of the American people, especially when it comes to protecting those who most need it. So I accept the results. But if you expect me to like them, then we oviously haven't met.