I’m not sorry.

I’m sure there are a lot of people expecting me to be, because WHOO HOO WE WON YOU LOST BLAHHHH BREXIT POLLS SUCK IT LIBTARDS. I’m sure if I went looking on the Internet I could find people who think I should take down my Hillary sign and pretend I didn’t vote, didn’t fight, didn’t care.

I’m sure there are going to be plenty of stories about how arrogant angry liberals like me need to take a lesson from this and JUST ONE MORE TIME be nicer to the angry racists who hate us. I’m sure there are going to be lots and lots and lots of thinkpieces about how if I would just not be so … me, and mine would not be so mine, and we would all shut up about being ourselves and needing things like fundamental rights, and listen silently while we are insulted, then we would finally be gifted with what has never been freely bestowed in all of human history.

Guess what?

Fuck.

That.

I am not ashamed I voted against a man who thought you could electrocute gay people into being straight.

I am not ashamed I voted against a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women, victimizing women, killing women.

I am not ashamed I voted against men who claimed science was a myth and abortion was a joke and war was a really fun video game.

I am not ashamed I voted against a man who wants to deport people I work with, people I know, people I love.

I am not ashamed I voted for a woman who has worked every single day of her entire life for other people, who has fought for what she believes in and raised a family and stood up through decades of abuse and bullshit because of it. I am not ashamed of the Clinton sign in my window.

I am not ashamed to have voted for and cared about and invested in a party, instead of buying into the easy, cynical assumption that everything is broken and I alone see through it. I am not ashamed to have stood up for the values of equality, social justice, shared work and shared sacrifice, leadership, education and generosity.

I’m not going to temper a goddamn thing. I’m not going to apologize for a goddamn thing. I’m not the one who yelled “lock her up” and “Trump that bitch” and “cunt” at a Secretary of State.

Me and mine, we’re not the ones who said, “Grab them by the pussy.”

We’re not the ones who said Mexican immigrants were “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

We’re not the ones who said we need “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

I don’t need to move closer to Trump voters and I don’t need to understand them more and I don’t need to smile at them while they leer at this country and I don’t need to apologize for the education I was PUSHED EVERY DAY BY REPUBLICAN VOTERS TO GET and I don’t need to be sorry for what I believe because what I believe hurts no one.

I’m not going to be nicer to xenophobes and homophobes. I’m not going to be nicer to racists and fascists and religious bigots. That’s a waste of time, for me and for them.

Who needs me now? Who needs us? I mean it. Let’s spend our time not searching our electoral souls and trying to be nicer to our asshole-Americans. Let’s spend our time doing what we can for the people who DIDN’T just vote for fear and loathing.

Let’s spend our time not on worrying about David Brooks’s mythical Target-shopping Crocs-wearing whoever-the-fucks who are scared of imaginary Muslims and completely harmless gay couples, but on the actual Muslims and very scared couples who are now at risk. Let’s write some thinkpieces about mobilizing those people to vote and also mobilizing them to, you know, be okay in the world. Let’s talk about immigration reform and help refugee families who are already here and let’s do stuff that matters for people who aren’t screaming the house down.

I don’t want to spend the next four years, as we spent 2004-yesterday figuring out how to be better so that Republicans will love us for not being horrible filthy whore Democrats. I won’t spend a stolen second more on anyone’s goddamn feelings. I’m not sorry and you can’t make me sorry. You also can’t make me stop.

This is a huge step back. I’m not denying that. But I’ve been saying it for 12 years now in the faces of wins and losses.

We get back up.

And we don’t back down.

Not. One. Inch.

A.