The polls were wrong and so was I. I don’t regret urging people not to freak out, that’s no way to live. I regret not seeing the oncoming freight train of fear and hate for what it was: an unstoppable backlash to all the changes our society has undergone. In spite of that, Hillary Clinton will win the popular vote. Unfortunately, that’s not how we elect our Presidents. This is the second time in five elections that the winner was also a loser and the loser a winner. There’s only a shot glass of consolation in that thought, and it’s still too bitter to swallow.

I was bumped out of the Crack Van last night and decided not to re-enter. The level of tension was high and nobody was interested in my reassurances that we would win Virginia. I was right about that BUT everyone else was right about the big picture. I remained cautiously optimistic until Russ Feingold’s defeat in Wisconsin was called. I knew that there couldn’t be enough ticket splitters for HRC to carry that state and things spun out of control at that point.

It’s hard to process the fact that a cartoon villain who ran a sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic campaign was able to win 276 and counting electoral votes. It’s as if the Gret Stet of Louisiana had elected David Duke as Governor in 1991 instead of rejecting him. Well, at least David Duke, Julian Assange, and Vladimir Putin are happy. Fuck them. And while we’re at it, fuck Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and James Comey, especially Comey. Above all else fuck the majority of white people who delivered us into the tiny hands of the Insult Comedian.

Does anyone but the con man’s marks buy his “conciliatory” speech earlier this morning? He lied incessantly and exuberantly for the last 15 months, why should that be any different? There’s going to be hell to pay when he, inevitably, betrays his supporters.

Trump is a classic New Yorker: he thinks the rest of the country is full of rubes, yokels, and peckerwoods ripe for the plucking. He was right. It is genuinely surreal that a fake billionaire incited a popular uprising in what New Yorkers often call “the flyover.” Time for a relevant musical respite:

We live in a Breitbart-Bannon-Bossie Man country for now. Stephen Bannon’s dark vision of the Trump campaign won the election. The only question is how much revenge against their enemies B3 and Trump will seek. Vengeance is part of Trump’s world view, which one of many reasons his electoral college victory is so fucking scary. The backlash has only begun.

Above all else, this national tragedy was driven by fear and hatred of women. It was bad enough to these people that we had an African-American President. The mob of angry white male voters could not stand the notion of a female President. Even worse was how many white women agreed with them. That’s the worst part of the backlash of 2016, how many women voted for a man who thinks they exist only to serve him.

American history is full of examples of voters selecting a President who is nothing like their predecessor. This time we’ve gone too far in replacing the elegant, intelligent, articulate and big hearted Barack Obama with the self-absorbed, bigoted, and stupid Donald Trump.

Despite my love of snark, I am usually a “the glass is half-full” kind of guy. It’s hard to see things that way at after seeing how much vast swaths of the country hate women, blacks, gays, Muslims, Latinos, and on and on and on.

Ironies abound in the wake of this national disaster. Republican sabotage of government has been so successful, that they will control both the executive and legislative branches. Additionally, voters have elected a candidate who ran an anti-Semitic campaign whereas the Senate will have it’s first Jewish leader, Chuck Schumer. Minority leader, alas. The genial Senator Schumer will have to become obstructionist in the chief and use the filibuster as an offensive weapon. The GOPers will whine like stuck pigs but fuck them. We’re about to learn just how strong our institutions really are.

I guess I’ll write a post-mortem eventually, but this is still too raw and painful. The finger of blame is already being pointed but even the GOP’s internal models got this wrong. Here’s what I said when the ugly reality sunk in the wee small hours of the morning:

There's no rational explanation for what happened tonight. Fear and hatred are fundamentally irrational.

— Shecky (@Adrastosno) November 9, 2016

As a British politics buff, I poo-pooed the Brexit analogy. I was wrong about that as well. America *is* eating a bowl of stupid for Brexit right now. Skip the arsenic, pass the sugar.

Let’s all try not to go into a Tailspin:

I’d like to conclude on a relatively upbeat note. Thanks to our loyal readers and my wonderful colleagues Michael F, Tommy T, Doc, and especially our truly fearless leader Athenae. She’s the reason that we Won’t Back Down: